Director: Clint Eastwood
Year Released: 1988
Rating: 2.0
Eastwood's biopic of jazz great Charlie "Bird" Parker (still not sure where he got his nickname) is so submerged in its own mood and atmosphere (the visuals are so dark that if the cinematographer made them one stop darker the screen would be black) that it forgets there's a story to tell. It's essentially a drugs-and-alcohol-and-pills-and-sex event: Parker staggers around, loses his temper, plays bad-husband to his wife and spends the rest of his time roaming the steamy streets or making acquaintances with various hangers-on, groupies and pushers (that he remains interesting and easy to empathize with is due to Forest Whitaker's good performance). It's torment after torment for Mr. Parker, and watching him endure this pressure is distancing for the audience: you'd think that with a running time of almost three hours you'd get a little more about his early days or perhaps some insight into why he was so profound. The "ambience" is entirely too oppressive: Eastwood could have added more moments like the great sequence where Parker and his trumpet player (a white man) journey down South to perform, and the film says a bit about the racial aspects of the time, or even the party scene towards the end where Parker and Dizzy Gillespie have a heart-to-heart. Moments like these add droplets of meaning to the melancholy and save Bird from being a morbid disaster.
