Year: 2015
Country:
United States
Run Time:
100 minutes
MILES AHEAD is a wildly entertaining, impressionistic, no-holds barred portrait of one of the 20th century’s musical creative geniuses, Miles Davis, featuring a career-defining performance by Don Cheadle in the title role. In the midst of a dazzling and prolific career at the forefront of modern jazz innovation, Davis virtually disappears from public view for a period of five years in the late 1970s. Alone and holed up in his home, he is beset by chronic pain from a deteriorating hip, his musical voice stifled and numbed by drugs and pain medications, his mind haunted by unsettling ghosts from the past. A wily music reporter, Dave Braden (Ewan McGregor), forces his way into Davis’s house and the two men unwittingly embark on a wild and sometimes harrowing adventure to recover a stolen tape of the musician’s latest compositions. Davis’s mercurial behavior is fueled by memories of his failed marriage to the talented and beautiful dancer, Frances Taylor (Emayatzy Corinealdi). During their romance, Frances served as Davis’s muse. However, the eight-year marriage was marked by infidelity and abuse, and Frances was forced to flee for her own safety as Davis's mental and physical health deteriorated. By the late 70s, plagued by years of regret and loss, Davis flirts with annihilation until he once again finds salvation in his art. –Sony Pictures Classics
Sidebar
African Diaspora
Competition
Music Movies Competition
Director
Don Cheadle
Filmography
MILES AHEAD (2015)
Producers
Darryl Porter, Vince Wilburn, Jr., Daniel Wagner, Robert Ogden Barnum, Don Cheadle, Pamela Hirsch, Lenore Zerman
Screenwriting
Steven Baigelman, Don Cheadle
Cinematography
Roberto Schaefer
Editing
John Axelrad, Kayla M. Emter
Principal Cast
Don Cheadle, Ewan McGregor, Emayatzy Corinealdi, Lakeith Lee Stanfield, Michael Stuhlbarg
Sony Pictures Classics
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