day 88 - "Round Midnight

OK film fans tonight for some unknown reason I'm feeling sentimental. Perhaps it's because spring has sprung and love will soon fill the air. Then again it could be the post dinner jazz and Scotch I've treated myself to this evening. With nothing on TV, good, bad or otherwise, I've delved into my catalog of DVD and DVR goodies and come up with a classic film about obsession, passion, acceptance and of course, great jazz.

Round Midnight is a remarkable, Oscar winning film about an African-American Jazz saxophonist ex-pat living and playing music in Paris. Dale Turner (jazz icon Dexter Gordon in a hauntingly reflective Oscar nominated performance) is a jazzman playing the The Blue Note in 1959. He's a struggling alcoholic and drug user who has seen his patches of sobriety become fewer and fewer, each one bringing him closer to his end. He is aware of own mortality and tries as much as possible to absorb everything around him as this might be his last gig. We see Francis Borler, a young Frenchman listening from outside the club. He believes Dale is the greatest sax player alive and doesn't care if he has to stand in the rain just to hear him play.

The film centers around the relationship built between these two men when Francis encounters Dale out on the streets in a bad way and offers to help him. The overwhelming sense of loneliness Dale has about him from having to move to Paris to make a living, being policed by his landlady and the club owner to show up sober and missing his life back in the states, is easily picked up by Francis, himself a struggling artist who is also dealing with life as a recently single father. But this is not a plot heavy film, it is a film about the end of a jazzman's career and the music he has devoted himself to. For me, it's easily the greatest jazz film made (with the wonderful Bird playing backup) and understands rightly that you can't simply tell the story of a jazzman's life in words; you need the music as well. As such, it has more music than just about any film you'll encounter, filmed live as the artists created it rather than the hollow prerecorded music you hear so often in the background.

As my Guru pointed out in his amazing review, which is almost as beautiful as the film itself, "You do not need to know a lot about jazz to appreciate what is going on because, in a certain sense, this movie teaches you everything about jazz that you really need to know." The simple truth of the matter is that this film is a benchmark. If you see it and fall in love with the music you already do or probably will love jazz for the rest of your life. If you don't, well, to each their own.

Sometimes when you see a film it's like meeting a person; you don't know immediately that the film will become a great friend and be there for you to lean on through the years. I don't remember the first time I saw tonight's film, however I had started getting into jazz a few years prior.  I think that's what prompted me to stretch my film boundaries. I have seen it more than a dozen times since, but I can't really put a number on it.

I don't recall where I bought the soundtrack, just that I remember having to track it down and was ecstatic when I found it. Oddly enough I recall it was the same place I found my favorite Fishbone CD as well. Since that purchase not a single month has gone by where I haven't listened to its songs. Not one. For years I would listen to it every night as I would fall asleep. Now I listen to it when I do the dishes or when nights grow dark. I hope that I never grow weary of its sad, tender and hopeful notes, but I don't think I ever will.