Keith Jarrett is an American jazz pianist and composer known for his virtuosic improvisational performances, most famously the one that flowed through his fingers at Opera House in Cologne on the night of January 24, 1975 — the recording of which remains the best-selling solo album in jazz history and piano. By flouting all the conventions of rock and roll and making an extravagant spectacle of the music that moved through his body like a thought from God, Jarrett has become an unparalleled symbol of artistic purity, his talent unparalleled, his every note of its kind.
However, Ido Fluks”Cologne 75” — a hesitant “we’re putting on a show!” film about the mad scramble to the stage of “The Köln Concert” — is the kind of lightly entertaining pop confection that starts with a “freeze frame, record scratcher, ‘you’re probably wondering how I got here'” moment before hitting a million different beats designed to feel pre-melted and familiar. Sex! Uprising! Daddy problem! A brief road trip where the tension between two people gives way to mutual respect! Everything is crowded here without excuse.
Which is to say, it’s no wonder that Jarrett, who abhors self-mythology and has always insisted that “music go as fast as it comes,” wanted nothing to do with the project. Although Fluk (“The Ticket”) had assumed “I’m not there” approach and made a film whose form more closely reflected the artistry of the subject, my sense is that Jarrett would still have given the whole thing a hard pass.
But the saving grace of “Cologne 75” — and what makes the arduous pleasure of this film worth enjoying on its own terms — is that Jarrett isn’t it indeed its subject. He is also not Fluk’s main character. Instead, an irrepressible 18-year-old girl named Vera Brandes embodies both of these things, and the story here ultimately belongs to her. As Michael Chernus (who plays a composite “Melody Maker” journalist named Mick Watts) says directly to the camera in the opening moments of a yarn that just loves to break the fourth wall: “This is not a film about the Cologne concert.” Mick eagerly compares Jarrett’s show to the Sistine Chapel, continuing: “It’s not about the mural, or the ceiling, or even Michelangelo. It’s about the scaffolding.”
Branded where the scaffolding that held up one of music’s greatest nights, and by focusing on the defiant fearlessness that bound her to a jazz god like Jarrett, Fluk can bend been there, heard that conventions of a standard music biopic into a genuinely enjoyable tribute to the legends behind the legends. To the people who make it possible for artists to do impossible. If “Cologne” 75 is ultimately forgettable despite its fun, well, maybe that’s the most fitting way of all to honor the ethos of Jarrett’s music.
While the assured functionality of Fluk’s script might seem to undermine the radical nature of improvisational jazz, “Cologne 75” nevertheless manages to articulate a core truth in Jarrett’s performances: They were motivated less by Mozart-like confidence than they were by a deep fear of failure. It’s a fear that young Vera (Mala Emde, convincingly both free-spirited and laser-focused at once) feels in her bones. The daughter of a strongly disapproving dentist (Ulrich Tukur) who witnessed World War II from the heart of Germany and still seems to think women’s lives are the worst thing to ever happen to his country, Vera is a perfect vessel for rebellion.
She loves to march in the street and seduce older men (but all men are older than her) and haunt the local jazz clubs where they usually hang out. “Aren’t you going to listen to rock and roll?” someone asks. “I don’t like being told what to do,” Vera replies. And at this point in its popularity, rock and roll already feels more like complicity than subversion. Jazz is dying (“It’s museum music,” as one character puts it), which is all the more reason why it brings Vera to life.
Her vitality makes a big impression on saxophonist Ronnie Scott (Daniel Betts), who fends off the girl’s advances even as he is dazzled by her willpower. He won’t sleep with her, but he will hire her to take care of the rest of his tour. It doesn’t matter that Vera has less than zero experience, Ronnie just can’t imagine anyone else could turn her down. He’s right about that. It’s not long before Vera recognizes her own power, makes a name for herself and – after crossing paths with Mick – becomes determined to book Jarrett (a squirrelly and convincing John Magaro) at the most prestigious venue in all of Cologne. He plays against the piano, as Mick puts it, and that means he’s playing for people like Vera.
She has to borrow 10,000 German marks to host the show, and Jarrett has to go on stage at 11:30 PM after the opera has already put on a full production of Alban Berg’s demanding “Lulu”, but Vera sees this crazy idea as her best chance to prove her father wrong and publicly spit in his face. Of course, if Jarrett doesn’t make it to Cologne in time, or if Vera can’t find the right piano for him before the curtain goes up, it could easily turn into a life-changing fiasco. Note the prefab tension, some of which is pure fiction (eg, Mick’s road trip with Jarrett, which allows us to understand the musician on a more personal level and to better understand how he suffers for and surrenders to his art), and some of which is incredibly true (eg, Vera’s last-minute old Brett play to replace Jarösdorf’s play to replace the Busteds game).
That might not sound like enough plot to sustain a narratively unadventurous 116-minute film, but that’s only because it isn’t. Fortunately, “Cologne 75” is more rewarding for the intervening moments its plot enables than for the plot itself—fittingly enough for a film that isn’t allowed to contain a single note from the concert itself, and is therefore forced to derive its fun and catharsis from the music around the music.
I don’t necessarily buy into the idea that great art is always a by-product of the limitations imposed on it (see: Wes Anderson’s recent work), but the story Fluk tells nevertheless taps into the role that necessity can play in the process of pure creation. This is the story of a bent man who created something completely new because the piano he was given was too old to produce anything else, and the story of a young woman who made it happen because the life she was offered was too old for her to survive. Dissonance is not something to fear; that is why consonance sounds so beautiful.
Even the most formulaic scenes in the film inhabit where the lust of the story is lived first, as if the script was blissfully unaware of its own clichés, and while the filmmaking itself fails to create the chaos it seeks to celebrate, Fluk at least exploits the fun of telling it. His frequent use of direct-to-camera narration initially seems like an awkward mistake (mostly because so many other films have sapped the fun out of that device). But Chernus speaks to us with the condescending fervor of a true music lover, and his cheeky tirades about the history of jazz—and why Jarrett’s gift for improvisation is unique even in the context of such a free-form genre—are entertaining and instructive in equal measure.
At one point, there’s even a delightful aside about how Can got his name, which in itself speaks to the role that fate can play in the legacy of seemingly predestined artistic perfection. “Cologne 75” doesn’t reflect that perfectly, nor does it try to. It simply offers a nice and lightning-fast proof of the unseen – often forgotten – alchemy that goes into the creation of a masterpiece.
Grade: B-
“Köln 75” is now in cinemas.
Want to keep you updated on IndieWire’s film reviews and critical thoughts? Subscribe here to our newly launched newsletter, In Review by David Ehrlich, where our chief film critic and chief reviews editor gathers the best new reviews and streaming picks along with some exclusive musings—all available only to subscribers.
