MILES AHEAD
© 2016 Jeanne Powell
"Miles Ahead" is an innovative film about the late musician and jazz pioneer Miles Davis; it was an official selection of the New York Film Festival and the Sundance Film Festival.
Directed, co-produced, co-written by and starring Don Cheadle in a career-defining performance, the film eschews a straight-forward biographical path and instead explores the life of Miles Davis in a series of impressions and flashbacks. This approach is full of risks but Cheadle matches the film technique with mercurial behavior and surreal moments in the colorful life of Davis, and it all works.
In the middle of a dazzling and prolific career at the forefront of modern jazz innovation, Miles Davis virtually disappears from public view for a period of five years in the late 1970s. Exhausted and ailing from a deteriorating hip bone, Davis falls into a downward spiral fueled by social drugs, painkillers, alcohol and self-doubt. Memories, both musical and marital, haunt this brilliant musician as he dodges inquisitive media and predatory recording executives.
Wearing gold chains and limping with authority, Miles outwits those who wish to drag him from his self-imposed obscurity – just one more interview, just one more LP. He responds with curses, telephone rants, slammed doors, barbed humor, speeding away in cars and waving an occasional hand gun. There are ironic and hilarious moments as everybody jockeys for position in his life, while he searches for himself in a bottle, a line on a coffee table, or a half-remembered melody.
His unpredictable behavior in that five year hiatus is fueled with memories of his talented and beautiful first wife, dancer Frances Taylor (played by Emayatzy Corinealdi). She is his muse, whose support he risks losing when he becomes abusive. Their eight-year marriage founders in heart-breaking scenes when Miles deteriorates both mentally and physically.
This film finally was made after several setbacks. Partial financing came from IndieGoGo fundraising. Some of Cheadle's co-stars had limited availability – three weeks – so there was no time for mistakes. First-time director Don Cheadle said "We had to get it right the first time. No second bites of the apple."
How did Cheadle and his colleagues get the caper-oriented film approach to work? The script by Don Cheadle and Steven Baigelman was visually oriented and keyed to certain music cues. According to co-producer Pamela Hirsch, "The script was like a piece of music. I would get calls from crew members telling me that when they read it in conjunction with the piece of music that would be used, it changed the whole experience. It enabled them to visualize the pacing of the script because everything flowed like a piece of music. "
It was during this troubled period that Miles Davis released several of his signature recordings including the groundbreaking "Sketches of Spain" and "Someday My Prince Will Come." Cheadle was deliberate in favoring the narrative as composition – loose and impressionistic – metaphoric. "Nefertiti" played on the soundtrack while Davis was quarreling with his wife Frances. In the boxing scene at a prizefight, the director used "So What" from the album "Kind of Blue."
Don Cheadle's credits as an actor include "Devil in a Blue Dress" with Denzel Washington, "Flight" with Denzel Washington, "Crash" with Terrence Howard and Thandie Newton, and "Hotel Rwanda" with Nick Nolte. The wily music reporter Dave Braden is played by Ewan McGregor, whose films include "Trainspotting," "Moulin Rouge," and "Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace." Emayatzy Corinealdi enchants us as Miles Davis' lovely first wife, Frances Taylor. She previously appeared in Ava DuVerney's critically acclaimed film, "Middle of Nowhere" with David Oyelowo.
To prepare for his role as Miles, Don Cheadle immersed himself in Davis' life and music. He learned to play trumpet. Wynton Marsalis, a good friend of Davis, mentored Cheadle in his search for the music of Miles. In a wonderful sequence, Cheadle is showing playing with Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Esperanza Spaulding and Gary Clark Jr. Miles had played with Hancock and Shorter. Cheadle said, "It's exactly the kind of group Miles might put together, a collage, very free form, almost like watching a rehearsal that's open to the public."
Miles Davis was a brilliant musical pioneer, elusive and mercurial in his private life. Don Cheadle did his homework, channeled the muse successfully, and brings Davis to life in a way which will send the viewer to her own musical library to listen with new ears. Recommended.
