Miles Ahead (2016)

From my favorite movies..

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

.Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Dreadful movie with a very thin plot.Miles Davis is deserving of a more full and compelling biopic of his life rather than a movie stretched out from a fairly uneventful period of his public life, plus a bit of artistic license including the reporter character.Don Cheadle pulls off a reasonable portrayal of Miles, whereas Ewan McGregor doesn't really add anything to the movie. The one saving grace is Emayatzy Corinealdi with a touching performance as Frances Taylor, and... of course... Miles' music.Wish I'd put on one of his albums instead and read a book!

Making a jazz film is hard: the most sincere efforts, such as Clint Eastwood's Bird and Bertrand Tavernier's Round Midnight, tend to recast the music as a synonym for tragedy and victimhood, the exact opposite truth of an art that was crafted to constantly countermand and undermine tragedy and victimhood. Miles Ahead has been criticized for its crazy sub-plot, that culminates in fistfights and gunplay at a boxing match, where Miles Davis reclaims a Macguffin-like master tape that Columbia Records will evidently do anything to get. Of course, this is completely fiction, but it is worth bearing in mind that co-star Ewan MacGregor has called the film "less a Miles biopic than an attempt to cast Miles in a caper flick that he might like to have been part of." In this light, one might regard such excesses a good way of expanding on the "badass" image, that Miles so liked to project. Historically flawed as it might be, the film makes clear that badassness was in fact a useful survival tactic for Davis, in a music industry full of unctuous guys in suits calling him "Mr. Davis," stressing how honoured they were to meet him, and then exploiting him at every turn. The film bounces around chronologically from the late 1950s to the 1980s. The constant flashbacks are somewhat off-putting, but sometimes they do a very good job. At their centre is Davis' relationship with dancer Frances Taylor; years after she has walked out on him – or rather, run out, fearing for her life – Miles is still obsessed with her. There is a scene where, over the phone, he convinces her to leave the London production of West Side Story to be with him. Just as we start to feel sorry for the lovelorn Miles, Cheadle cuts to the drug-fuelled orgy with two young fans that Davis has interrupted in order to take Taylor's call. Another scene takes us back to the 1959 Sketches of Spain sessions; for a jazz fan, it is a delicious pleasure to see and hear these being recreated, although Cheadle gives the impression that arranger Gil Evans was a sort of conductor for the session who was there to follow Davis' instructions. Early in the film, Davis stops an interviewer from calling his music "jazz." What he plays, Davis insists, is social music. In the midst of current recastings and redefinitions of what "jazz" might be, this is a more important message than one expects to hear in a Hollywood biopic. In reading the many criticisms of Cheadle's film, it might be useful to remember that Davis' music from the '70s and '80s was also fiercely criticized at the time it was made, but as the years go by, and we rethink what the artist was doing, it seems increasingly to be right on. The way this film is regarded might also very well change for the better in the years to come.

I am big of both Miles Davis and Don Cheadle. Biopics are difficult to get right and I was encouraged when I learned that Cheadle would direct and only focus on a part of Davis' life - and an interesting one at that. The film overall is uneven and disappointing but does succeed in capturing the allure and eccentricities of Davis. I had a hard time believing the plot to steal and recover the tapes. I don't recall reading this in his autobiography but that's not necessarily a bad thing. It seemed silly and not befitting a jazz great to have his life boil down to a cops and robbers chase in the alley. Cheadle, the actor, captured the essence of Davis but struggled to anchor the film's narrative. The flashback scenes were gratuitous and inaccurate. Davis was beaten by a cop on 52nd Street not outside the Village Vanguard. The poster outside the Vanguard says he is playing with Red Garland but they Bill Evans playing piano inside. Stuff like that kills the movie for a real lover of Davis' work. I do think the filmmaker really captured the relationship with Frances correctly. That was haunting and beautiful and my guess is that it should have been the focus of the whole movie.

The movie is very well played and well directed by Don Cheadle as it presents a heart broken Miles Davis getting back to music after five years of wallowing in his own grief. It is not about the early days, it is not about jazz, it is about the person, as seen from the perspective of a douchy Rolling Stones reporter who is hungry enough to follow and get under Miles' skin.I liked the film composition wise. It felt trippy and jazzy and true to the idea of doing it differently. I didn't enjoy the film too much, though. It may have to do with me not liking jazz, or actually not feeling any empathy for any of the characters.Bottom line: more The End of the Tour than Whiplash, it wasn't my kind of film, but I really liked the way is was constructed. Cheadle made it clear that he is a talented director, as well as actor, and McGregor's contribution really sweetened the deal. You learn more about the cutthroat music industry in the late 70's than about music, though.