Biographical documentaries are made in such a generic fashion these days that they feel mass-produced—a tendency that stings all the more when these films cover artists in general and musicians in particular. You can call it tabloid filmmaking, or Wikipedia-page biography, but these documentaries increasingly feel like the cinematic version of the insidious “smart brevity” trend that is overtaking journalism. In the streaming age, directors are encouraged to sandblast everything about their subjects down to the most digestible tidbits.
Against that backdrop, a film that not only delves deep into but actively embraces its central character’s messiness and contradictions becomes even more bracing. It’s a good time, then, for Let’s Get Lost (1988), Bruce Weber’s portrait of the cool jazz legend Chet Baker, to come back to theaters. The new 4K restoration by Cineric has brought the original 16mm black-and-white footage into breathtaking new detail, deepening both the film’s shadows and its rich silver. Watching it feels like entering a world of moving fly-on-the-wall magazine photos among Baker and his contemporaries.
Weber shot his footage and interviews with Baker and his friends, family, and peers during the last few years of the trumpeter’s life. The film travels from the Santa Monica beach to the 1987 Cannes Film Festival, where he sings “Just Friends” over a montage of other, more glamorous stars. (Weber’s debut feature Broken Noses was premiering there and he flew Baker to the festival himself to get performance material.) That climactic sequence is an apt miniature for the film, which constantly probes the friction between the mystique of Baker’s stardom and the often-ugly realities of his personal life, which were marred by addiction, abuse, and the neglect of others and himself.
In Let’s Get Lost, Baker is still possessed of an entrancingly soulful voice, but he otherwise seems listless and deflated, his beaten-out leathery visage making him appear far older than his late 50s. Other musicians and industry figures laud his preternatural skill on the trumpet and mic, while his former lovers and children can barely restrain their antipathy. His mother bluntly admits that, while she’s proud of his accomplishments, she considers him a disappointment as a son, and his kids (interviewed sitting on a couch together) sarcastically tell Weber that their dad is welcome to drop by sometime if he feels like it. Without explicitly asking the question, the film invites the viewer to appreciate Baker’s music and then consider its personal cost.
Let’s Get Lost screens tonight, November 2, and throughout next week, at Film Forum.
