{"id":5545,"date":"2016-04-13T07:36:43","date_gmt":"2016-04-13T11:36:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=5545"},"modified":"2016-05-02T06:29:00","modified_gmt":"2016-05-02T10:29:00","slug":"born-to-be-blue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=5545","title":{"rendered":"Born to Be Blue"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"EthanEthan Hawke stars in this beautifully acted portrayal of jazz trumpeter and singer Chet Baker during his prime. Know that the film (trailer)<\/a> treats the facts of Baker\u2019s actual biography, as one reviewer said, more like a chord chart than a score and riffs from there. What is true-to-life is that Baker was an only child, born on a lonely ranch in Yale, Oklahoma, and went on to have numerous relationships with women and a long-term relationship with heroin.<\/p>\n

Musically, he was a progenitor of West Coast Swing, but always had his eye on the New York scene, with the mantra: \u201cLook out Dizzy, look out, Miles. There\u2019s a little white California boy coming for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

An accident when Baker was 12 caused him to lose a front tooth, after which he had to re-learn to play the trumpet. That was a mere warmup to the effort he had to put in after his drug dealer pistol-whipped him and knocked out all of his front teeth, destroying his embouchure. Yet, he couldn\u2019t stay away from heroin. He thought it made his playing better, and he was all about his music.<\/p>\n

While Baker had a great talent for improvisation and sustaining a melodic line, he had no talent at all for being happy. After one important comeback milestone, his manager (Callum Keith Rennie) asks, \u201cWould you try to be happy for more than ten seconds?\u201d This line provides the ironic overlay to the choice of title for the film, one of Baker\u2019s big hits. Hawke did the films vocals; the trumpet playing was by Canadian trumpeter Kevin Turcotte.<\/p>\n

Written and directed by Robert Budreau, the movie has an opening scene that shows how a girl he picked up after a performance casually introduced him to heroin, and he didn\u2019t say no. This scene turns out to be part of a movie being made about him and whether such a significant life event happened in such an offhand way, we don\u2019t know. The insertion of black and white scenes, some of which may be from the movie (which was never finished) or from his memory, plays with the order of events, especially early in the film, an improvisational approach to history that mimics jazz music itself.<\/p>\n

Although Baker does get clean for a several years as he is recovering his playing ability, a return to heroin remains a risk in the music business. As his parole officer says, \u201cYou go into a barber shop and sit in the chair long enough, you\u2019re going to get a haircut.\u201d Still, his parole officer, his girlfriend\u2014the delectable Carmen Ejogo (playing a composite of several women)\u2014his manager, and many musicians wanted him to succeed, including Dizzie Gillespie and Gerry Mulligan. Miles Davis, notoriously prickly, was not a fan, and we\u2019ll get a chance to get his side of the story in the biopic with Don Cheadle, coming soon.<\/p>\n

Rotten Tomatoes<\/a> critics rating: 86%; audiences: 84%.<\/p>\n

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