Tue Nov 08, 2011 8:02 pm
http://www.calgaryherald.com/entertainm ... story.html
Caligari nightmare set to live score at Cantos Music Foundation
By Heath McCoy, Calgary Herald November 7, 2011
Like most people who experience The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Andrew Downing was struck by the feelings of uneasiness the 1920 silent horror film left him with.
“It presented this surrealistic city where nothing felt normal,” says the Juno Award-winning cellist and double bass player.
“The sets are not realistic and neither are the costumes. The walls are crooked, the windows are crooked, the streets are strange. Nothing looks accurate. Something’s amiss.
“The whole thing feels like you’re in a nightmare.”
Watching the acclaimed work of German Expressionism left Downing deeply unsettled, but greatly inspired, and that effect has come to fruition in the Toronto artist’s latest adventure.
Accompanied by a seven-piece chamber ensemble, including musicians Kevin Turcotte on trumpet and guitarist David Occhipinti, Downing will performoriginal compositions inspired by Dr. Caligari at a screening of the film Thursday at Cantos Music Foundation.
This is not the first time Downing has written and performed music to accompany a silent film. In 2003, he was commissioned to write a score to 1925 silent film The Phantom of the Opera for a gig at an Ontario winery.
It was a new artistic method that he fell in love with.
“I like being able to write and perform music that’s in service of something else,” says Downing, who has performed with Great Uncles of the Revolution and Zubot and Dawson. “It makes you approach the music from different angles.”
Sitting down to compose his score for Dr. Caligari, Downing repeatedly watched the movie to get a feel for the disparate moods of the film. He then wrote 24 movements, each influenced by different scenes and themes.
“Stylistically, I think the music (is in the vein of Igor) Stravinsky or (Dmitri) Shostakovich,” he says. “It’s classical music, but we’re playing it like jazz musicians in that we make it groove and there’s a lot of improvising.”
Downing has also focused his creative energies on such horror-themed silent films as The Shock, starring Lon Chaney, and Maciste in Hell, an Italian film inspired by Dante’s Inferno.
“I’m attracted to the kind of music that accompanies those sorts of films, where there’s an underlying darkness in the music.”
So what sort of crowd does Downing attract with his silent-film forays: hardcore film geeks or music lovers?
“We’re exposing film people to music and music fans to film. . . . You’ll hear people talking out in the lobby and it feels like a whole bunch of people in a place together who probably shouldn’t be in the same place. . . . I love that.”
Downing’s happy to see film and music fans converge, just as he aims to merge the two mediums in his work. “I feel like we’re not just showing the movie and accompanying it. It feels more like a partnership where part of the performance is the music, the other part is the film, and they have to be taken together.
“It’s not just one or the other.”
Spotlight: Andrew Downing accompanies a screening of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari at Cantos Music Foundation Thursday. Tickets at the door.
hmccoy@calgaryherald.com Twitter@VanHeathen
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
Caligari nightmare set to live score at Cantos Music Foundation
By Heath McCoy, Calgary Herald November 7, 2011
Like most people who experience The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Andrew Downing was struck by the feelings of uneasiness the 1920 silent horror film left him with.
“It presented this surrealistic city where nothing felt normal,” says the Juno Award-winning cellist and double bass player.
“The sets are not realistic and neither are the costumes. The walls are crooked, the windows are crooked, the streets are strange. Nothing looks accurate. Something’s amiss.
“The whole thing feels like you’re in a nightmare.”
Watching the acclaimed work of German Expressionism left Downing deeply unsettled, but greatly inspired, and that effect has come to fruition in the Toronto artist’s latest adventure.
Accompanied by a seven-piece chamber ensemble, including musicians Kevin Turcotte on trumpet and guitarist David Occhipinti, Downing will performoriginal compositions inspired by Dr. Caligari at a screening of the film Thursday at Cantos Music Foundation.
This is not the first time Downing has written and performed music to accompany a silent film. In 2003, he was commissioned to write a score to 1925 silent film The Phantom of the Opera for a gig at an Ontario winery.
It was a new artistic method that he fell in love with.
“I like being able to write and perform music that’s in service of something else,” says Downing, who has performed with Great Uncles of the Revolution and Zubot and Dawson. “It makes you approach the music from different angles.”
Sitting down to compose his score for Dr. Caligari, Downing repeatedly watched the movie to get a feel for the disparate moods of the film. He then wrote 24 movements, each influenced by different scenes and themes.
“Stylistically, I think the music (is in the vein of Igor) Stravinsky or (Dmitri) Shostakovich,” he says. “It’s classical music, but we’re playing it like jazz musicians in that we make it groove and there’s a lot of improvising.”
Downing has also focused his creative energies on such horror-themed silent films as The Shock, starring Lon Chaney, and Maciste in Hell, an Italian film inspired by Dante’s Inferno.
“I’m attracted to the kind of music that accompanies those sorts of films, where there’s an underlying darkness in the music.”
So what sort of crowd does Downing attract with his silent-film forays: hardcore film geeks or music lovers?
“We’re exposing film people to music and music fans to film. . . . You’ll hear people talking out in the lobby and it feels like a whole bunch of people in a place together who probably shouldn’t be in the same place. . . . I love that.”
Downing’s happy to see film and music fans converge, just as he aims to merge the two mediums in his work. “I feel like we’re not just showing the movie and accompanying it. It feels more like a partnership where part of the performance is the music, the other part is the film, and they have to be taken together.
“It’s not just one or the other.”
Spotlight: Andrew Downing accompanies a screening of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari at Cantos Music Foundation Thursday. Tickets at the door.
hmccoy@calgaryherald.com Twitter@VanHeathen
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
Bruce Calvert
http://www.silentfilmstillarchive.com
http://www.silentfilmstillarchive.com