Born to Be Blue (2015)

Great photography, good direction and decent acting gave substance to this movie, which unluckily suffered from a poor script. The plot is too diffuse and the characters appear to be poorly structured. While the idea of showing Chet Baker during his struggle to regain ability to play the trumpet is okay, the film focuses too much on the role of his relationship with Jane in his comeback. To the viewer it is never really clear why this relationship started and on what it is based on. Chet is presented from one direction, he doesn't really change during the movie and he is never really introduced, this leaves a gap that makes it harder to follow the character in his struggling.

Fmovies: This movie is a fictional reconstruction of a short period in the life of Baker, during the 60s. Starting with Chet in an Italian jail in 1966, the story quickly moves to New York, where Chet is invited to play himself in a documentary about his life. Then follows one of the most amazing scenes I ever saw.

Opening as a black & white flashback, we see a young Chet in 1954, playing very cool in Birdland, with Miles Davis and Dizzie Gillespie in the audience. In the backstage we see what should be Baker's initiation to heroin, but we discover that the scene is actually part of the documentary.

Brilliant film-making is made of such scenes conveying all the magic of cinema.

The story continues with Chet trying to rebuild his "career" with a help of a female artist, unfortunate enough to be attracted by his relatively good looks and melancholic charm. The pair moves from New York to California, where Chet swear to be clean and ready to play some serious jazz.

Unfortunately, Chet was the master of all junkies, unreliable, selfish and self-destructive. His girlfriend wisely dumps him and off he goes to enjoy the company of heroin until the day he died.

I am not a jazz fan and never heard any of the music Baker played, so I cannot comment about the remarks about the music not being good enough or even detrimental to the movie. For me it was a very well written and executed film, with a solid plot and good performances.

PS: as far as "blackening the reputation" of Baker... I never understood why junkie musicians should be idolized. The history of contemporary music is paved with unpleasant, self-destructive characters who had exceptional musical skills. Egotism does not make them any less talented, but certainly does not add to their charm.

If you want to see what years of heroin addiction do to the body, just check the photos of Chet from his early 20s until the end of his life. The crevasses on his face mirrors the destruction of his internal organs....

Ethan Hawke is my favorite actor and I make it a point never to miss his movies. Just for that reason I know about 'Born to be Blue'. Where I live, this movie will never get screened in a movie hall, I'll never find a DVD and it will probably rarely be ever shown on TV. I guess even in Canada(Chet Baker's home country), not many have seen it yet. Such is the low profile of Ethan Hawke's art cinema role preferences that most of the times people come to know about these movies long after they are released. That trend is in-fact exemplified by this semi-fictional biopic about Chet Baker, the prolific jazz trumpeter, heroin addict and a free spirit.

The story is a bit of a noir mixed with real life incidents. It plays like a heroin fueled jazz improvisio. Chet Baker, the artist on whose life it is based on, was a bit of an enigma himself. Starting way back in the heydays of jazz, Chet was a white artist making his mark in the black dominated music scene. Estranged from his father and addicted to substance abuse, he was on a lookout for love that was always around the corner but never enough. A typical self destructive musician. The biggest crest in the plot comes in the form of actual physical harm. Details are unclear but some rivalries lead to him getting beaten up and losing his ability to play the trumpet. We see a lot of movies about 'comebacks' but this one is real. It is not just about overcoming defeat or depression. It is about finding yourself being propelled by passion and passion alone to achieve something impossible.

Ethan Hawke has done it again! Ever since Gattaca, I have found his performance mesmerizing. As Chet Baker, he embodies the pain and madness of a jazz artist so brilliantly that you would forget the flaws of the person and start loving him for what he is. Oh! and Hawke sings in his own voice in two of the songs. Soundtrack of the movie consists of some of the best Jazz standards and songs performed by David Braid. So, if you're a jazz aficionado then you should not miss it for the world.

Carmen Ejogo is a fresh face from England and plays the persistent love interest of Chet in the film. This is her first performance that I've come across and she is scintillating. To say that her role is split in two parts is enough preview without spoiling the rest. I implore you to go watch this film. Go with a lover if you can because it is about heartbreaks more than personal struggles.

Born to Be Blue fmovies. Holy Chet! The Chet Baker biopic "Born to Be Blue" was a whopper of a film. Its suave style is reminiscent of another Baker jazzy film, which is the classic "The Fabulous Baker Boys". Chet Baker was a renowned trumpeter and jazz legend who had a near lifelong addiction to heroin. "Born to Be Blue" focuses on Baker in his 40's. His career has gone down the tubes, he gets brutally beaten by some drug dealers, and he cannot play his trumpet due to his injuries to his mouth. Baker then meets a beautiful aspiring actress named Jane who plays as an inspiration for Chet to get sober and make a jazzy comeback. Writer-Director Robert Budreau plays all the right tones in his direction and screenplay of the picture. Steve Cosens' cinematography was a picturesque mastery that should get him many encores to work in other movies. Ethan Hawke does not blow it at all as Baker; in fact, his Baker Act is the best performance of his illustrious career. His work as Baker is born to be an Oscar. Carmen Ejogo was sweet music to my ears in her performance as both Jane and Baker's ex-wife Elaine who was shown in flashbacks. Callum Keith Rennie manages to do some fine work as Baker's longtime manager Dick. The music of "Born to Be Blue" was a grand piece of Chet. I have no doubt that this movie will be in my Top 10 or even 5 of my favorite films of 2016. I was absolutely enamored with this stupendous movie! True "Born to Be Blue", baby I love you! ***** Excellent

Ethan Hawke as Chet Baker is giving us a characterization of Chet Baker not as the person but surely as what it felt like to be Chet Baker. It is Chet Baker trying to understand himself and how his music was a projection of himself to which he was always striving to make more perfect. No human can do this therefore the heroin was an escape from himself.

Carmen Ejogo positively shines as the two women in his life. As his girlfriend Elaine she tries to bring some sense of balance and grounding into his mixed-up life and realizes late into their loveship she will always be second to his music and drugs.

This story is fascinating and painful. And this is where the viewer may experience compassion burnout because Baker is forever making the same mistakes. He cannot see this but you the viewer will see it and by movies end you just do not care anymore. Everything about this movie is right but by the end you are just at the point of being bored!

Still this is a film worth every minute of viewing time.

"Born To Be Blue" (2015 release; 97 min.) is a movie about jazz legend Chet Baker. As the film opens, we are in "Lucca, Italy, 1966" and baker is in prison, only to be bailed out by a Hollywood director. When then go to "Birdland, New York City, 1954" when Baker is at the peak of his fame and fortune, only to be exposed to heroin by a femme fatale. As it turns out, we then understand that this entire sequence was reenacted back in "Los Angeles, 1966" with Baker, now on the com-back trail, starring in his own movie. Alas, misfortune strikes again, as Baker is viciously assaulted, to such a degree that he cannot play the trumpet anymore. Now he faces even longer odds to come back. At this point we are 15 min. into the movie but to tell you more would spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out.

Couple of comments: the movie does not tell us that this is a "true story" or "inspired by true events", and for good reason, as this is NOT a bio-pic in any way, shape or form about Chet Baker. Instead, the movie brings a fictionalized composite of certain elements and episodes of Baker's life. Canadian writer-director Robert Budreau makes this into his own cocktail mix, and the end result is quite good, and certainly entertaining. That said, the movie would not have succeeded if it weren't for the outstanding performance by Ethan Hawke as Chet Baker, I mean, Hawke nails it. Kudos also to Carmen Ejogo as Baker's love interest Jane (who is African-American). There are a number of key scenes in the movie. One that stands out for me is when Baker and Jane visit Baker's parents in Oklahoma. At one point, the less than friendly (and outright racist) Baker's dad sneers "I never dragged the Baker name through the mud", to which a stunned Baker has no reply, and simply walks away (and leaves for good), wow. If there is one criticism of the movie, I felt that the music was not given a full enough role. There are long stretches in the film where music seems to be an afterthought. Given Baker's fierce love for music, music should never be an afterthought when looking at Baker's life.

"Born To Be Blue" premiered to great acclaim at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival, but despite that only got a very limited theater release in the US (it never made it to my local art-house theater here in Cincinnati). So glad I finally picked this up as a DVD. A comparison between this movie and last year's "Miles Ahead" (about jazz legend Miles Davis) is inevitable. I found both movies are quite well done, each in their own way. If you liked "Miles Ahead", you are bound to also like "Born To Be Blue", and vice versa. Bottom line: "Born to be Blue" is worth checking out, be it on Amazon Instant Video or on DVD/Blu-ray.