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[tab title="Movie Review"]
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Miles Davis was a man of many, many complications. If anything else, that’s the wild takeaway from writer and director Don Cheadle’s impressionistic film about the world’s coolest trumpeter. Miles Ahead is, at once, bold and creative as it mixes the 1950s, the 1960s, and the 1970s into one vibrant vision of chaos and sweet licks. It is a film that will both free and enslave its audience as it mixes heavy narcotic use with frenzied moments of funk and fusion and, of course, some super funky pants.
With the familiar frame of a journalist – Dave (Ewan McGregor) – knocking upon a recluse’s brownstone door, Cheadle portrays Mr. Davis with a most human approach. As best exemplified by a rather humorous opening in which Davis finds himself outside of his own front door demanding to be let in and the reporter on the other side, Cheadle presents Davis as not an untouchable figure in jazz. For Cheadle, the artist is perfectly human – which means all sides of the man are in play. He is vain and scared and loving and, as his milestone record suggests, kind of blue.
And in 1979, he is also completely zonked on cocaine and the four packs of cigarettes a day aren’t helping him return to playing the trumpet. Good thing then that none of what follows actually happened. Get that? The fog is about to part. The jazz is about to begin. Hold tight. For much of Miles Ahead, the reality we already know is as unreal as every other biopic out there. Facts are mere suggestions. Cheadle embraces that idea, swings for the fences, and, honestly, makes his film all the better by telling it like it wasn’t.
It is the trip to Columbia Records – and, ultimately, a stolen record – that sends us on our blended journey into the past as Cheadle – using an album cover as the charm that triggers the journey – gives us the great love of Davis’ past: his first wife, Frances Taylor (Emayatzy Corinealdi). Someday My Prince Will Come indeed. From here the picture dives in and out of time, tracing the love and the break-up of relationships, the duplicitous behaviors of a man with many, many women fawning over him in and out the bedroom, and, of course, the music.
All of the moods are handled masterfully by Cheadle and cinematographer Roberto Schaefer (Finding Neverland, Quantum of Solace) who challenge the audience with its spiraling web of time fusing into another moment and so on. While Cheadle’s biopic doesn’t really latch onto the continuing appeal of Mr. Davis, the film does suggest just how impossible it likely is that we are EVER to have another presence in jazz this significant.
There are some who feel that Miles Davis is a blow-hard; a legend in his own mind only. There are others who worship the ground he walks upon. Miles Ahead isn’t going to convert the non-believers. It is an impression of the essence of Miles Davis. It doesn’t seek to confirm either side of the debate but the film – quite beautifully – details just how different this cat was when he prowled around with the rest of us.
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[tab title="Film Details"]
MPAA Rating: R for strong language throughout, drug use, some sexuality/nudity and brief violence
Runtime: 100 mins
Director: Don Cheadle
Writer: Steven Baigelman (screenplay), Don Cheadle
Cast: Don Cheadle, Emayatzy Corinealdi, Ewan McGregor
Genre: Biography | Music
Tagline: If you gotta tell a story, come with some attitude.
Memorable Movie Quote:
Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics
Official Site: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/join-miles-ahead-a-don-cheadle-film#/story
Release Date: April 1, 2016
DVD/Blu-ray Release Date: No details available.
Synopsis:An exploration of the life and music of Miles Davis.
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[tab title="Blu-ray Review"]
No details available.
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[tab title="Trailer"]
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