Marsalis, not Miles

Rating: Null/10 (20 February 2017)

Once in a while this happens: a film that does everything well enough to avoid major criticism. The perfect blockbuster according to the book of David O.Selznick. A few things are required:
-a pair of lovable and bankable stars (girl and boy) that have the sympathy of a majority of the film-goers, even some people who don't go so often to films but recognize them as stars. They have to be given roles that fit their mold, where they can act as lovable as everyone expect them to be;
-give the film a story-line as easy to follow as possible, a simple romance that holds all the plot points that will make it look as something big and breath-taking. Aquaitance, fall in love, crisis, redemption...
-put that story-line in the context of a bigger theme and twist it in a way that will ultimately prevent the lovers from the desired happy- end. This is melodrama, where the bigger context affects the smaller lives (war in Gone with the wind; religious prejudice and politics in Ben-Hur; the shipwreck in Titanic...). In this case we have Hollywood and a simple dynamic of love vs the pursuit of dreams;
-produce the whole thing as lush as you can and as likable as the pair of stars: colorful saturated photography, songs everyone can easily hum, dance numbers that tap into the memory of older loved musicals. Competent and safe craftsmanship.
-Sell the whole thing, invest as much or more selling the thing as in producing it.
The self-reference here is obvious and falls along two lines, both equally safe and obvious:
-the movie is set in movieland, she even serves coffee in a movie studio. it works the most ostensibly artificial film genre of them all, and in the way makes obvious and safe quotes of classical musicals (plus the Rebel even more obvious bits). Among those quotes is one where they walk through the 4th wall and we get to see the whole film crew, equipment, lights, etc.
-the jazz bits. Our boy is a conservative jazz fan, the bop guy who thinks Miles's fusion is rock or pop, or whatever. So are the people behind this film, or so they show themselves to be. This film is supposed to stand for the "new films" as old jazz stands for "new jazz": genuine and "true" by comparison.
The by now very celebrated ending, with the alternative version where the two lovers stay together is the ultimate safety device employed. They sink the ship, and kill Jack, but just think that maybe the viewers will be put away and so they relive an alternative version of the last third of the movie and film in a few minutes, crammed with music and narrative information, the script draft that was thrown in the garbage for the sake of the "tragic" element of grand love themed blockbuster.
If you want a film that is well crafted escapism while seeming more than that, this is it. This is being canonized by Hollywood, and for years to come you will hear bits of the music in academy awards ceremonies and see it in lists of best of, etc. But if you want adventure, if you want risk, than this is the total opposite. It's obscenely safe, and ultimately pointless. This is the cinematic version of Marsalis, sailing competently and expertly through the Seas that others have charted long ago, kind of a cinematic version of a tribute band. I think I'm going to hear a Miles record after writing this.
PS – this rather conservative effort is, as I write, ranked 57th on the top250 list in IMDb! At the same time Trump is sitting in the White House. Birdman is now past, its adventure over. In a few decades America (and the world by default) will observe this, and maybe process how mainstream poor/conservative storytelling habits correlates to political manipulation of the masses.