THE LEGEND OF 1900
Giuseppe Tornatore, 1998
It’s probably fair to say that interpretations of art reveal more about the interpreter than the work itself, and no definitive meaning can be ascribed to an artwork, given that one’s response depends on what one brings to it. Art invites reflection, so if we accept that subtext, allegory, and metaphor are central to art, our appreciation will only be enhanced if we ‘read’ artworks with our ‘subtext antenna’ fully engaged.
One of the advantages of an active subtext antenna is that even films that appear to offer little more than straightforward stories can reveal more than may have been intended. Giuseppe Tornatore’s THE LEGEND OF 1900 is a case in point, a flashy large-scale entertainment that tells an improbable tale about a baby boy abandoned on a luxury liner bound for America at the turn of the 20th century who is brought up by one of the ship’s boilermen who names him “1900” (there's no metaphor here, folks, for as we know, boilermen are renowned for naming their children after the year in which they are born). The ship is the only home 1900 has ever known. He has never been on dry land and has vowed never to leave his beloved ship, not even to share his piano-playing genius with the wider world.
THE LEGEND OF 1900 was made at the time when the centenary of cinema was being celebrated, and given that it was made by the person who directed CINEMA PARADISO, it’s reasonable to suppose that "cinema" is a central theme. Indeed, one can read the film as a metaphor for the lost glory of the art form, the brilliance and splendour of which is now, like a big old rusted ship consumed by an indifferent ocean, reduced to endless cycles of dead-in-the-water entertainments — one lumbering Titanic after another.
The metaphor looks something like this: when Max, a musician who spent years in the ship’s band (who narrates ‘the legend of 1900’ in flashback and metaphorically represents commercial expedience), learns that the ship will soon be scuttled, he tries to convince 1900 (artistic conviction) to abandon the ship (the wreckage of cinema) for dry land (commercial crowd-pleasing). Max describes dry land as a place of infinite choice (the reward for selling out), but 1900 remains true to his calling and rejects mediocrity to go down into the watery abyss of noble history with his beloved ship. The implication is that there is no longer a place for art in the movies.
If it sounds corny, it’s because it is. It’s also cynical and dispiriting. It’s hard to say whether Tornatore made THE LEGEND OF 1900 in the vacuous style of the worst excesses of commercial filmmaking in order to denounce them or if he simply made a vacuous movie. Either way, this fairy tale for grownups demeans both fairy tales and grownups.
At one point, 1900 says, "You're never really done-for as long as you have a good story and someone to tell it to". What he should have said is 'someone to sell it to'!