Jeremiah Tower: The Last Magnificent | Telescope Film
Jeremiah Tower: The Last Magnificent

Jeremiah Tower: The Last Magnificent

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The film chronicles the life of Jeremiah Tower, the chef who pioneered what is known as the New American Cuisine. From his birth to wealth to his becoming the star chef at highly influential restaurants, the film studies how a man who doesn't see himself as a human, made his name by feeding them.

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What are critics saying?

80

TheWrap by Tricia Olszewski

Tower himself contributes to the film’s appeal. Still elegant in his mid-70s, there’s no doubt of his arrogance, though that seems to be a prerequisite of the trade. He knows that his work has been extraordinary, he’s well-spoken, and he cares intensely about decorum and class.

80

Wall Street Journal by Joe Morgenstern

An unusually engaging portrait of a legendary chef who can be insufferable, as his most ardent admirers acknowledge, but who is also a brighter-than-life charmer, raging perfectionist, world-class hedonist, self-styled dandy and all-too-human survivor of the highest-end restaurant wars.

80

Village Voice by Craig D. Lindsey

Just like high-wire showman Philippe Petit, Tower is a brilliant, dedicated artist who has spent most of his life wowing people with his talents — but is ultimately always out there by himself.

75

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Rebecca Tucker

The result is an oddly compelling documentary that sheds light on an important – albeit forgotten – cornerstone of modern, contemporary cuisine.

75

The Seattle Times by Bethany Jean Clement

Jeremiah Tower: The Last Magnificent posits a revision of food history, chronicling the life of the magnetic, repellent man who changed American dining, then disappeared.

75

San Francisco Chronicle by Mick LaSalle

The documentary takes Tower through his much publicized recent stint as the chef at New York’s Tavern on the Green, a rather hopeless assignment for a perfectionist.

70

The Hollywood Reporter by Frank Scheck

Despite its missteps and occasional pretensions, Jeremiah Tower: The Last Magnificent provides a compelling portrait of the chef as tortured artist.

70

Los Angeles Times by Kenneth Turan

A film that finally fascinates despite some initial bumps in the road.

70

The New York Times by Andy Webster

Throughout, the solitary Mr. Tower maintains an unflappable refinement, dedicated, a college friend says, to “looking for some utopian possibility of living, because that’s what kept the darkness away.”

67

Austin Chronicle by Kimberley Jones

The Tavern footage is terrific stuff – unstaged and unmediated and the closest the camera gets to penetrating the enigmatic yet magnetic chef.

63

Slant Magazine by Chuck Bowen

Lydia Tenaglia's direction is occasionally flashy and cluttered, but her empathy for Tower is evocative and poignant.

63

RogerEbert.com by Glenn Kenny

This documentary directed by Lydia Tenaglia is a conspicuously imperfect movie that turns more compelling after trying your patience, then yields a final half-hour that’s as engrossing as a finely-wrought suspense drama.

60

Time by Stephanie Zacharek

The best sequences are those incorporating vintage footage from the 1970s-era Chez Panisse, where Tower, as a young, rakish beauty — quite clearly gay, but also pansexual in the dashing way people were allowed to be in those days — was the crown prince of the kitchen.

50

Washington Post

It’s a languorous look at the ups and downs of a career gone awry, and the mysteries and confused culinary disciples left in the wake of the chef’s abrupt disappearance to Mexico for several years.