True Legend: Alan Parker

The 76-year-old director made movies that were deeply human

A two-time Oscar nominee, Alan Parker was a celebrated UK filmmaker best known for films like Fame, Midnight Express, and the Civil Rights-era thriller Mississippi Burning. He also managed to turn Pink Floyd’s concept album The Wall into a surreal but surprisingly coherent movie.

Oh, yeah, he also directed Madonna in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s epic musical Evita. His filmography is eclectic, to say the least.

But my favorite movie of his is 1991’s The Commitments, a movie about a gang of work class lads in Dublin going nowhere in life who decide to put together a band that plays American soul music. It’s a love letter to loud dreams that fail softly. It’s very much a movie about Ireland during the last decade of the last century, so it’s racial politics are best viewed through that lens.

This clip is the band, The Commitments, bringing the house down performing Otis Reddings’ “Try A Little Tenderness.” They’re young and talented and hopeful and they don’t know it, but this is their only moment to shine. It’s thrilling and melancholy. Watch it if you haven’t.