August 29, 2023

Clint Eastwood’s Bird: The Good, The Bad, The Apocryphal

By Matt Silver

You get a pretty good sense "Bird's" intended visual aesthetic from its lobby card. Warner Bros., 1988.

Part I: Prologue, Immediate Reaction, Forrest Whitaker, Bird's Cinematography, and a General Verdict

Prologue

I approach Bird as someone who loves jazz generally and knows more than the casual fan but less than the historians who get paid to be historians. Having said that, these are my thoughts – the good, the bad, the ugly—about Clint Eastwood’s Bird (1988).

The famous filmmaker Spike Lee, whose father Bill Lee, a jazz musician, supposedly knew Charlie Parker well, has criticized Bird for overplaying Parker’s character and behavioral flaws and underplaying the warmth and sense of humor that drew people to him.

Lee may very well be right—I can’t say; I didn’t know Charlie Parker personally, nor do I know anyone who did. But my sense is that Lee, and others who have criticized Bird similarly, are overlooking the most obvious thing about this depiction: It’s a movie! A big-budget Hollywood entertainment for as broad an audience as there can ever be for something about jazz or a jazz musician. Lee, more than anyone, should recognize that Eastwood’s treatment of the subject is not a documentary; after all, Lee’s no stranger to based-on-a-true-story moviemaking. He's been good (Malcolm X) but far from perfect (Summer of Sam). Trying to balance historical accuracy and biographical integrity with commercial entertainment value is a razor’s edge for artists in every medium to walk.

Clint Eastwood’s “Bird”: The Good, The Bad, The Apocryphal

By Matt Silver

Bird, and to his left, Chet Baker, playing the San Diego Coliseum in Nov. 1953. Photo by Ross Burdick.

Part II: Parker’s Relationships

Bird and Chan

In Eastwood’s world, these are two people genuinely in love, genuinely in awe of one another, and unendingly antagonistic towards each other. They come from different worlds—Parker from early 20th century poverty in Kansas City, Chan from affluent Westchester, the daughter of a vaudeville producer and man of grand romantic gestures whom Parker strives to emulate, at least superficially, to win Chan’s heart (or, arguably, emotionally manipulate her, if you want to be a cynic about it). 

Chan’s rendering at times feels a little typecast; Eastwood really leans in to depicting her as the archetypal mid-century muse: a silver-tongued, bourgeois-bohemian enchantress, simply irresistible to any male creative type whose self-destructive tendencies are inextricable from his art. But I’ll give Eastwood the benefit of the doubt, since, one: this conception wasn’t nearly as trite 35 years ago as it is today; and two: the actors bring an inarticulable authority and credibility to the roles that makes it feel like they’re doing these real-life people justice; and three: it’s a friggin’ movie! 

Clint Eastwood’s “Bird”: The Good, The Bad, The Apocryphal

By Matt Silver

The real Buster Smith pioneered the so-called “Texas sound” on saxophone, played with Lester Young and Count Basie, and mentored Charlie Parker.

Part III: Apocrypha and Artistic License

The Curious Case of Buster Franklin

By most accounts, Bird’s Buster Franklin character, if not the film's primary black hat—that's probably vice-cop-cum-shakedown-artist, Estevez—then certainly its most emotionally resonant one, was meant to represent a fictional character cobbled together from different characters Parker would’ve known in real life. A so-called "composite character." But in real life, everything about the Buster character—aside from how he treats Parker— seems very consistent with a real person, Buster Smith.