BIRD
A film review by Marcel-Franck Simon
Copyright 1988 Marcel-Franck Simon
Charles Parker Jr. was a complicated man. He was by all accounts profoundly selfish, yet uncommonly generous; a self-pitying addict who urged people to stay away from drugs; a loving husband of several wives, some simultaneously, who chased every skirt in sight. Charles Parker Jr. was also a brilliant improviser and composer. He effected the second fundamental revolution in jazz music, the last one to have affected the whole music, from top to bottom. He was a genius, he was a failure, he was a light in the dark, he was an example of what not to be. He was all these things and more, at the same time, laughing through the inconsistencies with the same nonchalance he brought to his soloing.
The wonderful thing about the film portrayal of Parker, and for which we can give great thanks to director Clint Eastwood, is that these contradictions are laid out unflinchingly. BIRD is more interested in painting the whole picture more than accentuating the details. The result is perhaps the best jazz movie ever made, at least one that satisfies this casual film fan and dedicated jazz buff.
How to tackle the slippery topic of Charles Parker? Here was a man who was fiercely conscious of his artistic accomplishments and more than anything demanded respect, yet at the same time was regularly found passed out in the gutter, showed up late or not at all for gigs, behaved unpredictably, got sick on stage and generally acted in as self-destructive a manner as possible.
Eastwood's answer is to discard conventional, linear storytelling. The movie unfolds like a jazz solo, with ideas popping up seemingly at random, developing at a pace sometimes unrelated to that of others. The overall structure, and Eastwood's vision of his subject, emerges only gradually, almost as an afterthought. Since Bird's playing often follows the same patterns, this is most appropriate. BIRD moves along as a series of vignettes that jump haphazardly about in time, generally covering the period from 1946-55, with a couple of short jumps back to the mid-30s.
Eastwood seems not particularly interested in jazz history. In fact, several jazz fans have complained that his movie takes place "after everything has already happened." Indeed, little or no time is spent explaining *why* Parker's music was so revolutionary. Eastwood wants far more to describe Bird himself. Of course, deprived of such an important part of his context, the subject loses a crucial dimension.
Eastwood's solution is to anchor the movie around Bird's widow, Chan Parker. In fact, this is as much Chan's movie as anything. Probably as a result, their family scenes are finely detailed and revealing. But this goes too far. Chan's point of view is self-serving. She is the perfect wife, the perfect mix of resignation, tolerance and exasperation. Chan also ignores some important facts. For example, Bird had a common-law wife with whom he spent about as much time as with Chan, and who musicians report was much more time on the scene than Chan. This woman is absent from the movie, and all of Bird's other women are depicted as utterly dispensable. Even Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter, a great fan of jazz and patron of several jazz musicians (Thelonious Monk in particular; the pianist wrote the tune "Pannonica" for her), is treated as little more than a high class groupie.
On the other hand, Diane Venora gives a strong performance as Chan, expressing very well the contradictory pulls in a woman who wanted to keep her husband clean and pure by removing him from his milieu ("fleeing to West-ches-ter," in his sardonic phrase), yet realized that doing so would kill him just as surely.
Centering the movie on Chan has other, more subtle drawbacks. One that particularly annoyed me: where are the other musicians? Other than Dizzy Gillespie, played by Sam Wright, the only other musician mentioned is Red Rodney. Where are Miles Davis, Max Roach, Fats Navarro, Bud Powell, Monk, Al Haig, Oscar Pettiford, Don Byas, Kenny Clarke, Tommy Potter, Curly Russell, and all the others who helped forge bebop, and who worked often with Bird? And why give Red Rodney such prominence, when Rodney was at best an occasional collaborator? The story of Bird and Rodney's tour through the South, where Rodney was billed as Albino Red to avoid redneck wrath on an integrated band, while true, is blown way out of proportion, as Rodney himself has said.
The Buster allegory also bothers me. Buster in the movie is a (mythical) Kansas City alto player who throws his horn in the river after seening Bird play. He also seals Bird's defeat by hailing the coming of a simpler, more direct music called rock'n'roll. Little of the story makes sense. First because by 1946-7, when Buster is so shamed by Bird's brilliance, Parker was a celebrity among musicians. From that mid-30s session where a very young Bird was "gonged off" a jam session (by Papa Jo Jones), Parker joined the bands of Jay McShann, then Earl Hines, then Billy Eckstine. Dizzy and Clarke were in the latter, and that band was as much a catalyst for the new music as Minton's and other Harlem joints that have passed into legend. All that traveling made Bird a household name among musicians (as Gary Giddins has shown, it is also false to say that Bird and Dizzy first brought bebop to California; L.A. already had a strong bop scene, which included men such as Charles Mingus.) So it is extremely unlikely that in 1947 Buster would still know Bird as "Charlie, from just around."
The business about Buster pioneering rock'n'roll and thereby sealing Bird's defeat also makes no sense. Rhythm'n'blues from the late 30s codified the show-business approach to playing that in fact differentiates it from jazz. A hornman riding "one lousy B-flat" with honks, grunts, exaggerated gestures and sweat was common by the late 40s. Players from John Coltrane to Yusef Lateef to Dannie Richmond put in their apprenticeships in R'n'B bands. In fact, John Coltrane dedicated himself to jazz after being asked to "walk the bar" one time too many. As r'n'b people have bitterly pointed out, rock'n'roll is r'n'b played by white people who get on the radio and make all the money. So why should Buster's embrace of r'n'b be such a big deal?
It shouldn't. But Buster's story is allegorical. It signals Bird's failure to make America accept a black man's art as such. Bird explicitly rejected the idea that jazz should be mere entertainment; he felt it should command respect. This is why he was so keen on playing with strings; he felt the orchestral context gave his music legitimacy. So seeing his ideas stolen by Buster, stripped of their artistic aspirations, and fed back to the public as pure entertainment, would hurt Bird deeply.
This is especially true when coupled with the poignant scene where Bird drives by Stravinsky's house. Parker greatly admired Stravinsky, and would surely have wanted to connect with the composer on an equal footing, as a fellow innovator. But Stravinsky only saw a rumpled and dirty black man knocking on his door late at night, and quickly went back inside, to safety. Thus is the paradox of Bird laid out: here was a man who wanted nothing more than to be acknowledged by his country, but who did almost everything possible to avoid being respected. As Dizzy (played by Sam Wright) tells him, "no matter what they say, these people want the nigger to be unreliable. It tells them they are right in their hearts." Bird knew this to be true. That he at the same time never seriously attempted to prove it wrong is the essence of his contradiction, and Eastwood is to be congratulated for perceiving it, and making it the centerpiece of his movie.
Forest Whitaker is perfect as Bird. He has that air of a dissolute and irresponsible little boy. He is also to be praised for learning to play the instrument. The scenes in which he is shown playing are entirely convincing. The same cannot be said of Wright as Dizzy. In the one scene in which we see him playing the trumpet, he holds the instrument as if he'd never seen such a thing before.
No matter, the playing scenes are the best thing in the movie. The music jumps off the screen to grab the listener. The opening "Lester Leaps In," where a bent-over Bird hovers over the audience, dancing at top speed over the changes, is unforgettable. Excellent too are the California session in which Bird, unable to find heroin, sustained himself with benzedrine and alcohol, thereby precipitating a nervous breakdown (which led, ironically, to his writing such tunes as "Cool Blues" and "Relaxing at Camarillo"). The scene where Buster is knocked out is also a winner. In fact, music alone would be sufficient cause to see this movie.
So is Charles Parker an American hero? It depends on one's definition of hero. Eastwood apparently reaches the same conclusion. By painting the whole picture, and leaving the interpretations to the viewer, he has made more of a service to his subject than would have the fawning hero-worship tribute some people wanted. By keeping his own integrity, by showing the warts, he accords Bird the respect Charles Parker wanted.
And that's the way it should be.
Marcel-Franck Simon mingus@attunix.ATT.COM, attunix!mingus
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