Novecento is a theatrical monologue written by Alessandro Baricco and published by Feltrinelli in 1994. The text was meant to be the script for a play directed by Gabriele Vacis and performed by Eugenio Allegri, which was first staged at the Asti Festival in July of the same year. The author described it as something between "a true staging and a story to be read aloud." The book has been a commercial success in Italy and abroad, selling more than one million copies in the first sixteen years after publication and in 1998 it was adapted into a film titled The Legend of 1900, directed by Giuseppe Tornatore, with the characters Novecento and Tooney (named Max in the film) portrayed by Tim Roth and Pruitt Taylor Vince, respectively.
Adaptations (1)
Novecento was adapted into a 1998 film.
The Legend of 19001998 · film · 169 min · dir. Giuseppe Tornatore · IMDb ↗Musician Max Tooney goes to sell his prized Conn trumpet to a music shop, where he plays the instrument one last time. The shopkeeper recognises the song as one on a record matrix he found and asks who the piece is by. Tooney tells the story of an infant found abandoned in the first class dining room of the four-stacker ocean-liner SS Virginian on 1 January 1900. Danny Boodman, a coal-man from the boiler room, names the boy Danny Boodman T. D. Lemon 1900, after himself, the fruit crate the boy was found in, and the year, and raises him as his own.
