 |
| Director Bertrand Tavernier with actor Philippe Noiret |
 |
| Tavernier with Martin Scorsese |
 |
| Dexter Gordon |
‘ROUND MIDNIGHT B+ USA France (133 mi) 1986 ‘Scope d: Bertrand Tavernier
The swing bands used to be all straight tonics seventh chords. And then, with the Basie band I heard Lester Young and he sounded like he came out of the blue. Because he was playing all the color tones the sixths and the ninths and major sevenths. You know, like Debussy and Ravel. Then Charlie Parker came on and he began to expand and he went into elevenths and thirteenths and flat fives. Luckily, I was going in the same direction already. You just don’t go out and pick a style off a tree one day. The tree is inside you growing naturally. —Dale Turner (Dexter Gordon)
When you have to explore every night, even the most beautiful things that you find can be the most painful. —Ace (Bobby Hutcherson)
The first English-language film by Bertrand Tavernier, the maker of Journey Through French Cinema (Voyage à travers le cinéma français) (2016), where this is adapted from Dance of the Infidels, a 1986 book by French author and graphic designer Francis Paudras, a moving jazz memoir and biography that covers the last 8 years in the turbulent life of jazz pianist Bud Powell, who was to the piano what Charlie Parker was to the saxophone, with Tavernier, along with co-writer David Rayfiel, creating a fictionalized story combining the lives of Powell and tenor saxophonist Lester Young into a single character, an expatriate black jazz musician living in Paris during the late 1950’s, embodied by legendary tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon in the lead role, who was himself among the first influential bebop musicians. Gordon had experience as a stage actor, appearing in the Los Angeles production of the 1959 play The Connection, made into a film by Shirley Clarke in 1961, which was about a collection of heroin-addicted jazz musicians who sat around waiting for their drug dealer, their “connection,” creating a great deal of censorship controversy at the time, yet it’s a compelling snapshot of a subculture that Gordon was familiar with, where the dialogue of the characters is interspersed with jazz music, some of which was written by Gordon. According to Tavernier, jazz taught him the freedom of storytelling through improvisation, while also informing him that when performing a composition they didn’t write, musicians demonstrate a deep respect while simultaneously infusing it with their own unique style and personal touch. This duality of respect for tradition and personal expression informs Tavernier’s filmmaking philosophy, where it’s ironic that it took a foreign director to do justice to jazz, a quintessential American artform, described by Roger Ebert in his TV review as a film that “creeps inside you and stays there,” Siskel & Ebert - 'Round Midnight YouTube (3:41). Working closely with the director to ensure the film would accurately portray the jazz life, Gordon creates a unique persona that we’re not used to seeing, as he knew how musicians spoke and carried themselves, spending more than a dozen years living and performing in Europe, finding Europe in the 1960’s a much easier place to live than America, saying that he experienced less racism and greater respect for jazz musicians. Named after a Thelonious Monk composition, the film was ranked #2 in Roger Ebert’s top films of 1986, and #9 in Gene Siskel’s top films of 1986, premiering at the Toronto Film Festival in 1986, with Gordon nominated for a Best Actor Academy Award, while the jazz music written by pianist Herbie Hancock, one of the primary architects of the post-bop sound, who also appears in the film as pianist and bandleader Eddie Wayne, won an Oscar for Best Original Score in 1987, using harmonies influenced by great French composers Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel, beautifully rendered here, Herbie Hancock - The Peacocks YouTube (7:15), with Hancock quoted as saying, “Jazz is being in the moment.” Gordon gives an inspired performance as the aging, self-destructive saxophonist Dale Turner, looking for a fresh start in Paris, where he is surrounded by an all-star group of young virtuoso musicians, giving the live jazz performances an authentic look and sound, where the film is light on plot, becoming more of an impressionistic mood piece, much like an extended jazz composition, even making reference to Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s THE RED SHOES (1948), suggesting “The music is all that matters. Nothing but the music.”
An interesting aspect of Francis Paudras is that he was himself an accomplished yet amateur jazz and classical pianist, befriending many of the great jazz pianists who played in Europe in the early 60’s, and it was there that Paudras found Powell, where he developed a profound friendship, becoming his caretaker and unofficial manager in Paris during the early 60’s when Powell suffered a mental and physical health crisis, moving him into his own Paris apartment as he was recovering from mental breakdowns, tuberculosis, and alcoholism. It was during this period that he began filming Powell with a 16mm home movie camera, amassing a collection of home movies, interviews, and recordings that offer valuable insights into Powell’s life. This intervention in his life provides the template for Tavernier’s film, where the line between reality and fiction is very thin, while his decision to cast a deliberately slowed down, world weary Dexter Gordon, who is tall and lanky at six feet five, and seems to exist on another plane than everyone else around him, was based on the director’s displeasure with actors playing roles of musicians when it was obvious they couldn’t hold the instruments correctly or play a note, where he was going for authenticity, casting mostly black musicians as actors because they were real-life musical giants, giving the film credibility it wouldn’t otherwise have. Other films about jazz have been undercut by both an ignorance about the music and by an inability to construct a dramatic context, including directors as diverse as Martin Ritt in Paris Blues (1961), John Cassavetes in Too Late Blues (1961), Martin Scorsese in New York, New York (1977), and Francis Ford Coppola in THE COTTON CLUB (1984), films that typically express an indifference to jazz history. Tavernier makes up for this by hiring musicians who are among the best in the business, including Wayne Shorter, Tony Williams, Freddie Hubbard, Ron Carter, Bobby Hutcherson, John McLaughlin, Billy Higgins, Cedar Walton, and French bassist Pierre Michelot who played with Powell, as nearly all of the music is recorded live, and we’re usually allowed to listen to it without edited interruptions, elevating the music of jazz to a central character, while he also allowed Gordon and the other musicians in the cast to collaborate on their own dialogue, with Gordon using the nickname “Lady” for all his friends, male and female, as well as his instrument, a habit attributed to Lester Young. Considered among the best jazz films ever created, maybe the best, though Jeanne Moreau’s screen presence with the evocative film noir score by Miles Davis in Elevator to the Gallows (Ascenseur pour l'échafaud) (1958) is worthy of mention, while the best book on the subject may be the impressionistic stream-of-conscience novel about jazz cornetist Buddy Bolden, one of the originators of jazz, in Coming Through Slaughter by Sri Lankan-born Canadian poet, fiction writer and essayist Michael Ondaatje, his first published novel in 1976. This is much better known than Tavernier’s other films simply because it had an American producer (Irwin Winkler) and much wider distribution in the U.S. through Warner Brothers. What’s interesting about the film is the community of American artists in Paris, where their off-handed humor, interest in cooking their own food (Bobby Hutcherson is always dressed in a silk bathrobe, hilariously never leaving his hotel room, as he’s completely obsessed with spending all of his time cooking soul food), and sociable camaraderie add a lighthearted touch of humanism that starkly contrasts with the vibrant energy of the late-night music scenes.
When Powell moved to France, it was with his girlfriend Altevia “Buttercup” Edwards, who managed his finances and his medicine, with Tavernier similarly creating a part for Sandra Reaves-Phillips as Buttercup, a sassy blues singer who is seen in the hotel greeting Turner’s arrival before appearing in the small Parisian jazz nightclub named the Blue Note, where she keeps him locked in his room until showtime and prevents them from paying him in cash, while also making sure they refuse to serve him alcohol. But that doesn’t stop him from seeking drinks elsewhere, which is where he initially meets penniless movie poster illustrator, single father, and jazz aficionado Francis Borier (François Cluzet), looking like a young Dustin Hoffman, seen faithfully squatting down in the basement windowsill outside the club to hear, even in the pouring rain, as he hasn’t the cover charge for admittance. Turner asks him to buy him a beer across the street, and the two become fast friends. We’ve seen François Cluzet before in the very first Claire Denis film, Chocolat (1988), and an earlier Olivier Assayas film, Late August, Early September (Fin août, début septembre) (1998), where his enthusiasm for Turner’s music is genuine, inviting him back to his home where he meets his impressionable young pre-teen daughter Bérangère (Gabrielle Haker), currently living separately from her mother (Christine Pascal), who is in the midst of having an affair with another man. Their friendship forms the basis of the film, as he helps prevent the police from sending him to a sanitarium following an arrest, and helps stabilize his life. Even knowing how easily he gives in to temptation, as drugs and alcohol are the bane of his existence, Francis eliminates the influence of his money handlers and has the club pay him directly, while also helping him stay sober by allowing him to live in his home, returning to him a sense of empowerment. Openly embracing a subtext of racism in America, telling a flashback story that was partly derived from Lester Young’s recollections of witnessing brutal beatings and racist abuse in the army, while also drawing upon other jazz artists who came before him, the mannerisms and quiet dignity that Dexter Gordon brings to bear are all his own, powerful enough, apparently, that none other than Marlon Brando wrote to him to say that it was the first time in fifteen years that he’d learned something new about acting. This is beautifully captured in a sequence with Lonette McKee as former lover Darcey Leigh, who takes the stage to eloquently sing a song, How Long Has This Been Going On? YouTube (4:05), where her white gardenias connect her to Billie Holiday and Lester Young. He eventually decides it’s time to return back home to New York, see his old friends, and re-acquaint himself with his own estranged daughter, with Martin Scorsese making a cameo appearance as his motormouth agent, Goodley. His daughter Chan (Victoria Gabrielle Platt) is invited to a club to hear her father dedicate a melancholic song for her, Dexter Gordon - Chan's song (from the movie) YouTube (3:09), which reflects the emotional distance that still remains between them, knowing he has not been there enough in her life. Not long afterwards Francis receives word that Turner has died, with the final scene paying tribute to his musical legacy and influence, introduced by none other than Herbie Hancock at the Théâtre Antique de Lyon, 23 'Round Midnight · Ending Scene | Remember Dale Turner YouTube (3:46), while reels of Super 8 movies are watched by Francis and his daughter, becoming an elegy to his lasting memory.
