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Bird . . . the movie

11K views 57 replies 37 participants last post by  Mike T 
#1 ·
The film was on Sundance Channel last night. I saw it when it first came out and really didn't like it much. But then I don't like films where real musicians are portrayed by actors who are clearly faking it. There are some exceptions I suppose - Humoresque with John Garfield comes to mind. But the Gershwin story, Benny Goodman Story, Glen Miller Story, Gene Krupa Story with actors Robert Alda, Steve Allen, James Stewart, Sal Mineo faking the roles were a turn-off for me.

Now, Bird. The story line is good but watching a guy trying to portray Bird, faking playing alto was, well, not so hot. The sound track was fine for sure. Dizzy and Bird's actual recordings are classics. One thing that really bummed me was the close-ups of the actor faking on the horn, really working out - and the octave pip not moving a fraction. He was faking on an underslung octave horn - Buescher? But at least the damn octave mechanism should have moved a little bit.

Trivial quibble? Yeah, maybe so. But as I said, watching James Stewart faking trombone is disconcerting at the very least.
 
#9 ·
That doesn't surprise me. Of course I didn't know Bird, but nothing about his portrayal in that movie rang true. And what bugged me the most was the almost complete focus on his drug use and mental breakdown. It came across as a junkie who happened to be a jazz musician. I came away very disappointed thinking what a great movie it could have been.
 
#4 ·
whitaker is a great actor, but this is not a memorable performance. eastwood is genuinely passionate about his jazz, but the story lacks both authenticity and rhythm. and what's that deal where he has to take a shot at rock and roll by portraying the generic tenor as only able to play one note solos? hasn't clint ever heard of King Curtis or Mr. Lee?
 
#5 ·
This tells it all about Hollywood. The best fiction movie about jazz, Round Midnight, was made by Bertrand Tavernier, with genuine jazz musicians ... faking actors. Could it be that blowing a horn is much more challenging than acting for a camera ?
Tony Curtis in Some Like It Hot is even worse. He didn't check he was supposed to move his fingers...
 
#6 ·
I liked the music. I liked the recreation of the Kansas City and 52nd Street culture. I liked the fact that Bird was portrayed as someone who mattered. As far as biographical truth or musical accuracy goes, hey, it's Hollywood. I think what bugged me the most was Whitaker's moving around while soloing.
 
#7 ·
Just thought of a couple more: Danny Kaye as Red Nichols, he of the 5 Pennies. And Kirk Douglas based on Bix Beiderbeck in Young Man With a Horn. Or Sinatra playing drums. The list goes on. I agree that "Round Midnight" was perhaps the best of the bunch though. Dexter Gordon was great. There's one other film that had actual musicians playing the lead - the Dorsey Brothers, Tommy and Jimmy, portrayed themselves. There's an Ellington made for TV musical in which "The Duke" is portrayed a really crummy actor. I have a copy of it. Not so hot but there's some good Duke music in it. Ah well . . .
 
#12 ·
I have mixed feelings about the movie. I watched it last night. The last time I saw it was upon it's release in 1988.
My views hadn't changed. Bad choice to portray Bird.

I thought Wesley Snipes was good in Mo' Better Blues. One of the best sax mimics I've seen in film.
 
#14 ·
I don't fault his acting. The depiction of Charlie Parker, not the acting job, is what didn't ring true to me. I don't think he was as much of a 'tortured soul' as the movie suggested. But mostly it was the story line and over-emphasis on Bird's drug habit, instead of a focus on his genius and the music, that bothered me.
 
#15 ·
I just pulled out "Bird" (on DVD) and watched it last week. I think Forrest Whitaker is a good actor. All the moving around while "playing" the horn irked me too but it probably just comes down to an actor overcompensating because he's an actor and not a player.

Thanks, Mike1955, for bringing up Mo Better Blues. This is another "jazz" movie but I too thought the actors in that movie (Denzel Washington (tpt), Wesley Snipes (sax), Giancarlo Esposito (piano), Bill Nunn (bass)) did a good job. Instructive also that the drummer in the group was (real) drummer Jeff "Tain" Watts.

"Round Midnight" is certainly the high bar for such movies. I kept yelling "Round Midnight" at the TV and radio months ago when all the talking heads were going on about how novel it was that the movie "Les Miserables" was filming with live singing.

One gem of the movie "Bird" for me......alto saxophonist Charles McPherson, whom I had never heard of before learning that he played some of the pieces for the "Bird" soundtrack.
 
#33 ·
I doubt what we think has anything to do with it. I loved "Round Midnight!" But I don't think it was a huge box office success. I can imagine some really great jazz movies that could be based on guys like Charlie Mingus, Sun Ra, Art Pepper, Miles, Coltrane, etc. Not to mention a better movie about Charlie Parker. But they wouldn't sell and nowadays it's all about money, sadly.

Regarding the Bird movie, Mike1955 has it right: "Bird deserved better."
 
#17 ·
In all fairness, I always enjoyed Forest Whitaker's acting abilities. But I didn't feel he was right for the part. Just a personal observation, nothing more.
Method actors are exactly what the word implies. I was quite surprised that Whitaker, being the prominent actor he is, didn't do his homework regarding the physicality of Bird, in my opinion. You knew Ira Jackson, as I did. He wasn't happy about Whitaker's portrayal either. Ira saw Bird play on quite a few occasions.

I think someone as great as Bird deserved better, that's all.

Look at Bird playing in this TV show. You tell me?
 
#18 ·
I enjoyed the movie also -- however inaccurate and blah, blah... I'll take that movie over 1000s of others that came out since. And yes, 'Round Midnight was better...

I guess I'll take ANY movie about ANY jazz hero over any formulaic romantic comedy.
 
#20 ·
Was I the only one who didn't like Round Midnight?

Now I'm talking from a production stand point here and also the fact the Dex was really old and not really all that "spry". It was just really depressing seeing one of my hero's portrayed in such a way. His playing wasn't as up to par in the last years as well. I'm not the only one who knows that. Still beautiful. Still all Dex. But not the same.

The Character has to do a lot with it. He does a great job at being that character and he was rewarded for it. But it's not the Dex that I want to see in a movie. I want to see a movie ABOUT Dex where he's that BA MOFO we all love.
 
#22 ·
I agree wholeheartedly. It was the old tired Dex and thus sad. But that's how I come away from most movies, sad... usually sad that it's two hours I could have spent spinning some sides or shedding.
Actors "playing", players acting... it never seems to work and the moral of the story is if you want to hear some music spin a side or go to a performance. If you want to see a flick go see a flick... and on occasion there may be a good soundtrack.
The best use of music in flicks is when you have a great composer/player do the score, for a flick ain't really trying to be about music... like Miles did for Elevator to the Gallows, or Gerry Mulligan for I Want to Live. Hmm... odd that two of my favorites are about the death penalty! Anyway, the latter featured Art Farmer and Benny Golson, playing, not acting, which I think is another good application of musical talent to film.
I mostly watch old gangster flicks now, or Bogart stuff, Orson Wells, etc. But I don't really watch much of anything, certainly not modern Hollywood stuff.
 
#21 ·
Interesting note that Richard Pryor was originally tied to the project but lost interest during the period in which the rights to the film were being traded from Columbia to Warner Bros. There was also speculation that Prince was a front runner for the role since he was under contract with with WB.

Like pretty much everybody else, I like Whitaker as an actor but I don't think I've seen a worse imitation of sax playing on screen. Snipes is Mo Better Blues was very convincing.

I watched some of it last night. I hadn't seen it in awhile. It was odd that they used really lo-fi recordings for the performance scenes. The audio quality was at odds with the rest of the film. I seemed to remember thinking that Charles McPherson had been Bird's audio stand in for the film but maybe I had it wrong. Or maybe that was only for the soundtrack.
 
#24 ·
Saw that film, "Bird," on TCM. The good thing about TCM is no commercials. Clint Eastwood usually has total control of his own movies and many times he produces, directs and is the main character in them. Mr. Eastwood is a piano player, and sometimes composes, and may even perform his own theme music, for some of his films. Guessing that he maybe could have had a cameo in "Bird" as a piano player? Maybe a brief shot? :bluewink:
 
#29 ·
I enjoyed the Bird movie. Bird the movie. The movie Bird. Movie the Bird. I understand the complaints that the playing didn't look real and the story wasn't necessarily accurate, but I think we all could have anticipated these things. The mimed playing looked just as good as many of the videos I have seen of actual musicians miming to their own playing, so meh... Was the story really THAT inaccurate? I assumed they were just exaggerating certain aspects of the true story to make a film out of it. Would the unadulterated biography of Charlie Parker have made a good movie? Probably, but we have all seen films that don't come to life because they try too religiously to recreate the story they are based on. It's a delicate balance of accuracy and artistry. Either way, I understand the complaints but I personally could have guessed before seeing the film that the miming would be iffy and the story would be exaggerated. Sometimes we have to forget that we are jazz nerds (I am including myself) and just enjoy the filmmakers' journey.
 
#30 ·
My copy of The Dictionary of Music entry for Charlie Parker reads, in part, "American jazz bop alto saxophonist from Kansas City. In the late 1930s and early 1940s he played in the bands of Jay McShann, Earl Hines and Billy Eckstine, also jamming in celebrated late night sessions. From 1945 he led his own groups in New York and Hollywood." A local McDonald's restaurant near where I live has a photo on the wall of Parker and Miles Davis jamming in NYC in 1947.
 
#31 ·
If you want an unrealistic movie about jazz, go no farther than Mo Better Blues. A jazz musician who has a long term contract at a ritzy club in Brooklyn that he can't get out of? Right! What was Spike thinking? I actually liked the movie, but had to check my mind at the door.
 
#32 ·
Had a chance to talk to former Berkley prof. John LaPorta after he retired here to Florida. He was livid over the movie portrayal of Parker, whom he had known and performed with (on clarinet).

I think what upset him was the tortured, self pitying aspects of the portrayal. John hadn't experienced that as being Parker's personality at all. His explanation (take it for what it's worth, ha!) was that Eastwood's entire portrayal was seen through the eyes of Parker's last (I think) wife whom Eastwood interviewed extensively. I'm thinking it was Doris not Chan, but not too sure, even if John had it right.

Still the woman scorned angle might explain ironically some of the exaggerated emphasis on the disfunction in his life. Hard to ignore the whole heroin situation, but at times it made it seem there wasn't much more to his life than that if you watched this film.



:glasses7:
 
#34 ·
Had a chance to talk to former Berkley prof. John LaPorta after he retired here to Florida. He was livid over the movie portrayal of Parker, whom he had known and performed with (on clarinet).

I think what upset him was the tortured, self pitying aspects of the portrayal. John hadn't experienced that as being Parker's personality at all. His explanation (take it for what it's worth, ha!) was that Eastwood's entire portrayal was seen through the eyes of Parker's last (I think) wife whom Eastwood interviewed extensively. I'm thinking it was Doris not Chan, but not too sure, even if John had it right.

Still the woman scorned angle might explain ironically some of the exaggerated emphasis on the disfunction in his life. Hard to ignore the whole heroin situation, but at times it made it seem there wasn't much more to his life than that if you watched this film.

:glasses7:
This is probably fair. I believe it was Chan that Eastwood spent a lot of time with.
 
#36 ·
To all you guys caught up in the fact that Forest didn't mimic playing the sax well enough you gotta do better than that. Use your imaginations!!! Have you ever been to a play? I was at a play last week where the cast pretended to eat. Should I be like "Hey that's now how you chew a steak."
Come on get over it. You are supposed to be artists. Where are your imaginations? ??
 
#39 ·
To all you guys caught up in the fact that Forest didn't mimic playing the sax well enough you gotta do better than that.
That part didn't bother me at all. I didn't even notice how he was holding the horn or moving around or whatever the complaint is. It was the focus of the story (drugs & mental breakdown instead of music) and the depiction of Bird that bothered me. It didn't need to be a documentary, but at least it should get close to the 'truth' at some level.
 
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