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Chet-ophiles - how accurate is Born To Be Blue?



 
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Robert P
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 08, 2017 1:32 pm    Post subject: Chet-ophiles - how accurate is Born To Be Blue? Reply with quote

Is it a typical fictionalized Hollywood approximation?
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kehaulani
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 08, 2017 1:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Wouldn't a better title be, "Chet-ophiles, who saw the movie, - how accurate is Born To Be Blue?

My understanding is that is inspired by certain events in Chet's life but is work of cinematic fiction. You're lucky to have seen it, though.

?
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Robert P
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 08, 2017 2:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

kehaulani wrote:
Wouldn't a better title be, "Chet-ophiles, who saw the movie, - how accurate is Born To Be Blue?

Even if I'd been thusly motivated, it wouldn't all fit.

I figure it's implied that the question is for someone who's seen it.

Quote:
you're lucky to have seen it, though.

Not so much about luck as a trip to Ebay. There are currently a number of copies there now.
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Robert P
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 09, 2017 4:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I've been watching the movie in chunks, finding it interesting-ish. Kinda sappy. Ethan Hawke's pretend playing is painfully unconvincing. I wonder if they made any effort to find a jazz trumpeter who could act.
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Croquethed
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 09, 2017 4:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I heard about the fake trumpet playing and that alone made me steer clear.

To Don Cheadle's credit, he did learn for Miles Ahead, enough that he wouldn't be fingering a C# for an F. I don't think his playing was in the film, but he made the effort.
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Robert P
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 09, 2017 5:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Croquethed wrote:
To Don Cheadle's credit, he did learn for Miles Ahead, enough that he wouldn't be fingering a C# for an F. I don't think his playing was in the film, but he made the effort.

Sounds like he took it seriously. He does a little playing at the end of this video, starting at about 3:18. Actually sounds pretty decent - you can hear him lipping up a note he hits a little flat.


Link

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kehaulani
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 09, 2017 5:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Robert P wrote:
Not so much about luck as a trip to Ebay.

Thank you Sir. Just picked it up for eleven bucks.
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GeorgeB
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 10, 2017 3:58 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The Baker biop was a Canadian made film so it was easy to buy the dvd here after the theatrical release. It was an okay movie, with some fact and a lot of fiction, especially the part about the girlfriend who was trying to help him get clean from drugs...pure fiction there. Hawke studied the trumpet for the role and sang, but the actual horn playing was by Canadian jazz trumpeter Kevin Turcotte.

I also own the Miles Davis bio. The story was a bit of a stretch at times, but I liked it overall.
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jojocat
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 10, 2017 7:33 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The Chet movie is a romantic story that mostly talks about a poor guy lost in the abyss of drugs. It's a decent movie, nothing more.

On the other hand I really liked Miles Ahead, even if it's light years away from a biopic movie.

And the fact that Don Cheadle played a Monette instead of a Committee in the movie didn't upset me AT ALL !
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kehaulani
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 15, 2017 11:51 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

O.K., got the movie and saw it last night. IMO, good but not great movie. But one of the fastest hour-and-a-halfs I've spent in a long time. Had to follow it up with, Let's Get Lost, another Baker "biopic", which has its own problems.

To answer the OP's "fact or fiction" implication, you have to study Chet and read Chet Baker: His life and music, if not follow it up with a more pessimistic read, Deep in a Dream: The Long Night of Chet Baker. The movie is an impressionistic work, not a real biopic.

Regarding it's trumpeting accuracy, I recommend just taking for granted that actors and directors are probably never getting this right. I don't watch fingerings, etc., for a reason.
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lakejw
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 15, 2017 12:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

jojocat wrote:
And the fact that Don Cheadle played a Monette instead of a Committee in the movie didn't upset me AT ALL !


To paraphrase the late Garry Shandling...I'm pretty sure you don't get good at boxing by hitting pig carcasses, but I still liked Rocky.
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kehaulani
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 15, 2017 1:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

In all fairness to everyone involved, Rocky would hit an animal carcass to build up punching strength, not to develop boxing skills.
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furcifer
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 15, 2017 4:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

To Hawke's credit, he did try - although he didn't have 2 years to to spend on it like Cheadle did while the film was being kicked around between studios. Neither actor ended up getting their own playing recorded on film, but the real issue is the EDITING, not the acting. When the editor cuts in a clip of the actor playing something else other than what the audience is hearing, well, how can it ever look right to a real trumpet player? If you think about it, we see this often enough in music videos of real trumpet players, too. This is because of a difference in creative process. Most musicians come from a "live" background, whereas most in the film industry do not have a "stage" background, except the actors themselves, who usually don't have any say at all about the integrity of continuity in what gets spliced together to make a movie.

As for the movie itself, I thought it was a good character piece about one of the most damaged and disturbed trumpet players who ever got famous, almost in spite of himself. And for an actor like Hawke to do it is a tribute in itself.

As a trumpet player who started and played for the first 5 years with the old Medieval-torture-style braces on my teeth (and other personal struggles), I found the bathtub scene to be powerful and just hit extremely close to home for me.
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