Cast:

• Tim Roth as 1900 (Danny Boodman T.D. Lemon 1900)
• Pruitt Taylor Vince  as Max Tooney
• Mélanie Thierry as The Girl
• Bill Nunn  as Danny
• Clarence Williams III  as Jelly Roll Morton
• Peter Vaughan  as the Shopkeeper
• Niall O'Brien  as Harbor Master
• Gabriele Lavia  as Farmer

Plot:

Max Tooney, a musician, enters a secondhand music shop just as it's closing, broke and badly in need of money. He only has a trumpet which he sells for less than he had hoped. Clearly torn at parting from his prized possession, he asks to play it one last time. The shopkeeper agrees, and as he plays he immediately recognises it from a broken record master he found inside a recently-acquired second-hand piano. He asks who the piece is by and Max tells him the story of 1900.

1900 was found abandoned on the four stacker SS Virginian, a mere baby in a hand basket, and likely the son of poor immigrants from steerage. Danny, a coal-man from the boiler room, is determined to raise the boy as his own. He names the boy Danny Boodman T. D. Lemon 1900 (a combination his own name, the year, and an advertisement found in the basket) and hides him from the ship's officers.

 Sadly, a few years later, Danny the coal-man is killed in a workplace accident, and 1900 is forced to survive aboard the SS Virginian as an orphan. For many years, he travels back and forth across the Atlantic, keeping a low profile and apparently learning the several languages spoken by the immigrants in Third Class.

The boy shows a particular gift for music, however, and eventually grows up and joins the ship's orchestra. He befriends Max when he embarks in 1926, but never leaves the vessel, even when presented the opportunity to fashion a new life with a pretty immigrant girl. Apparently, the outside world is too "big" for his imagination at this point. But he stays current with outside musical trends as passengers just explain to him a new music trend or style and he immediately picks it up and starts playing it for them.

His reputation as a pianist is so renowned that Jelly Roll Morton , of New Orleans jazz fame, on hearing of his skill comes aboard to challenge 1900 to a piano duel. 1900 merely toys with the hot-tempered Morton, beginning with a tune so simple and well known that its clear he's goading the self proclaimed inventor of jazz. As Morton becomes more determined to display his talent he plays an impressive improvised tune that clearly outmatches 1900's earlier attempt. 1900 calmly sits at the piano and plays the entire tune that Morton had just improvised from memory, note-for-note, demonstrating his superior skill, but again clearly mocking Morton. In the end, the ship-bound 1900 defeats Morton handily

.

A record producer, having heard of 1900's prowess, brings a primitive recording apparatus aboard and cuts a demo record of a 1900 original composition, but the pianist ends up smashing it. He is offended at the prospect of anyone hearing the music without him performing it.

The story flashes back to the mid-1940s periodically, as we see Max (who leaves the ship's orchestra in 1933) trying to lure 1900 out of the now-deserted hulk of the ship. Having served as a hospital ship and transport in World War Ⅱ, she is scheduled to be scuttled and sunk far offshore. Max manages to get aboard the ship with the recording 1900 made long ago, and attempts to convince him to leave the ship, but he is too daunted by the size of the world. Feeling his fate is tied to the ship, he simply cannot bring himself to leave the only home he has known. In the end, it is assumed he has died with the Virginian as she blows up and sinks. 

Here is the movie:

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNjI1ODE5MTY=.html

    This is one of my favourite movie. I love the whole story, a pianist, chose a pure life--spend all his time just on one ship.

    There are two clues to the film, one is reality, the other is memory, cross-cutting, led to the legend.

     Some people think 1900 is crazy, they don't understand why he didn't get off the ship and enjoy the real life. But I think he is right. In this world, a genius is always lonely. Because they live in the faith. Between the bow and stern, the 88 keys, he owned the world with freedom. Keys is limited, but the music is unlimited, he just turned limited to unlimited, then his life has meaning. The land is too complicated and strange , so he chose  the sea, and died with the ship.

     At  last, 1900 to express his inner world of pure, this is my favorite section of the movie :

        All that city. You just couldn't see the end to it. The end? Please? You please just show me where it ends? It was all very fine on that gangway. And I was grand too, in my overcoat. I cut quite a figure. And I was getting off. Guaranteed. There was no problem. It wasn't what I saw that stopped me, Max. It was what I didn't see. You understand that? What I didn't see. In all that sprawling city there was everything except an end. There was no end. What I did not see was where the whole thing came to an end. The end of the world...
　　Take a piano. The keys begin, the keys end. You know there are eightyeight of them, nobody can tell you any different. They are not infinite. You are infinite. And on these keys the music that you can make is infinite. I like that. That I can live by.
　　You get me up on that gangway and you're rolling out in front of me a keyboard of millions of keys, millions and billions of keys that never end, and that's the truth, Max. That they never end. That keyboard is infinite. And if that keyboard is infinite, then on that keyboard there is no music you can play. You're sitting on the wrong bench. That's God's piano.
　　Christ! Did, did you see the streets? Just the streets… There were thousands of them! And how do you do it down there? 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 is weighing down on me, you don't even know where it comes to an end, and aren't you ever just scared of breaking apart at the thought of it? The enormity of living it?
　　I was born on this ship, and the world passed me by, but two thousand people at a time. And there were wishes here, but never more than fit between prow and stern. You played out your happiness, but on a piano that was not infinite. I learned to live that way.
　　Land? Land is a ship too big for me. It's a woman too beautiful; it's a voyage too long, a perfume too strong. It's a music I don't know how to make. I could never get off this ship. At best, I can step off my life. After all, I don't exist for anyone. You're an exception, Max, you're the only one who knows I'm here. You're a minority, and you better get used to it. Forgive me, my friend, but I'm not getting off.
译文： 
　　所有那些城市，你就是无法看见尽头。尽头？拜托！拜托你给我看它的尽头在哪？当时，站在舷梯向外看还好。我那时穿着大衣，感觉也很棒，觉得自己前途无量，然后我就要下船去。放心！完全没问题！可是，阻止了我的脚步的，并不是我所看见的东西，而是我所无法看见的那些东西。你明白么？我看不见的那些。在那个无限蔓延的城市里，什么东西都有，可惟独没有尽头。根本就没有尽头。我看不见的是这一切的尽头，世界的尽头。
　　拿一部钢琴来说，从琴键开始，又结束。你知道钢琴只有88个键，随便什么琴都没差。它们不是无限的。你才是无限的，在琴键上制作出的音乐是无限的。我喜欢这样，我活的惯。
　　你把我推到舷梯上然后扔给我一架有百万琴键的钢琴，百万千万的没有尽头的琴键，那是事实，max，它们没有尽头。那键盘是无限延伸的。然而如果琴键是无限的，那么在那架琴上就没有你能弹奏的音乐，你坐错了地方，那是上帝的钢琴。
　　天啊！你……你看过那些街道吗？仅仅是街道，就有上千条！你下去该怎么办？你怎么选择其中一条来走？怎么选择“属于你自己的”一个女人，一栋房子，一块地，或者选择一道风景欣赏，选择一种方法死去。
　　那个世界好重，压在我身上。你甚至不知道它在哪里结束，你难道从来不为自己生活在无穷选择里而害怕得快崩溃掉吗？
　　我是在这艘船上出生的，整个世界跟我并肩而行，但是，行走一次只携带两千人。这里也有欲望，但不会虚妄到超出船头和船尾。你用钢琴表达你的快乐，但音符不是无限的。我已经习惯这么生活。
　　陆地？陆地对我来说是一艘太大的船，一个太漂亮的女人，一段太长的旅行，一瓶太刺鼻的香水，一种我不会创作的音乐。我永远无法放弃这艘船，不过幸好，我可以放弃我的生命。反正没人记得我存在过，而你是例外，max，你是唯一一个知道我在这里的人。你是唯一一个，而且你最好习惯如此。原谅我，朋友，我不会下船的。
It's fab~!!!! And I just can't stop seeing it again and again~