Bird - A-
Now Playing: (1988, Clint Eastwood) [seen on DVD]
Although in light of Unforgiven and Mystic River it seems strange to think of a time when Eastwood wasn't taken seriously as a filmmaker, many critics didn't really take notice of his directing talents before this film. Here he told the story of jazzman Charlie "Bird" Parker, the self-destructive saxophonist who died in his mid-30s, played in the film by Forest Whitaker. What's pretty amazing about the movie is how Eastwood doesn't turn him into a simple martyr (he actually shoots this possible reading in the foot with a long monologue about African-American martyrdom delivered by Dizzy Gillespie) but allows him to emerge as pained and conflicted, and oddly obsessed with the possibility of his own death. Here was a man who was the primary jazz talents of his day, but who drank and shot up, was often late to gigs or auditions, and was at one point barred from performing in New York City because of a drug arrest. Whitaker is magnificent in the role, imploding with anger and self-loathing, visibly in pain from ulcers and anguish, seeking release through music and junk. Almost as amazing is the fact that while Bird's widow Chan was involved in the making of the film she isn't painted in broad, heroic strokes either- she's no saint but simply did what she could for her husband, and in the telling of the tale there's a twinge of regret as though she now feels like she should have done more. Eastwood's visual style here is strikingly expressionistic, full of darkened rooms with one or two light sources, and the storytelling fits with this style- flashbacks within flashbacks, utilizing the old theatrical technique of the background being darkened before the foreground, to startling effect here. It's clear that Eastwood loves jazz in general and Parker's music in particular, and while I'm not a huge fan of either this film really got to me.