The Legend of 1900 [IMPORT]

Rating:
Summary: Magical
Review: I am always delighted to discover a new Tim Roth film. Like most filmgoers, I first saw this amazing actor flaunting his talent in Quentin Tarentino's "Reservoir Dogs" a decade ago. Obviously, I haven't seen every Tim Roth film, but every one that I have seen him in is usually good. Even if the film itself isn't that great, Roth still shines. Consider his small but critical role in Tarentino's "Pulp Fiction." With barely any screen time he still managed to contribute something special to the scenes he appeared in. The same goes for Peter Greenaway's "The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover," which I think was Roth's first film role. He showed up in only a couple of scenes, yet stood out in a stellar cast that included Michael Gambon and Helen Mirren. Another great Roth movie is "Rob Roy," where he plays a depraved protégé of a character played by John Hurt. Again, this actor easily held his ground. All of this blather brings me to "Legend of 1900," a marvelous picture that shows Tim Roth can do the leading man thing just as easily as he can work in a supporting role. I guess I can understand some people not liking Roth, but I don't understand why they don't like this movie. It's a gem.

Most of the film takes place on one of those luxurious ocean liners so popular as a means of transportation in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. One day, a grunt from the engine room named Danny (Bill Nunn) discovers an abandoned baby in the ship. Not knowing what to do about such a startling find, he decides to keep the little guy and raise him as his own son. With the help of some of his fellow employees, Danny also decides to name the infant 1900 as a tribute to the start of the new century. You would think a young baby on board an ocean liner might draw attention, but Danny keeps 1900 out of sight for years by keeping him in the engine room during work hours and in the sleeping quarters the rest of the time. The ship's crew is so busy dealing with the passengers that they hardly have time to notice one kid wandering around from time to time. But when a young 1900 hears a piano playing in the ship's lounge, he strolls inside for a closer look and ends up playing some tunes for the amazed passengers. When someone notifies the captain, he realizes the profit in having this young prodigy stay on and play the piano for the passengers. After Danny perishes in an accident, 1900 becomes a sort of mascot for the ship as well as its star music attraction. Most importantly, he never leaves the ship.

We learn about the story of 1900 through a series of flashbacks from his best friend and fellow musician Max (Pruitt Taylor Vince). His story positively enthralls the owner of pawnshop to whom Max is attempting to sell his trumpet. For example, when Max first signed up to play with the ship's band, his inability to acquire his sea legs led to long bouts of nausea until 1900 stepped into the picture. He took the trumpet player on a most memorable tour of the lounge--you need to see it to believe it--that miraculously cures his seasickness and turns the two men into fast friends. Max also relates a lengthy story about 1900's duel with legendary musician Jelly Roll Morton (Clarence Williams III). The jazz great, amazed and angered to hear that a white musician on this ship plays the piano better than he does, arrives onboard to show this upstart who is the boss. After a lengthy back and forth battle of the ivories, good old Jelly Roll retreats with his tail between his legs. The story never reaches a wider audience because 1900 won't leave the ship and he won't record his music. His failure to do both of these things, even for the girl he falls in love with (played by Melanie Thierry), leads to obscurity and ultimate doom.

I enjoyed this film. Roth does his usual bang up job as the melancholy yet supremely talented piano player 1900. His monologue delivered to Max towards the end of the film, explaining why he could never find it in his heart to leave the ship, is a wonderful piece of acting. Pruitt Taylor Vince was a good choice to play 1900's best friend and sometime confidant, and he also provides some much needed comic relief when the movie turns serious. The best part of the film, however, has to be the music, which should not come as a surprise considering this is a film where music essentially acts as a co-star. None other than the great Ennio Morricone scored "Legend of 1900," and he did his usual fabulous job. The movie, I think, even won Morricone a Golden Globe award. As good as these elements are, I did have one problem with the movie: the CGI effects. The filmmakers often used computers to create the ship, and they also used them to create a whole city when 1900 makes his lone attempt to leave the boat. You know how there are good CGI and bad CGI effects? "Legend of 1900" uses bad CGI. Still, this small difficulty rarely intrudes on the story and does not act as a deterrent to enjoying the film.

I also liked the extras on the DVD if for no other reason than hearing the song Roger Waters composed for the film. Called "Lost Boys Calling," it's always great to hear the former front man for Pink Floyd recording new music. Aside from the music video for this song, the disc offers us a trailer and filmographies. Give this one a shot if you like colorful, introspective European films.


Rating:
Summary: MAGNIFICENT!!
Review: Oh my god!! This brilliant masterpiece of cinema genius awoke and stirred every emotion in every fiber of my body!! I consider myself to be of a tougher mentality when it comes to sentimental type movies; however, I found myself with a lump in my throat, and tears in my eyes at the end of this cinematic symphony! We can all learn alot from the character 1900, especially in today's chaotic, stress filled society. I thought it was brilliant how he derived his music via visual interpretation of one's demeanor or mood, thus providing him with infinite unique musical masterpieces. He painted musical Michelangelo's on a keyboard and was more than content to remain on a ship, confined within it's walls for his entire life. He valued the quality of his life over the quantity, and in that respect he lived a thousand lifetimes. WATCH THIS MOVIE AND ENJOY!! I especially like the scene where he is challenged to a "Piano Duel." I am now more than ever, a Tim Roth fan.

Rating:
Summary: Long and boring with some interesting camera work
Review: I first saw this on a cross country flight. I saw it recently on DVD. The DVD is well done- nice quality. Beautiful camera work. But the movie was long, boring and flat. I was reminded while watching that after the first viewing I spent the month it was in inflight rotation- reading instead of movie watching while jetting cross country. This movie is one of the reasons people take their laptops and their own movies on flights today. Pass!

Rating:
Summary: A Metaphor of Post-modern Times
Review: There are several interesting metaphors in this film, one of them is that Nineteen Hundred refused to live the modernity or pos-modernity of the times, he did not want to live in the 1900, for he never left the ship. The uncertainty of a life which can bring daily millions of possible choices for him was unbearable. His question " How can you make music out of an infinite keyboard"? really represents the fear and anxiety generated by the enormity of social connections and possibilities, which were made possible through the expansion of Capitalism in the twentieth century. As Bauman puts it: "Today the problem of identity arises mostly from the difficulty of holding to any identity for long. (...) It is not so much the co-presence of many kinds that is the source of confusion and anxiety, but their fluidity, the notorious difficulty in pinpointing them and defining - all this harking back to the most central and painful anxieties: one that is related to the instability of one's own identity and the absence of lasting, trustworthy and reliable reference points which would help to render the identity more safe and secure."
So, in post-modern times, or in our times, for many people(that's just a part of the world, for at the same time we're post-modern, we can be pre modern, modern or medieval - anyway that's the part of the world I find myself in), there can be no end, the number of probabilities is infinite depending on your social positions and personal skills. Most of the times we don' t see ourselves in a position where you can see an end. How do we choose? How must we choose? Those our central questions for many people nowadays. Once you're given the possibility of moving, of taking up different professions, in different places, of meeting all kinds of different people this question is a part of our lives.
For Bauman, postmodern discontents are born of freedom, instead of oppression. Society offers more individual freedom at the price of no security and no certainties at all. One of Nineteen Hundred's last lines is, "Life passed me by, while I was on this ship, but 2000 people at a time". For Umberto Eco, as Bauman quotes him, that is precisely the reason why so many people are driven to the entertainment industry of fiction, because there you can get what you cannot have in real life, that is, the complexity of life is simplified, the characters and acts are selected , " the infinite chaos of reality is cut down to an intellectually manageable , comprehensible and apparently logical size". So, that was the situation Nineteen Hundred lived when he was on the ship, and he wasn't willing to give it up.
"Land is a ship too big for me, its music I don't know how to make". So here goes the question, how do we try to make music out of our daily discontents of chaotic and apparently purposeless existence? Do we really try to get some sense out of it? Do people really care about that or do they just refuse to discuss it or even to think about it.? If you really face it , the anxiety that comes along is enormous. Numbing our senses is probably the easiest thing to do, which can be easily achieved by any sort of obsessive activity compelling us to refuse to stop and think about our lives, about other people's suffering, about how our sufferings are interconnected. This way, there's no time left for any kind of self or the other's perception.

But still, at least for me, making/listening to music out of this disorder is a challenge. Yes, there can be music in the world, you just have to listen carefully. I think sometimes the world around me sounds like a tragic opera, or an Albinoni's Adagio, sometimes like an exciting Rock sometimes like a numbing techno and sometimes I can't really hear anything out of it except confusion and purposelessness. But anyway, those moments go by and there has to come some music out of it, some hidden order in the chaos. Refusing to believe so would make life unbearable and would truly justify Nineteen Hundred's own-chosen death, exploding with the wrecks of the ship in the end of the movie.



Rating:
Summary: I liked it
Review: I liked it enough to buy it after seeing it. Visually and audibly great. Im not sure many people you show it too would be impressed unless you are not 26 years old like me. The end has poor sound quality.

Rating:
Summary: Blew me away!
Review: It was about 12:30a, the house was quiet and I was cruising channels for Indies. Like the sun rising this movie crept up and delighted me. It is a story I wish I had told...it was just waiting to be let loose. I watched it with slack jaw disbelief at it's originality, depth and beauty...neither of which overshadowed the pure brilliance of this story. It is like a ghostly visitation..buy it, watch it late, with a favorite beverage, alone first, as you will want to remain speechless...1900 will come to visit everafter, he will remain your closest secret friend...you'll never look at a luxury ship the same!

Rating:
Summary: Ennio Morricone did a fantastic job with the music.
Review: I'm a very big fan of Ennio Morricone, Giuseppe Tornatore and Tim Roth. I caught this film late one night and rushed out to buy the DVD the next day. The music in this film compares with any other I've seen. The only other composer (for film) that I would place Ennio Morricone second to is the legendary Nino Rota. The reason why I love this film so much is flat out for the music.

Tim Roth is amazing too. You really feel for his character. Also this film has some of the most beautiful images as expected with a Tornatore film.

The only slight problems I found with the film was some of the dialogue. It was written by Tornatore who is Italian and some of the humor may work in Italian but doesn't really pan out in english. I still give it 5 stars though.