Let's Get Lost (film)
Encyclopedia
Let's Get Lost is an American
documentary film
about the turbulent life and career of jazz trumpeter Chet Baker
written and directed by Bruce Weber
. The title is derived from a song by Jimmy McHugh
and Frank Loesser
from the 1943 film Happy Go Lucky which Baker recorded for Pacific Records
.
, Gerry Mulligan
, and Russ Freeman
, to the 1980s, when his heroin addiction and domestic indifference kept him in Europe. By juxtaposing these two decades, Weber presents a sharp contrast between the younger, handsome Baker — the statuesque idol who resembled a mix of James Dean
and Jack Kerouac
— to what he became, “a seamy looking drugstore cowboy-cum-derelict,” as J. Hoberman
put it in his Village Voice review.
Let’s Get Lost begins near the end of Baker’s life, on the beaches of Santa Monica
, and ends at the Cannes Film Festival
. Weber uses these moments in the present as bookends to the historic footage contained in the bulk of the film. The documentation ranges from vintage photographs by William Claxton
in 1953 to appearances on The Steve Allen Show
and kitschy, low budget Italian films Baker did for quick money.
. and convinced him to do a photo shoot and what was originally only going to be a three-minute film. Weber had wanted to make a short film from an Oscar Levant
song called "Blame It on My Youth". They had such a good time together that Baker started opening up to Weber. Afterwards, Weber convinced Baker to make a longer film and the musician agreed. Filming began in January 1987. Interviewing Baker was a challenge as Weber remembers, "Sometimes we'd have to stop for some reason or another and then, because Chet was a junkie and couldn't do things twice, we'd have to start all over again. But we grew to really like him".
In May 1987, when Weber's documentary Broken Noses premiered at the Cannes Film Festival
, he brought Baker along to shoot footage for Let's Get Lost. Weber spent a million dollars of his own money on the documentary and filmed it when he had the time and the money, describing it as a "a very ad hoc film". The film's title comes from a song performed by Baker and recorded on the album Chet Baker Sings and Plays, which was the first Baker album director Bruce Weber
bought when he was 16-years-old at a Pittsburgh record store.
.
The documentary was well-received by critics and currently has a 93% rating on Rotten Tomatoes
. Entertainment Weekly
gave the film an "A-" rating and said that Weber "created just about the only documentary that works like a novel, inviting you to read between the lines of Baker's personality until you touch the secret sadness at the heart of his beauty". In her review for the Los Angeles Times
, Carina Chocano wrote, "If there's a driving force to Weber's film, it seems to be delving into the nature and purpose of star quality and personal magnetism, which Baker had in droves but which didn't save him". In his review for the Washington Post, Hal Hinson wrote that what Weber "provides us is rapturous, deeply involving, and more than a little puzzling". Terrence Rafferty, in his review for the New York Times, wrote, "The enduring fascination of Let’s Get Lost, the reason it remains powerful even now, when every value it represents is gone, is that it’s among the few movies that deal with the mysterious, complicated emotional transactions involved in the creation of pop culture — and with the ambiguous process by which performers generate desire".
A newly restored print was screened at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival
.
for Best Documentary Feature in 1988.
Let's Get Lost was originally going to be released on DVD in 2007 along with an expanded version of the film's soundtrack. According to Weber, the DVD was to be released in December 2007 but failed to do so. The DVD was released in the United Kingdom on July 28, 2008.
Cinema of the United States
The cinema of the United States, also known as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period...
documentary film
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
about the turbulent life and career of jazz trumpeter Chet Baker
Chet Baker
Chesney Henry "Chet" Baker, Jr. was an American jazz trumpeter, flugelhornist and singer.Though his music earned him a large following , Baker's popularity was due in part to his "matinee idol-beauty" and "well-publicized drug habit."He died in 1988 in Amsterdam, the...
written and directed by Bruce Weber
Bruce Weber (photographer)
Bruce Weber is an American fashion photographer and occasional filmmaker. He is most widely known for his ad campaigns for Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, Pirelli, Abercrombie & Fitch, Revlon, and Gianni Versace, as well as his work for Vogue, GQ, Vanity Fair, Elle, Life, Interview, and Rolling Stone...
. The title is derived from a song by Jimmy McHugh
Jimmy McHugh
James Francis McHugh was a U.S. composer. One of the most prolific songwriters from the 1920s to the 1950s, he composed over 270 songs...
and Frank Loesser
Frank Loesser
Frank Henry Loesser was an American songwriter who wrote the lyrics and scores to the Broadway hits Guys and Dolls and How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying, among others. He won separate Tony Awards for the music and lyrics in both shows, as well as sharing the Pulitzer Prize for...
from the 1943 film Happy Go Lucky which Baker recorded for Pacific Records
Pacific Records
Pacific Records has been the name of at least two record labels:-Pacific Records :Pacific Records, was founded by Brian Witkin in 1999. Formerly known as "Real2Reel Records", in 2004 Pacific was introduced as a division of Wingnut Media Group, Inc, based in Del Mar, California. The company was...
.
Plot
A group of Baker fans, ranging from ex-associates to ex-wives and children, talk about the man. Weber’s film traces the man’s career from the 1950s, playing with jazz greats like Charlie ParkerCharlie Parker
Charles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....
, Gerry Mulligan
Gerry Mulligan
Gerald Joseph "Gerry" Mulligan was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, composer and arranger. Though Mulligan is primarily known as one of the leading baritone saxophonists in jazz history – playing the instrument with a light and airy tone in the era of cool jazz – he was also...
, and Russ Freeman
Russ Freeman (pianist)
Russell Donald Freeman was a bebop and cool jazz pianist and composer.Initially, Freeman was classically trained...
, to the 1980s, when his heroin addiction and domestic indifference kept him in Europe. By juxtaposing these two decades, Weber presents a sharp contrast between the younger, handsome Baker — the statuesque idol who resembled a mix of James Dean
James Dean
James Byron Dean was an American film actor. He is a cultural icon, best embodied in the title of his most celebrated film, Rebel Without a Cause , in which he starred as troubled Los Angeles teenager Jim Stark...
and Jack Kerouac
Jack Kerouac
Jean-Louis "Jack" Lebris de Kerouac was an American novelist and poet. He is considered a literary iconoclast and, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Kerouac is recognized for his spontaneous method of writing, covering topics such as Catholic...
— to what he became, “a seamy looking drugstore cowboy-cum-derelict,” as J. Hoberman
J. Hoberman
James Lewis Hoberman , also known as J. Hoberman, is an American film critic. He is currently the senior film critic for The Village Voice, a post he has held since 1988.-Education:...
put it in his Village Voice review.
Let’s Get Lost begins near the end of Baker’s life, on the beaches of Santa Monica
Santa Mônica
Santa Mônica is a town and municipality in the state of Paraná in the Southern Region of Brazil.-References:...
, and ends at the Cannes Film Festival
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
. Weber uses these moments in the present as bookends to the historic footage contained in the bulk of the film. The documentation ranges from vintage photographs by William Claxton
William Claxton (photographer)
William Claxton was an American photographer and author.-Biography:Born in Pasadena, California, Claxton's works included a book of photographs of Steve McQueen, and Jazz Life, a book of photographs depicting jazz artists in the 1960s. He was most noted for his photography of jazz musicians...
in 1953 to appearances on The Steve Allen Show
Steve Allen (comedian)
Stephen Valentine Patrick William "Steve" Allen was an American television personality, musician, composer, actor, comedian, and writer. Though he got his start in radio, Allen is best known for his television career. He first gained national attention as a guest host on Arthur Godfrey's Talent...
and kitschy, low budget Italian films Baker did for quick money.
Development
Bruce Weber first became interested in Chet Baker when he spotted a photograph of the musician in a Pittsburgh record store on the cover of the 1955 vinyl LP Chet Baker Sings and Plays with Bud Shank, Russ Freeman and Strings when he was 16-years-old. Weber first met Baker in the winter of 1986 at a club in New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. and convinced him to do a photo shoot and what was originally only going to be a three-minute film. Weber had wanted to make a short film from an Oscar Levant
Oscar Levant
Oscar Levant was an American pianist, composer, author, comedian, and actor. He was more famous for his mordant character and witticisms, on the radio and in movies and television, than for his music.-Life and career:...
song called "Blame It on My Youth". They had such a good time together that Baker started opening up to Weber. Afterwards, Weber convinced Baker to make a longer film and the musician agreed. Filming began in January 1987. Interviewing Baker was a challenge as Weber remembers, "Sometimes we'd have to stop for some reason or another and then, because Chet was a junkie and couldn't do things twice, we'd have to start all over again. But we grew to really like him".
In May 1987, when Weber's documentary Broken Noses premiered at the Cannes Film Festival
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
, he brought Baker along to shoot footage for Let's Get Lost. Weber spent a million dollars of his own money on the documentary and filmed it when he had the time and the money, describing it as a "a very ad hoc film". The film's title comes from a song performed by Baker and recorded on the album Chet Baker Sings and Plays, which was the first Baker album director Bruce Weber
Bruce Weber (photographer)
Bruce Weber is an American fashion photographer and occasional filmmaker. He is most widely known for his ad campaigns for Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, Pirelli, Abercrombie & Fitch, Revlon, and Gianni Versace, as well as his work for Vogue, GQ, Vanity Fair, Elle, Life, Interview, and Rolling Stone...
bought when he was 16-years-old at a Pittsburgh record store.
Reception
Let's Get Lost had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film FestivalToronto International Film Festival
The Toronto International Film Festival is a publicly-attended film festival held each September in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In 2010, 339 films from 59 countries were screened at 32 screens in downtown Toronto venues...
.
The documentary was well-received by critics and currently has a 93% rating on Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
. Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
gave the film an "A-" rating and said that Weber "created just about the only documentary that works like a novel, inviting you to read between the lines of Baker's personality until you touch the secret sadness at the heart of his beauty". In her review for the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
, Carina Chocano wrote, "If there's a driving force to Weber's film, it seems to be delving into the nature and purpose of star quality and personal magnetism, which Baker had in droves but which didn't save him". In his review for the Washington Post, Hal Hinson wrote that what Weber "provides us is rapturous, deeply involving, and more than a little puzzling". Terrence Rafferty, in his review for the New York Times, wrote, "The enduring fascination of Let’s Get Lost, the reason it remains powerful even now, when every value it represents is gone, is that it’s among the few movies that deal with the mysterious, complicated emotional transactions involved in the creation of pop culture — and with the ambiguous process by which performers generate desire".
A newly restored print was screened at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
.
Awards
Let's Get Lost was nominated for an Academy AwardAcademy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
for Best Documentary Feature in 1988.
Home media
Let's Get Lost was released on VHS and Laserdisc in Japan by Nippon Columbia on November 21, 1993.Let's Get Lost was originally going to be released on DVD in 2007 along with an expanded version of the film's soundtrack. According to Weber, the DVD was to be released in December 2007 but failed to do so. The DVD was released in the United Kingdom on July 28, 2008.