The Legend of 1900
| The Legend of 1900 | |
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Italian theatrical film poster
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| Directed by | Giuseppe Tornatore |
| Produced by | Francesco Tornatore |
| Screenplay by | Giuseppe Tornatore |
| Based on |
Novecento by Alessandro Baricco |
| Starring |
Tim Roth Pruitt Taylor Vince Mélanie Thierry Bill Nunn Clarence Williams III Peter Vaughan |
| Music by | Ennio Morricone |
| Cinematography | Lajos Koltai |
| Edited by | Massimo Quaglia |
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Production
company |
Sciarlò
Medusa Film |
| Distributed by | Medusa Film |
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Release date
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Running time
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165 minutes (Original cut) 125 minutes |
| Country | Italy |
| Language | English French |
| Budget | $9 million |
| Box office | $259,127 (United States) |
The Legend of 1900 (Italian: La leggenda del pianista sull'oceano, The Legend of the Pianist on the Ocean) is a 1998 Italian drama film directed by Giuseppe Tornatore and starring Tim Roth, Pruitt Taylor Vince and Mélanie Thierry. It was Tornatore's first English-language film. The film is inspired by Novecento, a monologue by Alessandro Baricco. The film was nominated for a variety of awards worldwide, winning several for its soundtrack.
The story is told in medias res as a series of flashbacks. Max Tooney, a musician, enters a secondhand music shop just before closing time, broke and badly in need of money. He has only a Conn trumpet, which he sells for less than he had hoped. Clearly torn at parting from his prized possession, he asks to play it one last time. The shopkeeper agrees, and as the musician plays, the shopkeeper immediately recognizes the song from a broken record matrix he found inside a recently acquired secondhand piano. He asks who the piece is by, and Max tells him the story of 1900.
1900 was found abandoned on the four stacker oceanliner SS Virginian, a baby in a box, and likely the son of poor immigrants from steerage. Danny, a coal-man from the boiler room, is determined to raise the boy as his own. He names the boy Danny Boodman T. D. Lemon 1900 (a combination of his own name, an advertisement found on the box and the year he was born) and hides him from the ship's officers. Sadly, a few years later, Danny is killed in a workplace accident, and 1900 is forced to survive aboard the Virginian as an orphan. For many years, he travels back and forth across the Atlantic, keeping a low profile.
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Wikipedia