Dorks And Losers

It’s hard to deter­mine why jazz has become such an often ignored and under­ap­pre­ci­ated musi­cal form when it’s had so much influ­ence on mod­ern and con­tem­po­rary music.

The sim­plest rea­son is that jazz lacks the con­ven­tional excite­ment and glam­our that sur­rounds other musi­cal forms, namely rock & roll and now hip-hop. Although one can’t argue that jazz is old-fashioned, pro­duc­ing the same image of grand­par­ents danc­ing and hav­ing fun that would make any kid cringe. It might’ve been cool then, but it sure isn’t cool now.

This dis­con­nect is unfor­tu­nate because no other art­form bet­ter cap­tures the moment like jazz music. No per­for­mance is ever the same, from a sub­tle shift in tone to a more dra­matic key change. Even the musician’s mood and very thoughts could alter the song’s very essence.

The Bertrand Tavernier-directed Round Mid­night cap­tures that sim­ple truth, ampli­fied ten­fold by all of the artist’s unique fea­tures and imper­fec­tions. Dale Turner (Dex­ter Gor­don) exem­pli­fies the lat­ter as a uni­ver­sally acclaimed yet trou­bled tenor play­ing along­side other expa­tri­ates, help­ing to cre­ate and shape the bebop style, in post­war Paris.

Fran­cis Borier (François Cluzet) approaches Turner after a long show. Despite Borier’s repeated praise for the musi­cian, it takes a few rounds before the friend­ship really blos­soms. The imme­di­ate attrac­tion is their love for jazz, but as the movie pro­gresses their true com­mon­al­ity is exposed. Turner and Borier are deeply flawed men. One is an absolute alco­holic. The other is a neglect­ful father.

While Turner’s life seems tragic, Borier’s life is truly painful. In the end, Turner’s addic­tion affects mostly him­self, with almost every friend and asso­ciate resigned to let­ting the genius fade away. Borier is deter­mined to not let his hero’s life end that way, even focus­ing his atten­tion away from his daugh­ter Beran­gere (Gabrielle Haker) to help Turner. While Borier means well for every­one, his trou­bles of rais­ing the daugh­ter that his wife wanted no part of are apparent.

Turner’s life is not a roller­coaster. It’s a con­tin­ual uphill climb with many stops for breath, yet very few brief pauses to enjoy the scenery. In a sub­dued tri­umph, Turner’s life finally takes a pos­i­tive turn after mov­ing in with Borier and his daugh­ter and after mak­ing a con­scious effort to quit drink­ing. Sobri­ety allows him to finally pro­duce his long-awaited record, which was prob­a­bly more Borier’s dream than Turner’s.

The Dale Turner char­ac­ter is based on the lives of real-life jazz musi­cians Bud Pow­ell and Lester Young, and it must be noted that many jazz musi­cians’ lives and/or careers have been cut short by alco­hol and drugs. I can’t haz­ard a guess why, but it is nonethe­less heart­break­ing to expe­ri­ence their great­ness and not won­der what could have been.

Round Mid­night fea­tures cameo roles for Mar­tin Scors­ese (Good­ley) and Her­bie Han­cock (Eddie Wayne) — who also scored the film — as well as many famous jazz musi­cians. The film and jazz music are per­fectly summed up with a line by Wayne after wit­ness­ing Turner get helped to his room after another drunken night: “Even the most beau­ti­ful things can be the most painful.”

The DVD’s spe­cial fea­tures include bib­li­ogra­phies of the cast & crew, a brief men­tion of the film’s awards (a 1986 Acad­emy Award for Best Score forHan­cock), and the film’s the­atri­cal trailer.

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