Photographer Bruce Webber's Let's Get Lost featuring trumpeter Chet Baker on his last legs is like looking at a car wreck. The devastation is riveting. The highly talented Baker burned out and as we eventually find out still using, matter of factly goes over a self destructive career that also saw success as a singer with some film acting thrown in. But for Baker the heroin was every bit as important as the horn. Family, friends and gigs all took a back seat to it and interviews with ex-lovers, band mates and even his mother recount the disappointment he was to all.
Lost' form is overly stylized at times and Webber allows some scenes to run over ( a ride with friends in a Caddy convertible is far too long) but with the enigmatic Baker (vacillating between lucid and in a fog) at its center it remains absorbing most of the way. Critical assessment is pedestrian and comparisons to Miles Davis just doesn't wash since Baker's career peaked early and never recovered due to his substance abuse. His unique singing style (My Funny Valentine) is what he is remembered most for today and while this is a film that comes to praise Baker where it can (Webber and he seem to bond during the filming) it ultimately buries him, announcing in post script that a year later he will fall to his death from an Amsterdam hotel window. As Chet would have said, "What a drag, man."
Lost' form is overly stylized at times and Webber allows some scenes to run over ( a ride with friends in a Caddy convertible is far too long) but with the enigmatic Baker (vacillating between lucid and in a fog) at its center it remains absorbing most of the way. Critical assessment is pedestrian and comparisons to Miles Davis just doesn't wash since Baker's career peaked early and never recovered due to his substance abuse. His unique singing style (My Funny Valentine) is what he is remembered most for today and while this is a film that comes to praise Baker where it can (Webber and he seem to bond during the filming) it ultimately buries him, announcing in post script that a year later he will fall to his death from an Amsterdam hotel window. As Chet would have said, "What a drag, man."