The god thang

Dexter Gordon

According to what it says here, Arts and Faith is “the best place on the Web for discussion of Christian faith, the arts, and much more…” They recently had the chutzpah (sorry, I couldn’t resist) to put together a list of 100 titles of “Spiritually Significant Films,” and if you go there you’ll notice that they’ve trademarked that moniker. Which may mean that I’ll go straight to hell (or court) if I refer to “Spiritually Significant Film” without authorization. (Christian forgiveness only goes so far.)

    The round-up is pretty much what you’d expect — obligatory nods to Bresson, Dreyer and Bergman mixed in with Mel Gibson’s gory Jesus movie and Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven, that queasy speculative fantasy of George Cukor tackling Budd Schulberg out west — On the Waterfront meets Heller in Pink Tights. These days no one, not even Arts and Faith, pays much attention to Nick Ray’s King of Kings or DeMille’s Ten Commandments, though I’d rather watch either one of those old chestnuts before Franco Zeffirelli’s puffy and dutiful Jesus of Nazareth, which came in at number thirty-seven.

    Missing from the countdown is Majid Majidi’s extraordinary The Color of Paradise, which warrants a place among the top twenty-five, certainly before Dead Men Walking or A Man for All Seasons. It may be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for Arts and Faith to recognize John Huston’s Fat City or Jacques Rivette’s Celine and Julie Go Boating as saintly ideals. And Bertrand Tavernier’s Un dimanche à la campagne and ‘Round Midnight are also absent, inexplicably so given that they convey more genuine compassion and wisdom than Roberto Benigni’s Life is Beautiful or The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, two cases of lumpy overload. (I’ve known a few people — heathens? — who’d ring Benigni’s neck just for laughs.)

    Aside from its heartfelt recreation of nightclub life and Dexter Gordon’s touching performance, ‘Round Midnight approaches introspective and spiritual themes, first by addressing a man’s loss of his mentor (Robert Bly once used the film to illustrate his theory of the “male mother”), and then by showing the construction and creative process of music. Jazz is America’s most overlooked and underplayed musical genre, but it represents the free soul and art in perhaps its purest form. Gordon plays tenor sax in the picture, which also features Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Wayne Shorter, Pierre Michelot and other jazz greats improvising on camera. While the Pope may not agree, I think that Tavernier’s movie holds more spiritual weight than Mel Gibson’s whipped and bloodied Jesus or Jim Carrey wishing away Kate Winslet. And the music is divine.

‘Round Midnight
Original soundtrack; recorded in 1985

1. ‘Round Midnight (5:35)
Herbie Hancock, piano. Ron Carter, bass. Tony Williams, drums. Bobby McFerrin, vocals.
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2. Body and Soul (5:54)
Dexter Gordon, tenor sax. Herbie Hancock, piano. Pierre Michelot, bass. Billy Higgins, drums. John McLaughlin, guitar.
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3. Bérangère’s Nightmare (3:06)
Herbie Hancock, piano. Pierre Michelot, bass. Billy Higgins, drums. John McLaughlin, guitar.
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4. Fair Weather (6:05)
Herbie Hancock, piano. Pierre Michelot, bass. Billy Higgins, drums. Chet Baker, vocal and trumpet.
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5. Una Noche con Francis (4:22)
Dexter Gordon, tenor sax. Herbie Hancock, piano. Pierre Michelot, bass. Billy Higgins, drums. Bobby Hutcherson, vibes. Wayne Shorter, tenor sax.
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6. The Peacocks (7:16)
Herbie Hancock, piano. Pierre Michelot, bass. Billy Higgins, drums. Wayne Shorter, tenor sax.
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7. How Long Has This Been Going On? (3:12)
Herbie Hancock, piano. Pierre Michelot, bass. Billy Higgins, drums. Lonette McKee, vocal. Dexter Gordon, tenor sax.
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8. Rhythm-a-ning (4:11)
Dexter Gordon, tenor sax. Freddie Hubbard, trumpet. Cedar Walton, piano. Ron Carter, bass. Tony Williams, drums.
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9. Still Time (3:50)
Herbie Hancock, piano. Pierre Michelot, bass. Billy Higgins, drums. Dexter Gordon, tenor sax.
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10. Minuit aux Champs-Elysées (3:26)
Herbie Hancock, piano. Bobby Hutcherson, vibes.
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11. Chan’s Song / Never Said (4:15)
Herbie Hancock, piano. Ron Carter, bass. Tony Williams, drums. Bobby McFerrin, vocals.
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