Scott Joplin (1977)

User Rating:

6.4/10   

Director:

Jeremy Kagan

Writer:

Christopher Knopf (written by)

Release Date:

30 December 1977 (USA)

Genre:

Biography | Drama | Music

Tagline:

Scott Joplin's Ragtime Music Portrayed American Life.

Plot:

Details the life story of Scott Joplin and how he became the greatest ragtime composer of all time. |

Plot Keywords:

Composer | Ragtime | African American | Period Piece | Pianist

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Billy Dee Williams	...	Scott Joplin
Clifton Davis	...	Chauvin
Margaret Avery	...	Belle Joplin
Eubie Blake	...	Will Williams
Godfrey Cambridge	...	Tom Turpin
Seymour Cassel	...	Dr. Jaelki
Otis Day	...	John The Baptist
Mabel King	...	Madam Amy
Taj Mahal	...	Poor Alfred
Spo-De-Odee	...	Left Hand of God
Art Carney	...	John Stark
David Healy	...	Sam Bundler
Samuel Fuller	...	Impresario
Leon Charles	...	Liebling
Fred Pinkard	...	Dr. Adams

Runtime:

96 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

USA:PG (certificate #24742)

Company:

Motown Productions

Quotes:

Belle: I was remembering the time we said we'd marry. Does it embarass you so much to talk about it?
Scott: Ultimately, you'll see that I was wise not to talk about it.
Belle: You needn't stop talking altogether, you know. I've been made love to before. I know a lot about love. But it wasn't the same with them as it was with you. With you I felt soft and sorry inside. No matter how much you rejected me, I could stand it. Not anymore.

More fiction than fact, but the music makes it worthwhile

The man who gave us the Maple Leaf Rag and the Entertainer, Scott Joplin, once said that he would not become known until fifty years after his death.

He wasn't off by much--it took fifty-six. In 1973, Marvin Hamlisch used the then-largely unknown Joplin's music in the movie "The Sting," spurring a ragtime revival and a renewed interest in Joplin specifically. Joplin's work received long-overdue attention from music scholars, and he was awarded a posthumous Pulitzer for his body of work, some fifty known rags, waltzes, marches--and one opera, Treemonisha.

This movie rode the wave of his renewed popularity, but plays so loose with the facts of his life that we end up knowing little more about him. Billy Dee Williams is a superb Joplin, as is Art Carney as his publisher, John Stark. But the movie either ignores or glosses over certain details, such as Joplin's longtime friendship and collaboration with Scott Hayden. Hayden is not even mentioned in the film, which prefers to focus on Joplin and the tragic, unsung musical genius Louis Chauvin, who Joplin barely knew. Chauvin in his prime would compose beautiful rags on the spot, never to be heard again, because he could not write them down. The movie implies they were friends from the earliest days, which they were not. They did collaborate on one piece, "Heliotrope Bouquet", when Chauvin was dying and no longer able to play--this the movie gets right.

It also touches on the growing animosity between Joplin and Stark, but this too is sugarcoated. The movie implies they reconciled, which in reality never happened.

Yet the movie is worth seeing if only for one thing--the wonderful, brooding music of a man for whom recognition was long overdue.