The Legend of 1900: A lesson in overwhelm

"It wasn't what I saw that stopped me, Max. It was what I didn't see.
Can you understand that?
What I didn't see. In all that sprawling city, there was everything except an end.
There was everything. But there wasn't an end.
​What I couldn't see was where all that came to an end.
​The end of the world."

The scene. The dialogue. It still haunts me.

The sentiment seems more relevant today than it did in 1998 when Guiseppe Tornatore's first English language film premiered in Los Angeles. In 2021, there seems to be no end in sight... You can fill in the blank from your personal experience that has no doubt been shaped by lockdowns, a contentious election, and daily cultural divides. 

Who hasn't had that feeling of seeing no end when surveying the daily onslaught of all things digital. The endless scroll of Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook... pick your poison. Not to mention DMs from various platforms, texts and emails sent to you that require action on some level, even if to just unsubscribe.

Where do you encounter sprawling options?
And the subsequent overwhelm?
Where do you long for some finitude? 

First, is Tornatore even capable of a cinematic misstep?
Once again, he collaborated with Ennio Morricone for another heartbreaking score that punctuates every visual.
The casting, the camera work, the script... all subtle, sensitive, natural and believable.
Every element perfectly placed to tell a seamless story. His work is truly art. 
​And art stays with you... long after the "fade to black."
​Or the encore, or after you've closed the book that left an indelible impression, or perhaps the immersive museum visit that quieted your mind. 

The Legend of 1900 is the story of Danny Boodman T.D. Lemon 1900, a jazz savant born on a luxury steamship played by Tim Roth. He is known as 1900 because he is born on New Year's Day 1900, most likely in steerage, as he is abandoned and then adopted by a crew member, his cradle... a lemon box.

It is also the story of his friendship with jazz trumpeter, Max. Their paths cross and their lives are forever changed when Max is hired as a trumpeter for the ship's orchestra. Despite lucrative offers for his musical genius, 1900 flourishes on the S.S. Virginian and never steps foot on land his entire life. Max tells his story which is really their story. 

The overwhelm that 1900 experienced as he looked at New York from the gangway resonates. Overwhelm, which feels so 21st Century, is nothing new. However, the expectations created by social media is a new phenomena and unchartered waters. 

In Crazy Busy: A (Mercifully) Short Book about a (Really) Big Problem, Kevin DeYoung states "The biggest deception of our digital age may be the lie that says we can be omni-competent, omni-informed, and omni-present...
We must choose our absences, our inability, and our ignorance-and choose wisely."

Let's all take a breath and breathe that one in. That requires more time and attention than the energy it takes to double tap a heart. All those webinars and all those white papers that promise a deeper understanding really just cause us to be superficially knowledgable about more.  
 
I recall being very deliberate at the start of my jewelry career to know as little as possible about watches. I knew gemstones and focused on pearls. I also got realistic about my inabilities. Bookkeeping and some bench activities were delegated pretty quickly. Marketing was not going to be outsourced. I drilled down deeply into the nuances of email marketing. Twitter was eschewed. Likewise, Facebook. Instagram embraced on my terms.    

​In another view from New York City on the pervasiveness of social media, Fran Lebowitz, who has a landline and a physical address... no social, no smart phone, no devices, said it well in her collaboration with Martin Scorsese on the Netflix original Pretend It's a City: "I don't have these things not because I don't know what they are. I don't have these things because I do know. That's why I don't have them." 

{As a side note, the very best part of Pretend It's a City is not Lebowitz's one liners. It is Scorsese's infectious laughter that punctuates their conversations. He chuckles, giggles, guffaws throughout the entire series. An unintended consequence: I'm pretty sure I'll hear his laughter in the background the next time I watch one of his movies.}

​"Take a piano. The keys begin, the keys end.
You know there are 88 of them and no-one can tell you differently.
They are not infinite, you are infinite.
And on those 88 keys the music that you can make is infinite.
I like that. That I can live by.

But you get me up on that gangway and roll out a keyboard with millions of keys,
and that's the truth, there's no end to them, that keyboard is infinite.
But if that keyboard is infinite there's no music you can play.
You're sitting on the wrong bench. That's God's piano.
Christ, did you see the streets? There were thousands of them! How do you choose just one?
One woman, one house, one piece of land to call your own,
one landscape to look at, one way to die.
​
All that world weighing down on you without you knowing where it ends.
Aren't you scared of just breaking apart just thinking about it,
the enormity of living in it?"

When everything seems possible, very little really is. 
Choose your 88 keys and choose wisely.    

I re-visited this movie and if you haven't seen it, I hope you can treat yourself to it this weekend. And do share your feelings about this unsung masterpiece.
​
There's a beginning and an end.
It's 2 hours and 50 minutes.
​That's finite. And transcendent. 

The Legend of 1900 has earned an R rating for the ebullient use of fuck in every grammatical form.