From November 15-21, Film Forum will be hosting a retrospective of documentary filmmaker Bruce Weber. There will be screenings of all of his works, including "Broken Noses" (1987), "Chop Suey" (2001) and "A Letter To True" (2004), as well as short films, music videos and commercials. But the focus of the festival is the 25th anniversary of Weber's most famous film, the Oscar-nominated documentary "Let's Get Lost".
"Let's Get Lost" tells the captivating, heartbreaking life story of jazz icon Chet Baker. The famous trumpet player/singer became famous in the 50's as a golden-throated, swoon-worthy James Dean lookalike before drug addiction, stints in jail and a savage beating led to his premature decline. In the course of 120 languorous minutes, Weber documents both the rise and fall of Baker, through conversations with the musician himself, as well as old footage of his early career and interviews with his friends, coworkers and family members. The juxtaposition of the early Baker, with his matinee-idol looks and promising career, and the sunken, craggy face of the lonely addict he became, is a constant punch in the gut.
Before he transitioned to filmmaking, Bruce Weber was a respected fashion photographer, famous for shooting ad campaigns for the likes of Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren and Gianni Versace, as well as working for magazines including Vogue, GQ and Rolling Stone. Weber brings his photographic eye to this film: instead of laying out events in the straightforward approach many may expect from a documentary, he intersperses the interviews with prolonged musical sequences, collages of pictures, and artistic shots of palm trees, beaches and highways. What results is a unique fusion of styles. With its combination of fact and flourish, it becomes more an experimental film than a documentary. You don't watch "Let's Get Lost" -- you experience it.
Baker passed away in May of 1988 at the age of 58, after "Let's Get Lost" had finished shooting, but before its release. He was found on the street below his second-floor hotel balcony with fatal wounds to his head; his death was deemed accidental, although the copious amounts of both cocaine and heroin in his body undoubtedly contributed to it. The knowledge of Baker's untimely demise haunts the entire film, turning an artistic life study into a veritable Shakespearean tragedy, its hero's fate as etched in stone as Hamlet's. "Let's Get Lost" is a dreamlike requiem for a beloved icon that is at once bleak and beautiful.
The Bruce Weber series runs from Friday Nov. 15 through Thursday Nov. 21 with special appearances by Bruce Weber himself on Friday & Saturday. Get tickets here.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PfdYQzeJk0[/youtube]
