Bird

Bird (1988) is Clint Eastwood's biographical drama about Charlie Parker — you can watch it online on iFILM. Forest Whitaker plays the Kansas City-born saxophonist who rewrote bebop's grammar in the 1940s and died at thirty-four, burned out by heroin, alcohol and relentless touring. Whitaker won the Best Actor prize at Cannes for the performance.

Eastwood structures the film as a series of memory flashes rather than a straight timeline: club gigs, hospital rooms, the early years, the late chaos. Chan Richardson (Diahann Carroll is replaced here by Diane Venora), the woman who stayed longest, anchors Parker's descent. The nickname Bird — some said it came from his love of fried chicken on the road — became the one word that covered everything: the genius and the ruin alike.

For the soundtrack Eastwood isolated Parker's original alto sax from archival recordings and had contemporary musicians lay down fresh accompaniment around it. The film won an Academy Award for Best Sound Editing. Stream Bird (1988) in full on iFILM.