Movies I've Missed Until Now: Bird (1988)

I’ve seen most of Clint Eastwood’s movies, both as star and director, over the years, but one I missed until now is BIRD, a biopic about the famous jazz saxophonist Charlie “Bird” Parker, who died young in the Fifties after abusing his body with drugs for many years.

Now, I’m a sucker for a good biopic, I love jazz, and Eastwood’s movies are very watchable. As a director, he reminds me of Howard Hawks: he does his job, tells his story, and gets out of the way. An Eastwood movie will never dazzle you with visual pyrotechnics.

Forest Whitaker plays Parker and does a great job. Most of the music is actual recordings of Parker and other musicians playing, but when Whitaker is on-stage, I never failed to believe it was him blowing those notes. The rest of the cast, all journeymen actors, no real stars, is also very good. The script, which jumps around quite a bit in time as it covers Parker’s life, is a little hard to follow at times, but not distractingly so. And the movie looks great. It really captures the look and feel of the Forties and Fifties and I didn’t spot any anachronisms, although that doesn’t guarantee there weren’t some I missed. And the music, oh, man, the music is great.

The problem with BIRD is that at more than two and a half hours long, and with relentlessly bleak subject matter, it’s just too much. There are a few touches of humor, but mostly it’s grim, grim, grim. Eastwood, being a noted lover of jazz and composer and musician himself, would surely disagree with me. This was clearly a passion project for him, and he did a good job and can be proud of it. But for a regular viewer like me, even though I’m a jazz fan, I’m glad I finally saw BIRD but would never watch it again. I will, however, continue listening to the music from that era because it’s pure greatness.