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Clint Eastwood approached Chan Richardson, Charlie Parker's common-law wife on whose memoirs the script was based, for input. She gave Eastwood a collection of lost recordings unlocked from a bank vault.

Though the actual saxophone playing is original Charlie Parker performances, the body and fingering during those are performed by Charles McPherson, who had to learn to breathe exactly like Parker did in the recordings.

The first Clint Eastwood directed movie to win an Academy Award, and that was one Oscar for Best Sound. Others would follow for Impitoyable (1992) (four), Mystic River (2003) (two), Million Dollar Baby (2004) (four) and Lettres d'Iwo Jima (2006) (one). Indeed, Bird (1988) was also the first ever of any of Eastwood's films to win an Oscar.

The film's opening title card is a quotation from F. Scott Fitzgerald. It states: "There are no second acts in American lives".

The movie marked a turning point in Clint Eastwood's directing career. This was the first Eastwood directed picture to receive significant awards and a number of them. It won an Oscar, a Golden Globe and two awards at Cannes. The film was the first of a number of Eastwood directed films that would receive numerous nominations, accolades and awards.

'Rating the Movies' stated that Charlie Parker's "...music was digitally stripped from old recordings and mixed with newly recorded rhythm tracks - a painstaking process..."

Clint Eastwood, a lifelong jazz fan, had been fascinated by Charlie Parker and his music since seeing him play in Oakland in 1945.

The movie was the first film that Clint Eastwood won an award for directing, this was the 1989 Golden Globe Award for Best Director.

The young Charlie Parker was portrayed by Damon Whitaker who is the nephew of Forest Whitaker, the lead actor playing Parker as an adult.

The movie's dedication displayed at the end of the film read: "This picture is dedicated to musicians everywhere".

A sound engineer digitally and electronically isolated the solo tracks from the old recordings that Clint Eastwood got from Charlie Parker's widow Chan Parker. Then modern day musicians such as Ray Brown, Ron Carter, Red Rodney, Barry Harris and Walter Davis, Jr recorded backing tracks over Charlie Parker's original music. Dizzy Gillespie could not contribute to these backing tracks as he was on tour at the time so instead trumpet player Jon Faddis stepped in to do Gillespie's part.

The film was awarded the Grand Prix by the Belgian Film Critics Association.

First of two Clint Eastwood pictures co-starring actress Diane Venora who played Chan Parker in this film. The other movie would be Jugé coupable (1999) around eleven years later.

The film was made and released about thirty-three years after the passing away of Charlie Parker.

One of two 1988 movies from Clint Eastwood. The other picture was Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser (1988), also a jazz film, but a documentary, was exec produced by Eastwood.

One of a number of jazz films, mostly documentaries, and many for television, produced or exec produced by Clint Eastwood. The titles include Bird (1988), Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser (1988), Dave Brubeck: In His Own Sweet Way (2010), Monterey Jazz Festival: 40 Legendary Years (1998) and The Blues: Piano Blues (2003).

Forest Whitaker won the Best Actor Award at Cannes for his performance as Charlie Parker in this film. However, Whitaker wasn't even nominated for the Best Actor Academy Award for the same part. But around eighteen years later Whitaker did eventually win a Best Actor Oscar for playing Idi Amin in Le dernier roi d'Écosse (2006).

The project was originally intended for Richard Pryor at Columbia Pictures eight years earlier. Persuaded by Clint Eastwood, Columbia traded it to Warner Bros. for Revenge (1990), for which he was originally the director.

Keith David and Forest Whitaker had previously co-starred in Platoon (1986).

The film was entered into competition at the Cannes Film Festival. There it won two awards, for Best Actor and a Technical Grand Prize for the quality of its soundtrack.

Three of the four sound technicians who won the Best Sound Oscar were the sound designers on Clint Eastwood's then recent picture Le maître de guerre (1986) which had also been nominated for the Best Sound Academy Award about two years earlier.

Clint Eastwood's seventeenth film for the Warner Brothers studio.

Charlie Parker's "Bird" nickname was an abbreviation for the longer word "Yardbird".

First of almost two consecutive biopics for Clint Eastwood. This 1988 film was about jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker whereas Eastwood's 1990 movie Chasseur blanc, coeur noir (1990) was about film director John Huston.

The picture was shot during October, November and December of 1987.

The production shoot for this film ran for fifty-two dollars.

Forest Whitaker in this movie was the first actor to portray Charlie Parker on screen. After this picture, Parker would be played by Albert J. Burnes in Robert Altman's 1996 film Kansas City (1996) and later by Steven Watts in 2001's Jazz Seen: The Life and Times of William Claxton (2001).

The picture is partially set in Kansas City. The earlier Clint Eastwood movie Haut les flingues! (1984) was set in Kansas City, its working titles were "Kansas City Jazz" and "Kansas City Blues".

Bird (1988) was shot before Clint Eastwood's L'inspecteur Harry est la dernière cible (1988) but launched stateside after it. Bird (1988) was shot during the last quarter of 1987 before L'inspecteur Harry est la dernière cible (1988) filmed Feb-April 1988. Bird (1988) was not released in the USA until late September 1988 after L'inspecteur Harry est la dernière cible (1988) had debuted for the American Summer season in July 1988.

This movie was just the second time that Clint Eastwood directed a film but did not appear in it. The first had been Breezy (1973) around fifteen years earlier.

The "Bird" of the film's title refers to the nickname of the film's central character of Charlie Parker, portrayed in the movie by Forest Whitaker.

One of three 1988 Clint Eastwood movies. The films are Bird (1988), L'inspecteur Harry est la dernière cible (1988) and Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser (1988).

Though the film is in color, the Warner Brothers logo at the start of the picture was unusually displayed in black-and-white. The logo is seen in color in the movie's trailer. The then recent Clint Eastwood film Le maître de guerre (1986) had its opening sequence shot in black-and-white.

CINEMA :Les blessures narcissiques d'une vie par procuration

© DR -Forest Whitaker -A black giant 15