Round Midnight (1986)
100 %
Reviews Counted: 15 Fresh: 15 Rotten:0 Average Rating: 8.1/10
Runtime: 2 hrs 12 mins
Synopsis: 'ROUND MIDNIGHT is the moving story of an expatriate black jazz musician and his struggle to create the bebop sound in 1959 Paris. Dexter Gordon is sensational in the lead role--he earned an Academy Award nomination for his portrayal of Dale Turner--and Herbie Hancock, who appears in the... [More]
Genre: Dramas
Starring: Dexter Gordon, François Cluzet, Lonette McKee, Sandra Reaves-Phillips, Martin Scorsese
Director: Bertrand Tavernier
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Reviews
1 - 15 (sorted by date)
Round Midnight is a superbly crafted music world drama in which Gallic director Bertrand Tavernier pays a moving dramatic tribute to the great black musicians who lived and performed in Paris in the late 1950s.
Comment
04/08/08
Top Critic
One of the best jazz films ever made, this succeeds by melding French sensibilities about atmosphere with American sensibilities about the music.
04/08/08
The director's perenially heavy mood seems especially well suited to this indigo-shaded story of a black American saxman (Dexter Gordon) living and performing in Paris in the late 50s.
04/08/08
Top Critic
Dale Turner, as played by Dexter Gordon, seems to be an amalgam of Bud Powell and Lester Young, but the private, rueful dignity that he brings to bear is all his own.
06/24/06
It's a brooding yet warm elegy, as plaintive as a slow, low-toned ballad in a minor key.
04/05/06
The film's quality lies not just in its vivid portrayal of the bebop milieu, but also in its sensitive examination of the turbulent forces within an artist compelled to create on a nightly basis, despite personal consequences.
07/30/03
No actor could do what the great jazz saxophonist Dexter Gordon does in 'Round Midnight.
05/20/03
Top Critic
Guided by the spirit of the art form it celebrates, Tavernier's film is a mesmerizing audio-visual lament for the impending death of jazz
06/27/02
A lovingly gentle yet vibrant tribute to jazz, friendship and film itself, made by a director of consummate taste and precise imagination.
01/01/00
Top Critic
Gordon goes the limit as Turner, dedicating his performance to all the cats who've gone before.
01/01/00
Top Critic
You do not need to know a lot about jazz to appreciate what is going on because, in a certain sense, this movie teaches you everything about jazz that you really need to know.
01/01/00
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