The Legend of 1900 Review
by David Dalgleish (dgd AT total DOT net)September 10th, 1999
THE LEGEND OF 1900 (1998)
"You're alright as long as you've got a good story and someone to tell it to."
3 out of ****
Starring Tim Roth, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Bill Nunn, Mélanie Thierry; Directed by Giuseppe Tornatore;
Written by Tornatore & Alessandro Baricco, from a novel by Baricco; Cinematography by Lajos Koltai
The 1900 of the title refers, of course, to the year, but also to a man: Danny Boodmann T.D. Lemon 1900. His strange name can be explained. He was found as an infant on board a cruise ship called The Virginian by a man named Danny Boodmann; he was in a "T.D. Lemon" box at the time; and the year 1900 had just begun. He was named and raised by Boodmann in the boiler room of The Virginian, never setting foot on land as the vessel cruised from Europe to America, back and forth and back again. He grows up to become a piano prodigy, and is played by Tim Roth as a mild-mannered, pleasant, charmingly eccentric man, who seems slightly removed from the world. He approaches life at a different angle.
As is obvious, verisimilitude is not the intention here. The movie is based on a novel by Alessandro Baricco, best known to English-speaking readers for his novel "Silk," which treated its characters in a similar manner, as people whose lives are shaped by stories larger than they are. Both THE LEGEND OF 1900 and "Silk" show the influence of the Latin American magic realist novelists, who spin equally grand and improbable tales, featuring equally colourful, larger-than-life characters. They give us tales which hover on the boundaries of the possible and return a sense of the marvellous to a world dearly in need of it.
We learn about 1900 in a series of flashbacks. The frame narrative features Max Tooney (Pruitt Taylor Vince in a slightly twitchy, overwrought performance), a trumpeter who played with 1900 for years and was his closest friend. During the course of the film, Max tells parts of 1900's story to several people, relating his life aboard The Virginian. Max's reminiscences are sparked by the discovery of a rare recording of 1900's music and fuelled by the knowledge that The Virginian, now a derelict, is about to be destroyed by the port authorities and committed to the ocean floor.
While the movie is first and foremost a story, a tall tale, a legend, it lacks the steady narrative momentum which it needs to contain and direct its ambitions. Using Max as the focus seems an awkward and transparent method of preventing the film from unravelling, of holding it together during its shambling progress from one set-piece to the next.
The set-pieces, though, are wonderful. The best of all is a "piano duel" between 1900 and Jelly Roll Morton (Clarence Williams III), who comes on board calling himself the "creator of jazz," determined to demonstrate his superiority to the upstart prodigy. They square off in the ship's crowded ballroom, before an expectant audience composed of crew, passengers, and eager journalists. The two pianists take turns playing their tunes. Director Giuseppe Tornatore (CINEMA PARADISO) handles it magnificently, delighting us with Jelly Roll's provocative braggadocio, disarming us with 1900's initial refusal to indulge in the game of oneupmanship, rousing us as we sense that a final dramatic flourish is coming. The "duel" ends with an inspired gesture which is a superb piece of grandstanding showmanship on the part of both 1900 and Tornatore.
The entire sequence is so good that the audience at the World Film Festival screening I attended burst into spontaneous applause, as if we had just witnessed a virtuoso jazz solo, and, indeed, the movie is perhaps best appreciated in the way one appreciates a jazz show. The story of 1900 and Max is the theme to which the players return, while the set-pieces are solos by great performers, taking the basic materials and reinventing them, occasionally fashioning something awesome out of them. The ensemble may not be jumping the whole night, but the show provides some dynamic and captivating moments.
The first meeting between Max and 1900 is one such moment. It takes place during a stormy night on the ocean, with the ship lurching violently from side to side, and we are treated to the sight of the two men seated at a grand piano as it zig-zags wildly across the huge floor of the dark, empty ballroom. The mood of camaraderie and whimsy is magical. The friends' last meeting is another great scene. It takes place, again, on The Virginian, after the Second World War. The ship is a rusted decaying hulk. Max and 1900 sit in the heart of the vessel's ruined splendour, in the remnants of 1900's whole world, and movingly tell each other about the course of their lives.
Despite all these moments, THE LEGEND OF 1900 is a story which loses track of itself. It forgets what it wants to say. The fact that 1900 is born at the dawn of the century is surely significant; his enclosed world of music and eternal movement perhaps serves as a counterpoint to the industrialization-run-amok nightmares of the twentieth century as it grinds to a halt. Or perhaps 1900 is a kind of antihero, and his refusal to confront the world is intended as an injunction to us: you cannot taste the fullness of life if you are unwilling to risk its poisons. The movie can't seem to decide what 1900 is. Like 1900 himself, it sails from shore to shore, from meaning to meaning, without ever settling down. But the voyage sure isn't dull.
Subjective Camera (subjective.freeservers.com)
Movie Reviews by David Dalgleish ([email protected])
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