'Round Midnight

What does a man who lives only for music do when faced with his own aging and illness? What does a young man do in the presence of greatness? Where is the line drawn between passion and survival?

These are the "thinking" questions we can ask about the great Bertrand Tavernier film 'Round Midnight. The "feeling" questions that stir in our imaginations, however, are at the heart of this journey into the beautiful and tragic world of jazz.

The first music we hear is a saxophone or a human voice and in that melodic confusion we sense all that follows. This is a film about the human soul, a beautiful instrument, and the path they take together to find the beauty and the terror that seem to co-exist in the life of the artist.

"I'm going to Paris" Dale Turner tells a friend. "What's that gonna fix?" comes the telling response. This economy of dialogue tells us much about Turner the man and the artist. All he knows is his music. That's where his life begins and continues. Later, when his tenor sax tenderly wends its way through "As Time Goes By" it's as if Sam, still in Casablanca, is singing to himself 20 years after Rick has ensured the escape of his only love and her husband. The voice is mellower but still intensely passionate.

Throughout this film that slips naturally between French and English, we see that Dale's nature and soul is the music and only the music. We glimpse profoundly what it's like to be a musician. At one point, the young French fan who reveres Dale finds him in an alley. Dale explains, "I can't get it right. I've forgotten the words." The young man then recites the lost lyrics to Dale.

Dale, portrayed by tenor sax great Dexter Gordon, dreams only of music and is "tired of everything except the music." Even when he plays till his mouthpiece is bloody, there's only the music and the ever-expanding sound of his saxophone that consumes all thought and being.

This transfixing film takes us out of our lives and makes us shuffle and slip through the short days and long nights of the jazz artist. This is a film of living more than knowing and perhaps more of sensing than of understanding. We all need to see life from another perspective from time to time. 'Round Midnight does that and beautifully so.

--Brooks C. Sackett, July 2008

> Special showing of 'Round Midnight October 10, 2008