What the film pulls off is the difficult fusion of this kind of accuracy with larger 'truths' which are no respecter of accuracy.

In this movie and its hot, fast bursts of bop, Charlie Parker gets a fitting elegy.

Sensitively acted, beautifully planned visually and dynamite musically, this is a dramatic telling of the troubled life of a revolutionary artist.

The film slips into a level of dreamy, nonlinear creativity seldom found in Eastwood’s unfussy directorial style. Would-be framing devices become multidimensional narrative portals.