The Legend of 1900 (Uncut) (1998) ( La leggenda del pianista sull'oceano ) ( The Legend of the Pianist on the Ocean (The Legend of Nineteen Hundred) )

The Legend of 1900 (Uncut) (1998) (Blu-Ray) (*)

$28.99

Original Title: La leggenda del pianista sull'oceano
Alternate Title: The Legend of the Pianist on the Ocean (The Legend of Nineteen Hundred)
Screened, competed or awarded at:
David Donatello Awards
European Film Awards
Golden Globes
Other Film Festival Awards

Language Selections:
English ( DTS 5.1 )
English ( DTS-HD Master Audio )
English ( Subtitles )
Italian ( DTS 5.1 )
Italian ( DTS-HD Master Audio )
Italian ( Subtitles )

Product Origin/Format:
Italy ( Blu-Ray/Region B )

Running Time:
170 min

Aspect Ratio:
Widescreen (2.35:1)

Special Features:
Commentary
Deleted Scenes
Featurette
Interactive Menu
Storyboards
Trailer(s)

Movie filmed in 1998 and produced in:
Italy ( Italy, Greece )

Directed By:
Giuseppe Tornatore

Written By:
Alessandro Baricco
Giuseppe Tornatore

Actors:
Tim Roth ..... Danny Boodmann T.D. Lemon Nineteen Hundred '1900'
Pruitt Taylor Vince ..... Max Tooney
Bill Nunn ..... Danny Boodmann
Clarence Williams III ..... Jelly Roll Morton
Mélanie Thierry ..... The Girl
Gabriele Lavia ..... Farmer
Peter Vaughan ..... 'Pops', the Shopkeeper
Niall O'Brien ..... Harbor Master
Alberto Vazquez ..... Mexican Stoker
Luigi De Luca ..... Neapolitan Stoker
Femi Elufowojo ..... Black Stoker
Nigel Fan ..... Chinese Stoker
Roger Monk ..... Irish Stoker
Leonid Zaslavski ..... Polish Stoker
Bernard Padden ..... Boatswain

Synopsis:

On the 1st of January in 1900, Danny Boodmann (Bill Nunn), the mechanic of the transatlantic liner Virginian bound for America, finds an abandoned baby on board and decides to keep him. Nicknamed Novecento (1900), the boy grows up on the ship hidden from everyone. His presence is revealed when Danny dies in an accident. The young '1900' manages to hide again despite threats from the captain. Discovering a passion for music, he teaches himself to play the piano without being able to read the notes, and he soon becomes a virtuoso whose reputation spreads beyond the confines of the ship. Even the famous jazz piano player, Jelly Roll Morton (Clarence Williams III), gets on board for a challenge because he has heard rumors about the greatest piano player in the world living on a ship. The story is told by Max Tooney, Novocento's old trumpeter friend, who reminisces about the incredible pianist who never set foot on land. After two films about cinema, Giuseppe Tornatore comes up with the story of a highly imaginative artist who lives only for and through his art. Tornatore was inspired by a theatre monologue written in 1994 by Alessandro Baricco, and the film was shot partly in Odessa, on a sixty-year-old Russian freighter, and partly in the Cinecitta studios in Rome. Tim Roth's performance as the talented but reserved Novocento is remarkable, and the music of Ennio Morricone plays a vital role in the film. La leggenda del pianista sull'oceano, which was retitled The Legend of 1900 for US distribution after forty-five minutes have been cut, was originally two hours and forty minutes when it was shown to great success in Italy in autumn of 1998. The US version had its world premiere at the 1999 Locarno International Film Festival.

Shortly after the Second World War, Max, a transplanted American, visits an English pawn shop to sell his trumpet. The shopkeeper recognizes the tune Max plays as one on a wax master of an unreleased recording, discovered and restored from shards found in a piano salvaged from a cruise ship turned hospital ship, now slated for demolition. This chance discovery prompts a story from Max, which he relates both to the shopkeeper and later to the official responsible for the doomed vessel, for Max is a born storyteller. Though now down on his luck and disillusioned by his wartime experiences, the New Orleans-born Max was once an enthusiastic and gifted young jazz musician, whose longest gig was several years with the house band aboard the Virginian, a posh cruise ship. While gaining his sea legs, he was befriended by another young man, the pianist in the same band, whose long unlikely name was Danny Boodman T.D. Lemons 1900, though everyone just called him 1900, the year of his birth. Abandoned in first class by his immigrant parents, 1900 was found and adopted by Danny, a stoker, and raised in the engine rooms, learning to read by reading horseracing reports to his adoptive dad. After Danny's death in an accident, 1900 remained on the ship. Increasingly lured by the sound of the piano in the first-class ballroom, he eventually became a gifted pianist, a great jazz improvisationist, a composer of rich modern music inspired by his intense observation of the life around him, the stories passengers on all levels of the ship trusted him enough to tell. He also grew up to be a charming, iconoclastic young man, at once shrewd and oddly innocent. His talent earned him such accolades that he was challenged by, and bested Jelly Roll Morton in an intense piano duel that had poor Max chewing paper on the sofa in agonies of suspense. And yet for all the richness and variety of his musical expression, he never left the ship, except almost, once, in the aftermath of his infatuation with a beautiful young woman immigrant who inspired the music committed to the master Max discovers in the pawnshop. Max realizes that 1900 must still be on the ship, and determines to find him, and to find out once and for all why he has so consistently refused to leave.

An orphan is born on a cruise ship in 1900, and left in a lemon crate in the ballroom. The baby is raised by a machinist on the ship, Danny Boodman, who hides him in the great ship's belly. The boy becomes known simply as 1900. Knowing nothing of the world beyond the coal room and his porthole view of the sea, 1900 is devastated when his 'adopted father' is fatally wounded in a terrible ship accident. Following Danny's death, 1900 evades the captain's attempts to send him ashore to an orphanage. 1900 saves himself when he wanders into first class and finds a shipboard piano - discovering he is a prodigy who can naturally play glorious, soulful music. He begins playing for the passengers, both rich upstairs and poor below decks. When he grows up, 1900 falls for a New York girl, but has never been on land in his life, and so is too fearful to follow her. His life is lived entirely on board the ship - eventually, 1900 fades into obscurity - only a rare recording proves his existence.

This product was added to our catalog on Tuesday 08 March, 2011.

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