>"I Called Him Morgancasts Helen (the "I" in the film's title) not as a coldblooded killer, but as a sympathetic and relatable one. She rescued Lee Morgan from a rock-bottom heroin addiction, clothed him, fed him, housed him, and bought back his trumpet, which he had pawned for drug money. She found him work when no one wanted to hire him, and made sure he showed up to his gigs. She even carried his trumpet for him. By centering on Helen, the film has a feminist streak, a badly needed course corrective for a musical genre whose histories overwhelmingly stem from the perspective of men worshipping at the altar of other men.
>Helen's murder of Lee, the film implies, was a morally ambiguous crime of passion, a knee-jerk collection on a vast and unrepayable debt.
Chauvinist Lee Morgan and his search for a new ambulance vs Helen Morgan the feminist sidewinder