LET'S GET LOST
Reviewed by David N. Butterworth
Copyright 1989 David N. Butterworth/The Summer Pennsylvanian
"Everybody has a story about Chet Baker. He was bad, trouble, and beautiful."
LET'S GET LOST, Bruce Weber's visually thematic biography of '50s jazz musician Chet Baker, might well be the ultimate story, an evocatively photographed, seamlessly edited collage of sights and sounds.
Unfortunately, many people are going to pass up the film for two reasons: one, it's a documentary -- and two, it's in black and white. But those two elements alone combine to make LET'S GET LOST more compelling than most of this summer's run-of-the-mill movie fodder.
The life and times of this jazz trumpeter and vocalist, whose troubled career culminated in a fall to his death from an Amsterdam hotel window in May of 1988, is chronicled through a variety of cinematic techniques. Candid interviews with an ensemble of friends, relatives, and fellow musicians, stills, archive footage of Baker himself, in concert and out, moody, mesmerizing, iconoclastic.
Baker's whisper-like vocals permeate the background like cigarette smoke, ever present, softly punctuating the blank spaces. It's a near perfect blend of styles, yet it is never showy or pushy.
In his 20s, Baker was the James Dean of the jazz world, his boyish good looks as much a part of his image as his hypnotic trumpet playing and soulful, lyrical style. Working initially with the likes of Charlie Parker and Gerry Mulligan, Baker quickly branched out on his own.
Soon his angular face was gracing record jackets everywhere. He even appeared in a number of movie bit parts, such as 1955's HELL'S HORIZON (billed as "Chet Baker and his trumpet"), as well as a number of disposable, Italian teen-flicks.
Almost forty years later, the change is dramatic. Baker's once Adonis-like looks are wizened -- wrinkled creases of skin abound; aged, hollowed out eyes; bloodless cheeks; a leather-faced, lipless junkie. Baker knew more than anyone that you gotta pay the price if you wanna play the blues.
Baker's Midas touch on stage became leprous in his private life. A compulsive womanizer, he left a legacy of cast-off wives and embittered offspring in his wake. There is a lot of hate in this movie; few people have much respect for this burned out, unlikable shell of a man. Even his mother, when asked if Chet was a good son, cannot answer in the affirmative.
What's so compelling about the film is that, as unappealing as Baker is, his music is anything but. The only time that we feel he's being totally honest with us is when he's performing. Then, and only then, do we feel the man's sincerity, his quietly hushed and sexy vocal style totally absorbing the viewer. The allure of his stage persona compared to the shambles of his personal life is staggering.
In one scene, Baker recalls the names of other jazz greats who have succumbed to the lure of drugs. The list seems endless. But this is not an anti-drug movie. It's a film about contrasts, about the profound affect one man had on the lives of others. Director Weber has gotten to the crux of the issue so adeptly that at times it's hard to believe that a lot of this film was shot before Baker's death.
At Cannes, nearing the film's end, Baker comments to Weber that this is the first time he has ever faced such a rowdy audience. "At those other places you could hear a pin drop," he observes. So when he calls for silence before performing his final, haunting number, "Almost Blue," you probably could hear a pin drop. That silence, and the performance which follows, is a fitting elegy to a genius who lived hard yet made it all look so easy.
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