Bolden

source: Bolden

First. This is not a biography in any way. Its not even a docudrama of New Orleans Jazz. Further, most music numbers are played in brief or relegated to the background. Worse for a movie that uses a real musician's name for the title, half the music was created new just for the movie. This movie makes little sense. At first I thought it was flashbacks until it starts jumping very quickly (2 second snippets) to alternative realities. Its what the writer or director thinks a deranged mind with some experience as a jazz musician might have thoughts of while in a mental hospital. Only about two minutes of the entire movie are based in reality of the nurse at the hospital. This movie has no cohesive story. No purpose. No value. One of the Worst movies I've watched in a long time.

I would have liked to see the story from beginning to end rather than the "artsy" flashbacks and dreams. It's such a good story and the music he made was incredible but this movie was to hard to follow.

Music-great; Production-good; Acting-seems fine; Story telling-lousy Try again with a different director.

According to Forbes Dan Prizker has a net worth of $2.3 BILLION dollars so if he wants to squander x amount plus eleven years turning out a film based on a very real person about whom next to nothing is known then who's to say nay. I've already written about this in Jazz Journal and I repeat here what I said there that everything I know about Buddy Bolden I learned from a great book entitled hear Me Talkin' To Ya in which jazz musicians who were still alive in the mid nineteen fifties reminisced about their lives to form a living oral history of the art form. Pritzker's film - clearly a labour of love - adds precisely nothing to the sparse data I gleaned from the book but that doesn't mean the film should be dismissed. We do know, for example, that Bolden was admitted to the Louisiana Hospital for the mentally ill and died there a few years later and Pritzker seizes on this as a hook to draw us into the film which is, in effect, filtered via the mind of a schizophrenic, triggered by a concert on the radio performed by Boldens' fellow (and equally real musician Louis Armstrong. Armstrong, of course, played the trumpet whilst Bolden played the cornet at the same time - the turn of the century - and in the same place - New Orleans - and is thought in some quarters to be responsible for 'inventing' jazz. Out of this slenderest of threads Prizker weaves his account of the birth of jazz and modern day trumpeter Wynton Marsalis contributes a score faithful to the sound and style of the period. English actor Gary Carr, known mostly via his roles on television, turns in a fine, albeit virtually silent, performance as the eponymous Bolden and the film is well worth seeing.

Many reviewers must have missed the part of Ken Burns Jazz that centers on most of the roots of the truly American form of music from the last century? Buddy Bolden was the style influencer for Louis "Pops" Armstrong, who grew up in an adopted setting in New Orleans. Armstrong often heard Buddy Bolden playing on river boats from the river banks into the wee hours of the morning. His adoptive parents recognized the value of music and instrument training early on. When they took Armstrong to select an instrument to learn, they hinted around about a woodwind or string instrument, but Armstrong was already hooked on the Coronet from listening to Bolden and others in the City. What may be very distracting to some of the viewers is the fact that Bolden was a schizophrenic with hallucinations and deep depression, For this, he was eventually institutionalized. The story is managed as Bolden sees it, eventually from his cell at the asylum that he was interned into. This is not any harder than following about any Quentin Tarantino movie or others which find a way of describing current and past sections of time into 90 or so minutes of film. This film has the burden of also showing how even the most talented people of color were often taken advantage of by crooked, managers, record companies, theatre owners and other grifters and swindlers in the entertainment industry of the time. I believe they do an exceptional job of placing Bolden within the reach of several unsavory characters beset on separating him from his music and talent in order to pad their own pockets. Wynton Marsalis wrote and orchestrated the music for this film and likely is the only living human being capable of doing so with the true essence of the time, characters and musical theme of the times. From "Jazz", by Burns et.al., Marsalis explains the voices of the New Orleans sound and the POP of the Bolden style that he was ultimately famous for both as unique and as a major influence to Armstrong, one of Marsalis's iconic performance player. In "Jazz", Marsalis narrative and emotion in discussing these two, Bolden and Armstrong, reveals his feelings for them and their places as Jazz icons of the first degree. If only they had a scene with Sidney Bechet (1897-1959), the New Orleans sax player that would have been about Bolden's age. Mr. Bechet was a brawler. If he didn't get paid right for a gig, he would take his fee out in damages upon the locale he was playing in. He was also a victim of unscrupulous dealings with the white ownership structure in New Orleans. Early in life, he left the US for Europe where he and many other Jazz musicians of the time went to play to full houses of appreciative, jazz starved fans. Remember, those fans did not yet have records. Live performances were the rage of the time.

This is not a Buddy Bolden biography because too little is known about him. This film tells of the legend of Bolden and is filmed like one big nightmare/beautiful dream, sequence. Even though I'm not a big jazz fan, the music was fabulous and I couldn't get enough. Excellent acting on the part of Gary Carr in particular, and the entire cast in general. It also makes you wonder about all the important events, good or bad, that went unrecorded in history. This movie is well worth your time as long as you know what to expect.

As other reviewers previously mentioned ,I was probably more confused about the life of Buddy Bolden after watching this movie than before. It jumps way too much between timelines ,which usually works when used in moderation ( think " Get On Up " , "Ray " , " Miles Ahead " etc.) In the filmmakers' defense ,I think this is meant to convey the choppy memories of a schizophrenic looking back on his life ,while listening to a radio concert of Louis Armstrong. A good enough Idea ,but dragged out over a couple of hours ,it just tends to get confusing ,and frankly ,annoying. There are a couple of good fantasy(ish) scenes. The scene of when he was a young boy at his mother's workplace was brilliant ,and the parachute scene was just ,well ,bizarre! I had to google the history of the parachute ,just to be sure! All in all ,the acting was okay with what little dialogue there was ,the music was brilliant ,but maybe could have flowed a bit better. Overall ,maybe worth killing a couple of hours if you're interested in the history of jazz ,but I don't believe this movie will be a classic in years to come ,like some other musical biopics.

Taken from the perspective of Bolden's asylum residency and the reflections of his life, success, frustration and failure, I found the movie at times restless, but overall very interesting. The period sets, costuming, and social tension make the movie work, as the shards of his life and his ambition dovetail into his ultimate failure and loss. In reality, little is known of his music or the facts of his life, but his influence was profound and shaped jazz (jass) music. To do Bolden justice I would be happy to see a proper documentary, but if this movie keeps his accomplishments in our culture's mind then it was a good endeavor. Now go read his Wikipedia page, and listen to some early King Oliver or Louis Armstrong records!

I thoroughly enjoyed this, watching it again and again. The music itself is superbly arranged, performed, mixed, etc. The editing is superb, flashing back and forth through time and space with ease and power. The story is a blend of the shining power of artistic innovation, together with the darkness of racism, narcotics, personal life tragedy, the jeopardy of artistic creation, and mental illness. The acting is superb and deeply engaging. Not a simplistically "enjoyable" picture, but an important one to see on many levels, and my personal best picture of the year.