Round Midnight (1986)

Original title

'Round Midnight

Directed by

Bertrand Tavernier

Genre

drama film, musical film

Country

France, United States

Runtime

2h 13m

Rated

R

Rating

7.1 of 10 from 105 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A fictional jazz musician named Dale Turner moves to Paris in the 1950s. He forms a friendship with a French admirer named Francis, who helps him navigate his struggles with addiction and his music.

slow-burnmelancholicintimatejazz-infusedcontemplativenostalgicunderstatedbittersweet

What happens

Round Midnight is a 1986 American musical drama film directed by Bertrand Tavernier and written by Tavernier and David Rayfiel. It stars Dexter Gordon, with a soundtrack by Herbie Hancock. The title comes from Thelonious Monk's 1943 composition "'Round Midnight", which is featured in this film in a Hancock arrangement. The protagonist jazzman, Dale Turner, is based on a composite of real-life jazz legends Lester Young (tenor sax) and Bud Powell (piano). While the film is fictionalized, it is drawn directly from the memoir/biography Dance of the Infidels written by French author Francis Paudras, who had befriended Powell during his Paris expatriate days and on whom the character Francis was based. Gordon was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor and won a Grammy for the film's soundtrack entitled The Other Side of Round Midnight in the category for Best Instrumental Jazz Performance, Soloist. Hancock won the Academy Award for Best Original Score. The soundtrack was released in two parts: Round Midnight and The Other Side of Round Midnight. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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