Round Midnight part 2

Film: Round Midnight Directed by Bertrand Tavernier USA/France (1986) Musical Drama/Buddy Film 13 Parts/125 mins In English and French with optional English Subtitles (default) Please be sure to turn on the CC (closed captions) button to view subtitles WARNING: Film contains adult language and some drug use. (Rated R by MPAA, although there is nothing in the film to justify the rating) Synopsis: A cinematic elegy on the impending death of Jazz, real life, legendary saxophonist Dexter Gordon portrays Dale Turner, a fictional musician inspired by a number of famed jazz figures, including Bud Powell and Lester Young. Largely forgotten in his home country, Turner has moved to Paris in search of a more appreciative audience. He finds it in the form of Francis, a bebop aficionado who befriends the expatriate player. Francis soon becomes familiar with Turners darker side, including his struggles with alcoholism, drug addiction, and depression. Fearing for the musicians life, the fan becomes his caretaker, an arrangement that leads to a brief improvement in Turner’s health and fortunes but places great emotional strain upon them both. Review: “Round Midnight” admixes the two great American art forms, jazz and film, through the clarifying heat of the French sensibility, that wild enthusiasm for popular American art, and, paradoxically, a revulsion for the America that abandoned its own. The dominant mood of the movie is lyrical, as the director Taverniers camera glides and swirls …
Video Rating: 5 / 5