Bird (1988)

Editor's Note Charlie "Bird" Parker had been a hero of Clint Eastwood's since childhood, and Eastwood, having been disappointed in such jazz biopics as YOUNG MAN WITH A HORN, really wanted to make a true jazz fan's movie about the music. He cast Forest Whitaker as Parker, the legendary alto sax player, and Diane Venora as Chan, Parker's wife. The film shows how Parker, a genius who changed the face of modern music, was hampered and eventually destroyed by his appetite for women, food, and drugs. The two leads do a great job giving a recognizable human face to the characters' complex relationship. With wit and warmth, BIRD tells the story in direct and honest terms, avoiding all sentimentality. Eastwood's love of Parker's music comes across in the tremendous care that he and composer Lennie Niehaus took with reconstructing it, using Parker's original solos. Eastwood and cinematographer Jack N. Green also patterned the dark, moody look of the film after old photos of musicians who used to appear in jazz magazines. Music lovers will be thrilled with the result, and movie lovers will find plenty to engage them in this moving tale of a great man battling his demons.

	Michael Zelniker
	Diane Verona
	Keith David
	Forest Whitaker
	Clint Eastwood - Director

Director Clint Eastwood indulges his lifelong passion for jazz with this dark, brooding interpretation of the life of revolutionary bebop saxophonist Charlie "Yardbird" Parker. Starting with Parker's early years, when he used to sneak into Kansas City clubs to listen to Count Basie's band, the film moves through the many ups and downs of Parker's troubled but brilliant career--which ended all too soon. The doctor who examined Parker soon after his death estimated that the musician was somewhere between 50 and 60 years old; he was actually only 34 when he died. New York Times
"...The music is everywhere....A labor of love..." 09/26/1988 p.C19

Los Angeles Times
"...Few Hollywood biographical movies have shown more devotion to their subject than Clint Eastwood's BIRD....In this movie and its hot, fast bursts of bop, Charlie Parker gets a fitting elegy..." 10/14/1988 p.C1

Mojo
"[T]he adroit combination of Whitaker's understated performance and Eastwood's flashback images achieves pathos while avoiding sentimentality." 12/01/2004 p.57

Uncut
4 stars out of 5 -- "A labour of love for director Clint Eastwood, this ambitious biopic of Charlie Parker digs a little deeper than most mainstream musical biopics..." 04/01/2006 p.144

Sight and Sound
"[Eastwood] does full justice to Parker's extraordinary musical gifts." 04/01/2006 p.87