While it must be nearly impossible to write an original
portrait of jazz legend Miles Davis, a guy that defied labels or standard
definitions, who continually evolved musically throughout his entire career,
much like Bob Dylan in the folk rock scene, two iconic figures that literally
paved their own ways in the music industry, alienating fans in the process by
moving from acoustic to electronic music, both ironically recording for the same
music company, Columbia Records, where their music literally defined the
changing 50’s and 60’s American landscape.
That said, no one would have expected anything along the lines of this
picture, requiring 30 producers, written by a conglomerate of writers that
includes the director and lead actor, making this a definitive Don Cheadle
project, yet what he’s produced is so ridiculously cartoonish and over-the-top
that it amounts to a comedy, as in the Keystone Cops comedy of errors. Not sure that’s what they had in mind, but
there’s nothing about this that remotely resembles the life of Miles Davis,
yet, to its credit, it does contain authentic Miles Davis music throughout, like
the familiar refrains of “So What” Miles Davis - So What -
YouTube (9:06), but no archival footage, which might have been nice. One of the things that worked so well in Asif
Kapadia’s Amy
(2015), winning the Academy Award for best documentary feature, was the
extraordinary range of personal expression obtained through archival footage,
where by the end of the film the audience felt they knew her as a person. That’s simply not the case here, as Davis’s personal
life has always been viewed as off limits, elusive and of secondary importance
to a man of cool reserve and detachment who held everything back, at times even
turning his back to the audience, revealing mysterious, enigmatic qualities of
his personality, where his music revealed more than he ever did. Instead it was all about the changing styles
of his music, continually redefining himself through the years, having been at
the forefront of the bebop, cool jazz, symphonic and orchestral jazz, harmonic
jazz, small combos, recorded live performances, free association and eclectic
jazz fusion movements. By all accounts,
he was literally a rock star at the end of his life, complete with a drug
history, largely cocaine, where his reputation was that of an uncompromising
artist driven to be constantly innovative.
What’s surprising about the film is its similarity to James
Ponsoldt’s The
End of the Tour (2015), another unauthorized biographical account of the
life of author David Foster Wallace, as viewed from a Rolling Stone reporter who followed him for a week on a book tour. Here Ewan McGregor plays the obligatory Rolling Stone reporter Dave Braden, who
ends up at the front door of Miles Davis’s luxurious Upper West Side apartment,
something of a con artist driven to write his comeback story, who strangely latches
onto him throughout the entire ordeal.
What transpires is a mix of what actually happened, much of it seen in
flashback, and a fictionalized version of what might have happened, as these
were the kinds of thoughts that kept running through the head of Miles Davis
during one of the more troubled periods of his life between 1976 and 1980 when
Davis turned fifty and his drug addiction kept him from performing or even playing
his horn. Why we need a cringingly unsympathetic
reporter accompanying Miles throughout is anyone’s guess, feeling like a major misstep,
as there’s no interest whatsoever in his shady character, as all eyes remain
focused on Miles (Don Cheadle). In fact,
the world is probably starved for a more definitive film on his life and his
music, as he led such a reclusive and mysterious life, but this isn’t it. This is more of a comic action buddy picture where
Braden accompanies Miles on a series of spontaneous misadventures revolving
around drugs, money, guns, a stolen tape, and fast cars, with Davis as the temperamental,
drug-addled, out of control gangster who pulls his gun out and starts shooting whenever
things don’t go his way. While not
mentioned in the film, Davis had hip-replacement surgery in 1975 and spent
nearly a year recovering, using cocaine, heroin, and drinking heavily to
alleviate the pain, an event that probably led to his public disappearance and might
explain why he was walking with a noticeable limp during this time. Despite the immediate contempt and disdain
expressed by Miles for this interloper reporter (and just about everyone else),
they remain joined at the hip throughout, like a bloodsucking leech one can
never get rid of.
Nothing compares to the prolific 30-year association of Miles
Davis and Columbia Records from 1955 to 1985, where in jazz music there is
simply no precedent, as the legendary artist released 48 studio albums, 36 live
albums, 35 compilation albums, 17 box sets, 3 soundtrack albums, 57 singles,
and 3 Remix albums. According to his
biographer Ian Carr, (Miles Davis: The
Definitive Biography, 1998), Miles was accorded a special status with
Columbia Records shared only with classical pianist Vladimir Horowitz, where
even through what he calls Miles’s “silent years,” both were regularly paid
through a fund the recording company created just for them. In one of the earliest scenes in the film,
Miles reveals his anger at not receiving a check for $20,000, which is the
impetus for everything that follows, as he orders Braden to hop in the front
seat and drive his deluxe Jaguar to Columbia, where he accosts one of the
producers (Michael Stuhlbarg) with a gun, demanding immediate payment, taking
whatever cash the man had in his pocket.
After this little episode, he’s ready to part ways with Braden, but he
pleads his case by promising to score some primo coke, which leads them into
yet another escapade, the first of a neverending series of excursions through a
dark labyrinthian alley. Unlike the path
most taken, revealing a great artist at the height of his powers, Cheadle
stakes out the territory for his worst years, where sex and drugs occupied the
place in his life where music used to be.
Always having a reputation for being cold, withdrawn, and distant, this
film also accentuates his quick temper, though it does provide some underlying
background, using Cincinnati as a substitute for New York City. While playing a club in the Village, he becomes
fascinated by the smoldering beauty of celebrated dancer Frances Taylor
(Emayatzy Corinealdi), utilized more as a femme fatale, where his playing and
her sensual dancing lead to exquisite improvisational routines that reveal a
playful intimate side of their relationship that leads to marriage. But Davis is over possessive, perhaps fueled
by a drug and alcohol-induced jealous paranoia, demanding that she stop working
and accompany him on his worldwide tours.
In one racially tinged scene, he’s arrested by a white New York cop who
thinks he’s loitering in front of Birdland in upscale Manhattan, bashing him
over the head with his nightstick when he refuses to leave and promptly has him
arrested. While this is a recreation of
a real event, it was also a prelude to escalating domestic violence at home,
where Taylor fears for her life and eventually leaves him.
Much of what transpires afterwards has the ache of regret,
as if the past is viewed through a drug-induced stupor, where events feel
exaggerated and lack coherency, yet they resonate with Miles’s abrasive
personality, “If you gonna tell a story, come at it with some attitude, man,” with
Cheadle’s performance feeding off that raspy voice, the result of a throat
operation in the mid 50’s, where he’s the kind of guy that reacts to everything
around him, where early on he objects to hearing his name on the radio connected
to jazz, claiming the word is all but extinct.
In something of a funk, he calls the radio program and tells them,
“Don’t call it jazz, man — that’s some made-up word. It’s social music,” actually making a request
to hear “Solea” Miles
Davis - Sketches of Spain - Solea - YouTube (12:21), a sad, funereal lament
that offers a wide range of timbres, tonalities, and harmonic structures that
literally transcend the jazz medium. While
there is a somewhat convoluted story about a missing tape that was stolen from
his apartment, where Miles insists upon getting it back, by any means
necessary, as it contains secret recordings that he was keeping from the
studios, the standard gun-toting movie format utilized may equate to some
masculine, superhero idea floating around in his head, like Superfly, but this inexcusably cheapens
the man and the film, as it doesn’t feel nearly complex enough, though it does
allow the viewer to spend a day in the life of an imaginary version of his
persona, where if that’s any indication of what each day is like, the man was
not cheated out of adventures in life.
Jumping around to different periods in the past, his basement recording
studio is like a time machine, where actors play the familiar roles of Herbie Hancock,
Ron Carter, Tony Williams, and Wayne Shorter, seen informally rehearsing
“Nefertiti” Nefertiti by
Miles Davis - YouTube (7:55) while Miles steps upstairs in a violent fight
with his wife, where the obvious link between the turbulence in his life and
his music is unmistakable. Bits and
pieces of the heavily percussive and electronic score of “Bitches Brew” Miles Davis - Bitches Brew -
YouTube (7:30), also a brief snippet in performance, Miles Davis - Bitches Brew Clip 1
YouTube (2:04), can be heard as his life spins out of control during chase
scenes and car shoot outs. What’s
altogether missing in this film is any insight into personal relationships with
band members or friends, as they are never seen conversing or just hanging out,
instead it’s a portrait of a man living all alone in a dark, cavernous
apartment haunted by memories, real and imaginary, where his life as a hermit
has left him unable to play, where instead he’s been practicing on the
organ. There is an invigorating moment
when he plays father figure to a young upstart (Keith Stanfield), someone he’s
been dismissive of throughout, where arguably the best parts of the film are
the final scenes literally exploding in a psychedelic color fantasia, an
imaginary concert in the future “after” his comeback where he’s worked his way
back into supreme form.
