'round about movie

This week, we watch 'Round midnight. It's round about plot weaves between the bromance of a sax player and his French number one fan. I heard this word, bromance, from an article that discussed the straight couple from Scrubs, the Turk and J.T. characters. A "bromance" is when two straight men are engaged in a relationship together that would, under usual circumstances, be viewed as romantic in nature. I think it's fairly clear that Dale and Francis are a bit more than friends. Francis documents their relationship, watches the film obsessively, ignoring his daughter and gazing into the image of the sax player. He moves Dale in, finds a nicer, better apartment, even leaves his daughter and work to escort Dale back to New York.
Although the plotline consists only of a climax, Dale's death, and includes no rising or falling action, there is a few really lovely cinematograhic moments. The home movies that Francis shoots of Dale are moving, full of emotion, and simply human. They remove Dale from the performance of the Blue Note and its atmosphere. Outside of that environment, where he is incapable of caring for himself, we see him misplaced into a simpler world where he cares for Francis' daughter, playing with her on the beach and buying her treats.
But I kept asking myself why is this little white frenchman taking care of this adult man? Especially since I could never really define for myself why Dale needed to be taken care of. He did display symptons of a recovered/recovering alcoholic, sneaking drinks when Buttercup wasn't looking, wanting the drink that worked the fastest, i.e. the one that the guy had that fell out at the bar ( alittle dramatic, eh?). He talks once about noticing that he had bled on his reed after playing. He is also admitted to the hospital almost everytime he drinks, even if it's only a few beers or two glasses of wine. The only thing I could come up with was maybe stomach ulcers, if drinking so little causes so much of a problem that he admitted every time. As far as bleeding on the reed, that could be from stomach ulcers or it could be that he busted his lip while playing. He also talked to a mental health physician at one point, but the guy seems convinced that Dale is ok.
I don't know. I'll be happy to hear how the rest of you interpretted things on Tuesday.

I felt like I spent the whole film trying to figure out the things I discussed above. And, because I was trying to rationale what was happening, I couldn't really see the whole picture until the movie was over. But, hey, I'm still not saying that I get the big picture.

The language and voice of the film was hard to understand too. Gordan's voice was lovely, interesting, and original. It had tons of character. But it was not easy for me to understand what he was saying. I wanted the whole movie to be in subtitles, not just the sections of conversation that were in french. Gordan's voice did remind me of Louis Armstrong's performance voice, though. And, " I cover the Waterfront" was playing in the background of one of the scenes. It was sung as straightforwardly as ever, definitely not a jazz version. Hearing the mainstream version really made me realize the beauty and originality in Armstrong's voice, the command, the ups and downs, the emotion. It changed the song into a new animal for me, an interesting animal.

Even though I couldn't always understand the voice of Gordan's character, I was drawn to his acting. He was this lovable grandpa figure, telling stories of yesteryear (both uplifting and enlighteningly sad), sneaking drinks, still seducing young good looking women. He seemed like a lot of fun. He held himself in the most wonderful way. You could see his weariness in the slump of his shoulder, the way he laid himself on the bed, in the waving of his hand. The evident change in his posture around Francis' daughter showed the effect of youth on him.

But, it was still hard for me to justify his place in the film. Just by the time allotted him onscreen, he seems to be a more important character than Dale, but it his Dale that the story opens up on.

Last week we watched Space is the Place. I was prepared for it because of the setup of the articles, the repeatedly used adjectives like crazy, nutty, wacky. But, the narrative of Midnight was something new. It was trying at documentary with things like the plot simply reflecting a section of a life and the images of the film shot by Francis. But, we don't know what finally kills Dale. We don't know what he struggled with before the film; there's just no context.

That's all for now, I guess. Talk at cha later.