'Miles Ahead': The biopic confuses anguish with artistry
Capturing the essence of a great artist on film is always a risky business since most of the time the artistry is not easily dramatized. And when it is, too often what we get are hokey 鈥淎ha!鈥� moments. Plenty of great writers, painters, and musicians enjoyed a rather boring day-to-day existence, so it鈥檚 no surprise that filmmakers tend to favor those tortured souls whose jagged lives light up the screen.
Just a few weeks ago, we had the uneven 鈥淏orn to Be Blue,鈥� starring Ethan Hawke as the vastly troubled jazz trumpeter Chet Baker. Now we have 鈥淢iles Ahead,鈥� the equally uneven Miles Davis biopic directed and co-written by Don Cheadle, who also stars in it.聽
Cheadle and his co-screenwriter Steven Baigelman (who had a story credit on the 2014 James Brown biopic 鈥淕et On Up鈥�) deal primarily with Davis鈥檚 life during the five-year gap in his recording career in the late 1970s, when, awash in drugs and suffering from a degenerative hip condition, he hid away in his New York brownstone. He had become, as the film puts it, 鈥渢he Howard Hughes of jazz.鈥�
The film鈥檚 conceit is that a rock journalist claiming to be on assignment from Rolling Stone manages to insinuate himself inside Davis鈥檚 inner precincts. Dave Braden (Ewan McGregor) endures threats and a punch in the nose but manages, with the help of some cocaine connections, to gain cooperation from the jazz great. (Davis, ornery always, rejects the term 鈥渏azz鈥� in favor of 鈥渟ocial music.鈥�)
To complicate matters, an unheard session tape of Davis鈥檚, hidden away in his brownstone, becomes a prime lure not only for an unscrupulous record producer (Michael Stuhlbarg) but also for Braden, the discovery of which would cap his journalistic coup. Throughout these intrigues, memories are triggered in Davis鈥檚 fogbound mind, especially of his recording studio glory days and his ex-wife and muse, the dancer Frances Taylor (a fine Emayatzy Corinealdi).
鈥淢iles Ahead鈥� is obviously a labor of love, but it falls into the trap of so many biopics about anguished artists 鈥� it confuses the anguish with the artistry. A case could certainly be made that Davis鈥檚 greatness was achieved in spite of his demons, not because of them. As a writer-director, Cheadle spends so much time exhibiting Davis in various states of dissolution that his art becomes a sidelight to all the druggy thuggery on view. The聽 flashbacks and the film鈥檚 curlicue narrative structure are meant to mimic Davis鈥檚 jazz improvisations, but too often they just come across as a jumble. Cheadle wants to create a jazzy movie about jazz, but he doesn鈥檛 have the chops for it.
He鈥檚 on steadier ground as an actor, giving Davis鈥檚 spooky, murmurous hostilities a keen edge. We can see how, even at his lowest ebb, Davis, on some astral plane of his own devising, is still keyed into the scene, still listening intently for sounds. A sequence in which he expounds on Chopin is a revelation. For Davis, music begins and ends with the soul.
Thankfully Cheadle utilizes actual tracks of Davis鈥檚 albums. So, although much of the film is ersatz, the music sure isn鈥檛. You can go home afterward and groove on 鈥淪ketches of Spain鈥� or 鈥淢ilestones.鈥� You can remind yourself once again that Hollywood may not often get it right, but the music survives, and that鈥檚 all that really matters. Grade: B- (This film is rated R for strong language throughout, drug use, some sexuality/nudity, and brief violence.)
