Bird
Clint Eastwood / US, 1988 / 160 min.
Clint Eastwood and jazz? It’s hard to imagine, however the later Dirty Harry was already playing jazz piano aged 15 and saw Charlie Parker at a Jazz at the Philharmonic gig. Bird is Eastwood’s homage to bebop’s genius leader.
“America has produced two unique artforms,” Clint Eastwood concluded in an interview with the LA Times: “jazz and the western.” And the jazz fanatic and icon of the (spaghetti)western is passionate about both.
Bird is about the genius of Charlie Parker, played by the phenomenal Forest Whitaker, and pays homage to an innovative jazz style from the 1940s, outlining the final years of Parker’s life during which his heroin addiction got the upper hand.
The music is the focus: original Parker saxophone solos were incorporated into modern recordings, a technical feat pulled off by Eastwood’s preferred composer Lennie Niehaus, who, moreover, taught Forest Whitaker – who won in Cannes – to convincingly pretend to play sax.
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Special screenings
Details
Director
Clint Eastwood
Production year
1988
Country
US
Original title
Bird
Length
160 min.
Language
English
Subtitles
NONE
Format
DCP
Part of
All That Jazz
All That Jazz: a scintillating programme on jazz and film featuring classics, live performances and a focus on exceptional avant-garde and activist filmmakers with a passion for jazz. From Miles Davis to Vincent de Boer, from Sun Ra to Ornette Coleman.
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