Bird (1988)

Directed by Clint Eastwood. Starring Forest Whitaker, Diane Venora, Michael Zelniker, Samuel E. Wright, Diane Salinger, Keith David, Michael McGuire, Anna Thompson, Damon Whitaker, Sam Robards, James Handy, Arlen Dean Snyder, Hamilton Camp, Bill Cobbs. [R]

The life and music of legendary jazzman Charlie “Bird” Parker (Whitaker) where the excitement and intricacy of his sax solos are “counterpointed” and “embellished” by repetitive scenes of self-destruction, marital strife, and tortured artistry strung out on the junk. If only these scenes had provided more context and insight into the elusive figure (the photographic and multimedia record of Bird is extremely limited); or at the very least, had they not wrecked the pace of an already bloated 160-minute film document… These monotonous bad trips, however, can’t negate Eastwood’s fluid and atmospheric direction or Whitaker’s powerhouse performance. The fractured chronology of the narrative can breed confusion at times, but at least Joel Oliansky’s script avoids the conventional highs-and-lows structure of the average paint-by-numbers musician biopic. Oscar winner for Best Sound.

66/100