[WATCHED: December 29, 2014] The Legend of 1900
After really enjoying Novocento, I wanted to see what they would do with a film of the book. I was especially curious how they took the sixty-some page monologue and turned it into a 2 hour film.
The film was written by Giuseppe Tornatore who directed Cinema Paradiso. It was filmed entirely in Italy (which explains how they got the New York scenes to look so old world) and yet it was written entirely in English (apparently before Novocento was translated). It starred Tim Roth as Nineteenhundred (not Novocento, like in the book) and a bunch of other people I didn’t know.
The movie was, as I say, written by Tornatore, based on the book. He kept virtually the entire book the same for the movie. But he added a bookend section to give the narrator someone to talk to. And this is how the film was stretched out to two hours.
The new parts are certainly interesting. Max, Nineteenhundred’s only real friend and fellow shipboard musician, is selling his trumpet at a pawn shop. This part confused me because the pawn shop owner is British, but I thought the ship was docked in New York. But whatever. He plays his trumpet one last time and the melody he plays is the same one that the shop keeper then plays on a phonograph. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 