Round Midnight

Dale Turner slumps in a chair onstage and plays his tenor saxophone every night, the sad notes floating through bellows of cigarette smoke and drifting into another lonely 1950s Paris evening. There to catch the sorrowful but beautiful tones is Francis, an equally sad and lonely soul who finds comfort in those sounds. Night after night he leans against the walls of the hall, not a franc to spare to get a proper seat inside. It hardly matters, as the notes are crystal clear in their desperation, even in the alleyway.

Eventually, Francis will meet Dale, and adopt him to some degree. Nary a bite for himself and his young daughter, yet he will offer the jazzman ceaseless and generous hospitality. He feels it is the least he can do in return for all the elation he has been given. Dale, however, is gravely ill, his alcoholism and drug addiction eating away with increasing mortality. It won't be long, the two men realize. But Francis, beaten down in his own lack of success as a graphic designer, has found a mission.

Warner Brothers, the Hollywood studio that released the bittersweet 1986 film ROUND MIDNIGHT, might well have commissioned such a sterile description for their film as what I provided in the above paragraphs. As I write more and more reviews, I find that simply recounting plot points is often a bore. What makes films fun to write about are how they make me feel, how they affect and speak to me, what memories they evoke. This film, reflected upon some nearly quarter century after first seeing it, still provides me some warm and haunting imagery, much like any great jazz piece would.

ROUND MIDNIGHT was one of the first "art" films I would see in a theater. I was still in high school, still attending movies like RAMBO and ALIENS. I was not really a fan of any sort of jazz, yet this movie intrigued me. I saw it at the Carefree, an old single screen palace of yesteryear that had recently converted from second run to arthouse. I would also see Errol Morris' THE THIN BLUE LINE and Fellini's AND THE SHIP SAILS ON there about the same time. I had been viewing more ambitious fare on cable for years, but seeing such films in a theater was like an awakening of some kind. Being in a movie house for any film, even with idiot audiences, is just magical. I knew the wonder of seeing pics like the STAR WARS trilogy, TOP GUN and other noisy spectcles; seeing and hearing the quieter, more contemplative works in this environment was a rebirth, and the true genesis of my Serious Filmgoing.

ROUND MIDNIGHT was a far more deliberately paced film than I was used to. I remember feeling a bit confused and uncomfortable in my seat, unsure how to react. Perhaps I kept expecting an explosive to detonate under Dale's chair. Eventually, I settled in. I gradually appreciated the rhythm, and not just that of the music. There was actually time to drink it all in, the pauses, the telling roadmaps we see on each character's face. We didn't just hop from one set piece to the next in this film. When it was over my father and I silently left and rode home. Very reverent. This was not our norm, as we would usually be very chatty after we saw something. Such would have been inappropriate for a delicate film like this. It might've fractured the sweet vibe, cat.

I bought the soundtrack the following weekend. A completely different experience for someone so immersed in the rock and pop of the day. I recall actress/siren Lonette McKee's (Darcey) silky rendition of "How Long Has This Been Going On?" Of course, the film's lead actor was famed jazz great Dexter Gordon, and he and cohorts (among them Herbie Hancock, in a small role) would create their music right onscreen. Captured on the soundtrack, it was no less mesmerizing, soothing, dissonant. I now had both recollections of the movie and some new imagery to savor. Despite my fondness for this collection, it would be another 13 years or so before my jazz appreciation would blossom. Ten years following that, I would listen to Coltrane and Dolphy with perhaps the same passion exhibited by Francis. There is a seduction, but also a peace, there.

The film, however, would become and remain a favorite from my first viewing. French director Betrand Tavernier does not direct with a heavy hand. He makes this film feel effortless, like nothing had to be rehearsed, orchestrated. That is not to say that ROUND MIDNIGHT is bereft of style. The recreations of 50s Parisian saloons are quite vivid. We see it all in a muted deep focus, dreamlike, yet tangible. Of course, great music just flows omnisciently, infusing everything. The musical personnel lean and slouch and smoke endlessly behind their shades. Their salty exchanges, often barely audible. Gordon, floating around, calling everyone "Lady", inhabits this world naturally, just like he did in real life, and just like legends Bud Powell and Lester Young (upon whom the character of Dale is based)did decades before. He hangs his hat in rooms with visible ductwork and steam pipes. It does not take too much examination to see the sad poem that is his (and was their) life. Mr. Gordon himself would pass on some years later.

Late in the film, Dale returns home once more to New York City, for meetings with a fast talking agent (Martin Scorsese, I kid you not) and a rather toxic drug dealer. For so many of the jazz greats of the middle 20th century, the H was as addictive a muse as were the notes. Dale Turner's trip back west is a poignant coda on many levels: a man returning to his home, the expatriate dream now a memory. ROUND MIDNIGHT also views this journey as a homecoming for jazz itself, back to its birthplace. Unlike Dale (and Dexter) himself, his music, in all its free form complexity and beauty, will live on for years to come.