So my fancy gym has TV’s on every piece of cardio equipment. It’s pretty cool and it really passes the time. (Although Eric would tell you he hates them and prefers his IPOD.) You just stick on headphones, plug in and start surfing the channels. Well, last week I surfed right into a fabulous movie…got so sucked in that I ended up staying on the Elliptical for one hour, just so that I could continue watching the movie. You know it had to be good for that to happen!
It’s called The Legend of 1900. Tim Roth plays this jazz pianist who was born on a ship and never gets off. There are some of the best piano sequences I have ever seen on film, in this movie. At one point, Tim is challenged to a duel by Jelly Roll Morton…to find out who was the real voice of jazz. It was so exciting…could have been beyond dull…the camera raced around the pianos, through the crowd, back to the keys, the fingers, the faces…it was so enthralling. And the music they played was just beautiful. The sound track by Morricone, who else, was lush and it captured a moment in time, without sounding dated and passé. The cinematography was gorgeous. The lighting, the set decoration…the movie spans 3 decades starting at the turn of the century. The movie rarely leaves the ship, so we see the different classes represented in dress, language, music, hope.
After an hour, I had to get off the machine.
I have looked and looked to buy this movie. It stayed with me for weeks after the gym. I have no idea how the movie ended or how it began. I stepped right into the middle of it and yet it made such an impression. I love when movies do that, imprint your soul.
I’ve always been drawn to that era. I’m fascinated by the Silents. I love the men of Tin Pan Alley. What a time it was in arts! It put a huge stamp on entertainment, one solidly American. Our voice and our sense of humor, what we found as a people to represent our spirit, were developed at this crucial time.
Maybe, with all of the current crisis and upheaval, another Renaissance in the Arts will occur. Maybe, new people’s voices will be heard to represent the time and the feelings of the American people at this turn of the century. A new theatre, a new innovation in film, a new sound, could be just around the corner.
