The approach to Stanley Nelson’s documentary about the monstrously iconic Miles Davis is all wrong. It’s perfunctory, where it should have been as wild and free-flowing as the art and the artist himself. I wouldn’t call it boring, but it lacks a certain vibrancy and life. While Birth of the Cool gets the job done, I can’t help but wonder what could have been had the music of Miles Davis set its pace instead of a rigid chronological timeline.
I’m no expert on Miles Davis or jazz. I am, however, a curious sort by nature so I often rely on documentaries like these to fill me in. In this regard, Birth of the Cool succeeds, albeit on a cursory level. I certainly know more now about the jazz great than I did before but I can’t help but feel that I was merely handed the cliff notes. Unfortunately, this is the Achilles heel of many documentaries. Summarizing the entirety of a life in under two hours is a difficult task. Picking what to include and what to leave out can’t be easy, but the best docs paint the most complete pictures.
If I may, I’d like to offer one suggestion: don’t skimp on the negatives. No one is asking for a hit piece on someone like Miles Davis, but the turbulence of his life is an important factor in both his music and his legacy. When his (or anyone’s) faults are mentioned only in passing followed by a quick change of subject, I will always feel that something is being hidden from me intentionally. We don’t want glorified negativity or mean-spirited condemnations, just honesty. His mental health issues, substance abuse, and violent tendencies are contributing factors to his work. They should be explored with vigor.
That said, Birth of the Cool is a great place to start if you’re interested in jazz music and its ambassadors. I’m listening (for the very first time) to a Miles Davis piece called “Flamenco Sketches” as I write this. It’s enchanting, and without Stanley Nelson’s film, I probably would have never sought it out. I can forgive clinical pacing and watered down storytelling if a film has something else to offer – and if that something is the music of Miles Davis, it’s hard not to make a recommendation based on that alone.
James is a writer, skateboarder, record collector, wrestling nerd, and tabletop gamer living with his family in Asheville, North Carolina. He is a member of the Southeastern Film Critics Association, the North Carolina Film Critics Association, and contributes to The Daily Orca, Razorcake Magazine, Mountain Xpress, and Asheville Movies.