Film
Although only a small amount of film showing Tatum playing exists today, several minutes of professionally-shot archival footage can be found in Martin Scorsese's documentary The Blues. Footage also appears in Ken Burns' documentary Jazz, which includes a short passage on Tatum's life and work, including comments from Jimmy Rowles and Gary Giddins. Tatum appeared in the 1947 movie The Fabulous Dorseys, first playing a solo and then accompanying Dorsey's band in an impromptu song.
Tatum appeared on Steve Allen's Tonight Show in the early 1950s, and on other television shows from this era. Unfortunately, all of the kinescopes of the Allen shows, which were stored in a warehouse along with other now defunct shows, were thrown into a local rubbish dump to make room for new studios. However, the soundtracks were recorded off-air by Tatum enthusiasts at the time, and many are included in Storyville Records extensive series of rare Tatum recordings.
On the recommendation of Oscar Peterson, Tatum is portrayed by Johnny O'Neal in Ray, a 2004 biopic about R&B artist Ray Charles. When Charles enters a nightclub he remarks, "Are my ears deceiving me or is that Art Tatum?" O'Neal's own playing on Yesterday's captures Tatum's genius and spirit at the keyboard.
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Famous quotes containing the word film:
“You should look straight at a film; that’s the only way to see one. Film is not the art of scholars but of illiterates.”
—Werner Herzog (b. 1942)
“Film as dream, film as music. No art passes our conscience in the way film does, and goes directly to our feelings, deep down into the dark rooms of our souls.”
—Ingmar Bergman (b. 1918)
“Lay not that flattering unction to your soul,
That not your trespass but my madness speaks;
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place,
Whilst rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unseen.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)