A Star is Born is a thing of beauty. It’s gorgeously romantic but also authentic and emotionally searing. Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga are both brilliant and heartbreaking. The film is of course a love story but it’s also a portrait of creativity and commerce and the difficulty of protecting the former from the latter. Through the film, Cooper’s character Jackson Maine talks about the importance of having something to say. But how do you get the world to listen without selling your soul and becoming a cog in the star-making machinery?