Transcendance et aliénation : le musicien de jazz noir dans Bird et Mo’ Better Blues
- Resource Type
- article
- Authors
- Jean-Paul Gabillet
- Source
- Revue Française d'Etudes Américaines 57(1):275-282
- Subject
- Language
- French
- ISSN
- 0397-7870
Clint Eastwood's Bird and Spike Lee's Mo' Better Blues exemplify distinctive approaches to the Black jazz performer motif. Eastwood's is an idealized discourse on a properly American art form whereas Lee sees jazz as a metaphor of the African-American experience. The protagonists of both films typify specific relations between transcendence and alienation. Charlie Parker embodies the tragic interplay of aesthetic creation and self-destruction, and Bleek Gilliam the solipsism which isolates the artist from his community.