Directed by Giuseppi Tornatore of Cinema Paradiso fame, The Legend of 1900 tells the story of a man (1900, played by Tim Roth) who was born on a ship, The Virginian, at the turn of the 20th Century. 1900 becomes a piano player in the jazz band on the ship, and is joined by Max (Pruitt Taylor Vince, an actor normally used for eerie serial killer roles, here doing a respectable job as a jazz musician), the trumpeter. The film has a great, unreal feel to it, a certain mysticism that is akin to Little Big Man. The chief drama of the story is the question of whether 1900 would leave the confines - and the safety and certainty - of the ship and venture out onto land. I think, though, that there is an underlying story: whether humanity and art has a purpose that can survive the tumult of the Twentieth Century. 1900's character is safe so long as he is confined in the pseudo-reality of the ship. When the real world intrudes - either in the form of Jelly Roll Morton's menacing, arrogant challenge to 1900, a young lady 1900 pines over, or the violence of the World Wars - 1900's world is torn apart, perhaps symbolic of the changes made to art by the real world politics and violence of the 20th Century.
The film is complemented by an absolutely stunning, beautiful score by Sergio Leone (the composer of the film scores for The Mission, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, and A Fistful of Dollars). It seems to flirt with jazz and classical music simultaneously, mixing the playfulness of Fats Waller and Gershwin with the sincerity of Chopin or Rachmaninoff. It's a powerful, powerful score.
I definitely consider this film one of the better ones I have seen this year, along with Lost in Translation and Master and Commander.
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