Chet’s Zeitgeist

When introducing his Chet Baker documentary Let’s Get Lost at the MoMA last night, director Bruce Weber described the trumpeter-vocalist as a “character.” However, someone can be both a character and a crummy human being. Lost actually screened as part of a retrospective tribute to the Zeitgeist Films, the independent distributor, not the Jazz Score series, but the timing is fortuitous now that the MoMA attracting more jazz patrons to its screenings.

As a film, Lost is undeniably impressive. Weber has a keen eye for dramatic images and Jeff Preiss’s cinematography is starkly effective. The problem is the subject. Deep in a Dream, James Gavin’s biography of Baker, paints a picture of an abusive junkie, who happened to occasionally play jazz. Weber’s treatment is not nearly as harsh, but there is no camouflaging the toll Baker’s habit wrecked on his body. Some in the audience audibly gasped on hearing the emaciated trumpeter was fifty-seven at the time of filming. (He would be dead at fifty-eight.)

Weber might consider Baker a character, but it is difficult to understand why. We only see a flicker of light behind his eyes when Halema (wife #2) is mentioned, but it is quickly extinguished. The Chet Baker of Lost seems like an empty shell, onto which his wives and girlfriends (and maybe even Weber) projected what they wanted to see.

Baker recorded some magical sessions for Dick Bock’s Pacific Jazz label. However, his later discography is very “hit-or-miss,” reflecting the corrosive influence of his habit and the resulting frequent need of a quick buck. Arguably, his greatest talent was for squandering his gifts and exploiting those closest to him.

This is the second time I have seen Lost on the big screen in just over one year. While my response remains mixed, I enjoyed it more last night, probably because greater time has passed since reading Gavin. Again, this reaction is all about the problematic Baker and not the film itself. Lost is an iconic jazz documentary that has permanently shaped how Baker is remembered, both as the withered death’s head of the 1980’s and the La Dolce Vita-like Italian movie footage that Weber uses as the film’s inspired conclusion. It is worth seeing Lost if you have the opportunity, but how you might feel about Baker afterward, I can make no guarantees.

Chet in Rep

At one point in Bruce Weber’s documentary Let’s Get Lost, Diane Vavra, Chet Baker’s on-again-off-again lover recounts falling for the trumpeter player after talking to him for twenty seconds. Viewers of the film now screening in repertory at the Film Forum however, may find Baker harder to like after spending two hours with him.

Let’s Get Lost is something of an iconic work in its own right. The long out-of-print VHS edition has been a hard target grail quest for many collectors. As visually compelling as Lost is, it does not necessarily burnish Baker’s reputation. Weber seems to take exquisite pleasure in contrasting the early matinee idol Baker with the craggy, not-long-for-the-world Baker of the late 1980’s.

Baker’s infamous drug addiction clearly took a toll on the man and his music. Far more troubling though are his abusive relationships with women, particularly Vavra. Watching Lost, it seems the great “what if” question of jazz, would be what would have happened had Baker stayed with Halema, wife number two, immortalized by William Claxton on the cover of My Funny Valentine. Biographers have suggested she was the closest thing to the love of his life, and in Lost, he seems to look even more distant when discussing her. Unfortunately, their marriage would not survive the chaos of Baker’s notorious stint in Italy.

Let’s Get Lost is a love letter to a junkie—a musician who, though erratic in his later years, could still summon wonderful music on a good night. It’s a fascinating film in its way. Film Forum is currently showing it suburban multiplex style on multiple screens. It’s definitely worth checking out there and hopefully it will make its way to other repertory theaters across the country.