miles ahead

There is an old rumor that Ernest Hemingway could only write when he was in love, and that each of his books represents his love for one woman. It’s a nice story, if even only a reverie, and it came to mind while watching Miles Ahead, Don Cheadle’s directorial debut of the Miles Davis biopic. The short-lived love affair and marriage that Miles Davis had with Francis Taylor is a referential centerpiece of the film, and is presented as being inexorable to the reason for the jazz musician’s five year hiatus from music, during which he spiraled into drugs and reclusiveness, earning him a historical association with the eccentricities that characterized even Howard Hughes. Cheadle co-wrote Miles Ahead with Steven Baigelman, Stephen J. Rivele, and Christopher Wilkinson. It is based on the life of the great jazz musician, and the story is told in free form and flashback -as if, […]

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