LACMA (Venue Partner)
5905 Wilshire Blvd
323.857.6000
This event has passed.
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- When
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Friday Feb 26, 2010 (7:30pm)
- Where
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Directions: LACMA is located on Wilshire Boulevard between Fairfax and Curson avenues—midway between Downtown Los Angeles and Santa Monica. From the Santa Monica Freeway (10), take Fairfax Avenue north 2 miles to Wilshire Boulevard.
- Price
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$10
- Links
Drugs, alcohol, race, and racism were lifelong companions to alto-sax player Charlie Parker, defining the ups and downs of this gifted musician, but Eastwood’s ambitious film goes beyond tragedy to celebrate an artist who was hailed as a jazz original and whose improvisations changed the face of American jazz. Eschewing the chronology of a typical bio-pic, the film uses fragments from Parker’s life to depict the professional, legal and emotional conflicts—in particular, the volatile relationship with his white common-law wife—that dogged him until his death at thirty-four. A labor of love for aficionado Eastwood, who accessed restored master tracks of Parker’s solos, Bird stirs with great musical performances while brilliantly evoking the jazz milieu of post-war New York. “In Bird, Eastwood shows talents that were never even hinted at in his earlier pictures. He has succeeded so thoroughly in communicating his love of his subject, and there's such vitality in the performances, that we walk out elated, juiced on the actors and the music. The young Forest Whitaker's brilliance is the force that holds the scattered pieces of Bird together. Only rarely in movies do characters achieve this sort of palpability, and then only when presented to us by a remarkable performer. And this is a remarkable performer giving a gentle, exuberant, charismatic performance… The image of Bird standing dead still on the bandstand, with only his fingers moving over the buttons of his horn, is hauntingly definitive, yet somehow shadowy and enigmatic, like a figure drawn in smoke.”—Hal Hinson, Washington Post.
1988/color/161 min. | Scr: Joel Oliansky; dir: Clint Eastwood; w/ Forest Whitaker, Diane Venora, Samuel E. Wright, Keith David
