Let's Get Lost

This film is a must see for any Baker fan and even any Jazz fan. Baker really did redefine the 1950's jazz scene with his combination of mesmerising trumpet playing and angel like vocals. His instantly recognisable style has brought joy to many jazz fans over the years and even now his legend lives on some 16 years after his death in the most mysterious of circumstances.

This film tells a very candid story of Chet charting his terrible affliction with drugs as well as honing in on his god given talents. It is very highly recommended and is long overdue for a release on DVD as some fellow reviewers have alluded to. I will certainly be first in the queue to buy this must see title if and when it is re released.

See this film. Amazing to see how destructive genius can be. The film looks great, outstanding sound-track, great editing. I'm not really a jazz fan, but I loved watching and seeing this movie. It's going to be re-released this year.

Let's Get Lost could have so easily been done badly. Intense fandom doesn't often make for objectivity, and the tragic-artist-gone-to-seed narrative is so, so tired. But this film kicks those limitations right over. It's tough about the ugly facts of Chet Baker's life as a liar, user, and junkie. At the same time, it never allows the viewer to forget the intense beauty Baker created as a musician, and embodied as a young man of perfect allure.

There are images I'll never forget: the expressions of his family as they listen to his music, his ex-wife lost in remembered pleasure; his daughter, pained; his dead-ringer son, uncomfortably smiling. The older, ravaged Baker, in the back seat of a convertible with two women, murmuring to them like he's in a dream. The stills of he and his second wife, both so stunning and so clearly in love, burning for each other. And more than that, the music, aching and romantic, and always so lonely, always about longing for some woman in some place that's beyond reach.

I am grateful to Bruce Weber for creating this film. It's why I go to the movies like some people go to the mountains or the sea, to church or to some lover's arms: it got me lost.

The re-release of Let's Get Lost is simply a gift. Bruce Weber spent six months on the road with Chet Baker in 1987 to catch a glimpse of the enigmatic and ultimately elusive musician. The film noir feel to the documentary is evoked from the beginning with a sublimely beautiful shot of Baker's old and wizened face while sitting in the back of a convertible, his hair dancing in the wind. Even though he is sitting between two beautiful women, one being his partner at the time; Baker's melancholy is evident. With every breath Baker exudes the pain and tribulations of his fifty seven years. It is no mistake he found his home in Jazz, the perfect catharsis and sanctuary for someone of his sensibility.

His physical beauty as a young man is perfectly juxtaposed with the changed man we meet in the documentary. Yet even with his gaunt appearance and ambling speech, Baker still possesses a charm and charisma that is uniquely his own. It becomes clear as the documentary progresses that Baker left a lot of pain and heartbreak in his wake. Ex-wives and past girlfriends talk unkindly about him in one breath and praise him in the next. His magnetism was a godsend and a curse in the end.

Whatever is said about Baker what is undeniable is his musical prowess. His flair for the trumpet coupled with his beautifully sad voice are an irresistible combination. An appearance at Cannes with Bruce Weber during the opening of one of Weber's documentaries showcases a heartbreaking rendition of 'Almost Blue' at the after party. He silences the baying party goers before beginning and proceeds to close his eyes and expose his soul in front of the audience. It is moments like these that captivate the viewer. Let's Get Lost remains one of the finest musical documentaries ever made, up there with D.A. Pennebaker's 'Don't Look Back'.

I remember seeing and loving this movie when it played at Film Forum in NYC back in the late 80's. It was recently re-released for a limited engagement so I took my wife to see it (again, at Film Forum). Almost twenty years later, it's just as beautiful and heartbreaking to watch. The brilliance of this movie is that you don't have to be jazz or Chet Baker fan to enjoy it -- my wife and I have a marginal interest in jazz and we loved it. It's a brilliant portrayal of how talent, youth and beauty are destroyed by excess, and you'll feel both awe and pity for the late Mr. Baker. DVD is supposed to come out at the end of the year -- rent it, you won't be sorry.