Let’s Get Lost

This biopic of the doomed trumpeter and baby-voiced crooner Chet Baker

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Dir: Bruce Weber

St: Chet Baker

This biopic of the doomed trumpeter and baby-voiced crooner Chet Baker is very much a product of the 80s jazz revival, all moody monochrome shots in a furze of cigarette smoke. However, just as you think you’re watching one of Bruce Weber‘s achingly hip fashion ads, the film takes shape as a rigorously researched, beautifully told documentary, following Chet around America and Europe in his final year, playing odd gigs for drug money.

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The contemporary interviews are cut with old footage, hilarious clips of Chet acting in terrible Italian b-movies, and excerpts from the 1960 Robert Wagner vehicle “All The Fine Young Cannibals” (apparently based on a young Chet). Friends, colleagues, wives and lovers provide insightful personal and musical commentary (“he was bad, he was trouble, and he was beautiful” says one ex wife); they also give us another perspective on Chet’s self-serving anecdotes (especially how he got his teeth knocked out). We see Chet as a troubled and unpleasant man, but it is to Weber’s credit that he captures the loveable rogue we hear in his music.

JOHN LEWIS

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Dir: Bruce Weber St: Chet Baker This biopic of the doomed trumpeter and baby-voiced crooner Chet Baker is very much a product of the 80s jazz revival, all moody monochrome shots in a furze of cigarette smoke. However, just as you think you're watching one of...Let's Get Lost