![]() (As Davis says in the film: "I don't like that word 'jazz.' It's 'social music.'") By merging actor and musician in a live concert-documentary setting, the sequence becomes the movie's most explicit attempt to make the case that Davis remains a vital presence in music, even 15 years after his death.Ī dream project for Cheadle (and perhaps a dream narrative onscreen), "Miles Ahead," to its credit, is not a traditional movie biography. Except, of course, it's not really Davis but Cheadle-as-Davis who is promoting the hashtag, borrowed from Davis' preferred term for jazz. He wears a jacket emblazoned with the brand "#SocialMusic," which effectively makes Davis a shill for the movie's social media campaign, a proposition that bugs me. This simultaneity becomes especially manifest during an end-credits public concert, in which Cheadle, in his Miles disguise, plays trumpet alongside new artists (including Esperanza Spalding) and veterans of the classic Davis bands (Herbie Hancock, for example). If we're always aware that we're watching an actor in a phony scenario rather than scenes from a life, well, the movie has an answer for that: "I'm a Gemini, so I'm two people, anyway," explains Davis/Cheadle. Such an artist is Don Cheadle, a tuning fork of an actor whose best performances - "Boogie Nights," "Devil in a Blue Dress" - vibrate with the contradictory yet complementary pleasures of freedom and tension.Ĭheadle is the producer, director, co-screenwriter (with Steven Baigelman) and star of "Miles Ahead," a fanciful misadventure set in 1979, near the end of Miles Davis' six-year retreat from public music-making, when the jazz trumpet genius was a drug addict and a recluse, his bad habits and his seclusion enabled by the generous retainer provided by his record label, Columbia.Ĭheadle is a captivating Davis: He's lean and hungry and ornery, with unruly Jheri-curled hair and a mystical cool-cat aura. Rated R for strong profanity, the depiction of drug use, sexual content and nudity, and brief violence.Ĭinema, like jazz, benefits from artists who understand both improvisation and discipline. Here are reviews of two other new movies, each inspired by a real person. " Elvis & Nixon" isn't the only film opening this week with a historical background.
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