Robert J. Maxwell As an actor, Clint has his limits. His best moments come with scowls. But as a director, once he passed through his orang-utan stage, he took a lot of chances -- I suppose because he was now in a position to indulge his own artistic impulses.I mean, here is this story about a dead black musician. Not a funny and friendly and famously popular type like Satchmo Armstrong, but a radical alto saxophonist who was one of the sires of bebop jazz. Bebop didn't only give the public melodies it could whistle or romantic ballads. The emphasis was all on the performers and their improvisations, usually up tempo. You had to be a technician to finger your ax that fast and a near-genius to dream up so many variations. The themes themselves were almost disposable. The titles were whimsical throwaways -- "Anthropology"? It's not "The Glenn Miller Story." On top of that, we have a frequently wrecked black junkie mating with a beautiful white woman -- Forest Whitaker and Diane Venora, respectively.Charlie Parker's wicked saxophone solos aside, it's a dark movie in almost every respect. Most movies of geniuses run along a familiar geometric narrative. Man (or woman) discovers hidden talent. Rises from obscurity to fame. Is brought down by inner demons. Recovers at the last moment through epiphany. Up, down, then up again. Bird's struggle with drugs and booze was a lifetime affair. His career had more ups and downs than a traveling block on an oil rig. As far as his recordings go, he seemed to play his instrument just as well when he was high as when he wasn't. He played just as well when they forced strings and an oboe on him.It's dark, too, because all the scenes are barely lighted. You can't see the faces too clearly. It ends tragically, too, as Charlie Parker's life did. And it's a squalid death. We don't see him sitting in a drunk ward like Kirk Douglas in "Young Man With a Horn" (read Bix Beiderbecke), his eyes suddenly widening, his face brightening, as he listens to a siren scream in the background and he says, "That's it -- that's the NOTE!" Somebody ought to do Parker's friend and colleague, Dizzy Gillespie, who passed through bebop into his own technical firmament. At least he played skillfully throughout his life, died peacefully, and had an extraordinarily subtle sense of humor. If he were elected president, he'd have changed the White House into the Blue House.If you haven't seen this and if you have some doubt about whether you want to listen to this kind of music, you might go to YouTube and find one of his three-minute recordings, preferably one with Dizzy Gillespie.

nycjimmy Like most music bio- films - The Eastwood Bird film centered on Parker's romantic relationship.In this case, his relationship with Chan Richardson(after two failed marriages). Despite the fact they had two kids, the film made the relationship the centerpiece of his life which is contrary to all the other bio's I've read.If I remember correctly, Eastwood took the liberty of re-recording all the rhythm tracks... which sounded suspiciously phoned in from the wrong decade.If you want to find out about Parker, read "Bird Lives" or the Miles Davis autobiography. You'll realize how "whitewashed" Clint's film really was.Another thing, I like Whitaker but I didn't think his portrayal of Parker was much of a departure from his usual schtick.

aerslife I feel as though the film did not do justice to the musically phenomenal life "Bird" went through. He was one of the most influential Jazz musicians crating an entire style of music. Which i felt was not portrayed fully. As one of the comments i've heard before stated "it seemed they had a choice between Charlie Parker as a musical genius or Charlie Parker as a junkie and they chose junkie."I felt as though the musicians playing the bird solo's did a bad job reflecting his "sound." As in Charlie Parker had a sound that filled up an entire room with complicated be-bop phrasings and with a blues background. While the musicians just had him playing fast notes most of the time which was sometimes difficult to hear over back ground noise, very "unbird like".However i did enjoy moments of the film, that showed even Charlie Parker had to play some weird gigs.My last point is that it felt as though Chan Parker was portrayed as a stable part of bird's life, and was one of the central idea's of the film. As in the love story between him and his wife, with a love hate relationship. Which i think could have been less focused on and centralized more around Charlie Parkers music.i do understand that Chan actually helped the script writer to write the film so it may have been a somewhat biased perspective.

ecjones1951 "Bird" will probably be most appreciated by jazz fans who come to it already familiar with Charlie Parker and his incalculable contributions to jazz and influence on generations of musicians that continues to this day. The script contains many shorthand references that might be lost on the average moviegoer -- e.g., Parker calls Dizzy Gillespie "Birks," which was his middle name, but many people probably don't know that.But there is the music, and tons of it. There are extraordinary performances by Forest Whitaker as Parker, and Diane Venora as his common law wife, Chan. In many ways the film seems more a love story than the standard musical biopic. Chan was unfailingly supportive of Bird, despite his self-destructive drug use, alcoholism and chronic infidelity. He loved her in his own way, and I think she realized that she was in love with a genius who would forever be plagued by demons, and that she couldn't have one without the other.Clint Eastwood's love of jazz is well-known, and in "Bird" he provides a wealth of wonderful music, beautifully performed. The actual playing of Charlie Parker is augmented by accompaniment from contemporary musicians, and Parker has never sounded better. Eastwood also provides an unflinching portrayal of the complicated lives of jazz musicians, and the addictions to which so many succumb.Despite the mess that Bird made of his life, he remains a charming and sympathetic figure. And his music, years ahead of its time, and so complex that countless fledging saxophone players have attempted to copy his recordings note for note, will forever live on.