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Round Midnight
starring: Dexter Gordon, François Cluzet, Gabrielle Haker, Sandra Reaves-Phillips, Lonette McKee
directed by: Bertrand Tavernier

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Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9786301016858
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, HiFi Sound, NTSC
ISBN: 6301016858
Label: Warner Home Video
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Warner Home Video
Release Date: July 08, 1994
Running Time: 132 minutes
Sales Rank: 3677
Studio: Warner Home Video
Theatrical Release Date: October 03, 1986

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Editorial Review:

Amazon.com:
Like the music it celebrates, Round Midnight is long on atmosphere, short on formal structure, alert and open to improvisation, making this 1986 drama the most authentic glimpse of jazz yet filmed. Its subject, Dale Turner (played by Dexter Gordon), is a composite of brilliant but bruised jazz warriors who left America behind for self-imposed European exile, finding a more tolerant and appreciative audience while never completely eluding their private demons. Drugs and drink have battered the tall, laconic saxophonist, whose diffident, somewhat distracted manner only partly conceals a deeper exhaustion as he plays a 1959 engagement in a Parisian club and tries to stay sober. His burnished solos drift behind the tempo with a languor that can't be fully explained as a point of style. But when an ardent, impoverished French fan (François Cluzet) intercepts his idol and then offers him simple acts of kindness, the gesture inspires a brief but glowing second wind in the aging musician, reflected in his playing. Even as the film contemplates Turner's return to his homeland as a portent of his own death, his moments on the Parisian bandstand suggest a glimpse of redemption.

If Turner's frail character echoes real-life ex-pats like Bud Powell and Lester Young, director Bertrand Tavernier's insistence upon casting the role with veteran tenor player Dexter Gordon breathes startling authenticity into the figure. Gordon's own drug arrests and an extended idyll abroad give him direct access to Turner's isolation, and Tavernier elicits a natural but compelling performance that earned Gordon (who died in 1990) an Academy Award nomination. Likewise, the director cast his cinematic band with world-class musicians, including Herbie Hancock, Freddie Hubbard, Wayne Shorter, and Ron Carter, and shot these sequences as live performances. Hancock's score deservedly won both British and American Academy Awards, as well as a French César. --Sam Sutherland

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- Extraordinary film
"Round Midnight" is an exceptional piece of art in which the music acts almost as another main character. The lead performances are very good, and the all-star group of musicians make the soundtrack absolutely first-rate. However, I found the direction to be the strong point of the film. I know some people have suggested Scorsese had a heavy hand in directing even though he's only officially credited as a cast member, and perhaps they're right, but I thought it seemed uniquely distinct from just ... Read More

Rating:

- For the record.......
Lester Young never lived in France. Lester's last gig was in Paris but he never lived there.

Powell, on the other hand, spent years overseas playing.

Great movie, definitely based on the lives of Powell and Young. Gordon was brilliant in this movie.

Rating:

- A Must Have
I have watched Round Midnight many times over the past 20 years including in a theatre when the movie first appeared. There is nothing I can say in this review that hasn't been said by the other 50 reviewers other than 1) although brilliant in concept and reality, it is a boring film 2)if you are a jazz fan then you simply must have this film in your collection for no other reason than seeing the all-star jazz musicians play. I think Lonette McKee's rendition of "How Long This Has Been Going On" is ... Read More

Rating:

- One of the top films of the Eighties!

Bertrand Tavernier is one of the most distinguished and finest French directors of the second half of the Century. and this film claimed by itself to be made, it deals with the story of a jazz musician struggling to create the bebop sound. Real-life tenor sax Dexter Gordon and Martin Scorsesse contributed to make this film a real winner, measure by measure.

One of the warmest tributes ever paid to jazz.

Rating:

- For Jazz Enthusiasts
Jazz enthusiasts will want to watch this flick over and over again. Dexter Gordon, in the lead role, is amazing.

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