Capitol: Shhh! Alloy Orchestra rankles silent-film purists w

[rollot24]

I enjoyed Alloy's The Black Pirate a few years ago, at the Goldwyn. Their score for Man with a Movie Camera was a knockout at SFSFF last year, completely fabulous.

I saw them do "Metropolis" in Seattle a couple of months ago and it was outstanding. Perfect score for that film.

[missdupont]

I loved their scores for METROPOLIS, MAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA, UNDERWORLD, and LONESOME, but was not impressed with the score for THE BLACK PIRATE. The percussion did not seem to fit this picture for me, took me totally out of it.

[George O'Brien]

Their score for MAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA is superb, and singularly suits it. I can't imagine that film with any other music.

[Sloper]

Carl Davis is going to conduct an orchestra playing his score for INTOLERANCE in Luxemburg on 2 April this year. All going well I'll be there.

I recently saw an old VHS off-air recording with this score - it's magnificent, absolutely the definitive accompaniment to the film, and so much better than Turrin or Carter (both of whom do the job well enough).

I have to agree with rogerskarsten that any really good silent film should still be good without music.

For a long time I thought that silent silents were unwatchable. Then I watched The Passion of Joan of Arc in silence, on my own, late at night, and it suddenly made sense in a way that it never had done with Eichorn's insistent, limiting score drowning it out. I wouldn't want to be dogmatic about insisting that people should watch it in silence, but personally it only works for me when accompanied by my own throbbing pulse. Having said that, the In the Nursery soundtrack, available on CD (and from itunes) works pretty well for the most part, especially at the climax.

In the years since that revelatory experience, I've been turning off the music more and more frequently - Master of the House is another good example of a film that music just does absolutely nothing for. And I have to say that I always turn off Alloy after a few minutes. I know their score for Man With a Movie Camera is supposed to be definitive because it follows Vertov's notes, but I'd love to know what exactly that means; have these notes ever been published?

I disagree strongly that it's better to have a horrible soundtrack than no soundtrack at all. A moron humming loudly and tunelessly into your ear constitutes as much of a distraction during a silent as it would during a talkie. And on a related note, I often wish composers for silents would incorporate more actual silence into their scores, and just let the film breathe for a few seconds. As someone said earlier, Carl Davis is definitely a big offender in this regard - it was great seeing him accompany The Iron Mask a few months ago, but the relentless, noisy classical medley did become wearisome at times.

There's a wonderful moment in one of my favourite scores, Pierre Oser's for Michael, where Michael and Switt exchange dirty looks by the fireside, and a couple of times the music just falls completely dead for a long, uncomfortable moment. It's a brilliant effect, showing an immense sensitivity to the subtle psychological drama playing out onscreen.

[FrankFay]

Master of the House is another good example of a film that music just does absolutely nothing for.

In my experience I'd disagree. Gabriel Thibodeau played a nice score for it years ago in Syracuse. He very slyly underscored the comedy of the husband facing off against the old nursemaid. (no one seeing that can say Dreyer was humorless, seldom as he chose to show it)

Slightly OT- I think Dreyer had a superb eye as a director, but maybe he lacked the capacity to self-edit. Same problem as Stroheim, and the late Chaplin.

[George O'Brien]

I love that scene in MASTER OF THE HOUSE,especially the old slapstick bit, (which lives on in everyday life today) where the old lady tells him that there's something on his tie, and when he looks down to see, she flicks her fingers up into his face.

It's so funny because it's so unexpected in a Dreyer film.

[Wm. Charles Morrow]

I once saw the Alloy Orchestra play for Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and their music suited the film nicely. Then I heard their scores for the Arbuckle-Keaton Comique set released by Kino, and it sounded just the same. Winokur says the films themselves tell the group how they should be scored, which means I guess that each of those two-reelers announced: "I am weird and dark, like a German Expressionist classic."

Those guys should stay away from comedy. They don't get it.

[Sloper]

Master of the House is another good example of a film that music just does absolutely nothing for.

In my experience I'd disagree. Gabriel Thibodeau played a nice score for it years ago in Syracuse. He very slyly underscored the comedy of the husband facing off against the old nursemaid. (no one seeing that can say Dreyer was humorless, seldom as he chose to show it)

Slightly OT- I think Dreyer had a superb eye as a director, but maybe he lacked the capacity to self-edit. Same problem as Stroheim, and the late Chaplin.

Yes, I was being a bit dogmatic after all there - I was really just commenting on the score provided on the BFI disc. There is, shamefully, no credit at all on the disc (as far as I can tell) for the composer,* but if it's the same score as on the Madman edition then it's Lars Fjeldmose. It's quite nice music at times, but too pretty and fluttery; the film worked much better for me a second time when I watched it silent, and I suddenly appreciated Dreyer's efforts to create a truly immersive evocation of domestic life.

I have to say I disagree with you on both counts about Dreyer. I don't find Master of the House very funny (perhaps I would with the Thibodeau score, though) and generally although he is my favourite director I think humour eluded him, except in The Parson's Widow. But even there Einar Röd as Söfren is responsible for most of the actual laughs - a great comic performance. Der Var Engang is my least favourite, perhaps because what survives of it relies so much on humour. Smokehat gets my vote for 'most outstandingly unlikely and unfunny jester ever to appear in a motion picture'.

* Maybe I get too worked up about this, but I think it's terrible the way DVD companies, even great ones like the BFI and MoC, don't give credit to composers on their silent releases. Often the only way to find this information is to play the disc and watch the end credits. Perhaps the rationale is that no one will have heard of this Fjeldmose guy, so why bother mentioning him - a painfully self-perpetuating mentality. Or is there some more legitimate reason for this?

[Ann Harding]

Didn't Henri Langlois also believe in showing silent films without background music...?

Absolutely right. And the Cinémathèque is still doing it to these days. Mind you, during the past few years, they have hired some pianists to accompany a few films. But the majority of silents is still shown silent. I would prefer to have a good pianist, but here you are!

In other places in Paris, we get music for silents. But, it's a very hit-and-miss business. I have heard horrible stuff like on Eisenstein's Strike: a cacophony of contemporary noises generated by a computer. A lot of young musicians think they can accompany films, but they often show how amateurish they are. Overall, most places seem to favour contemporary style music over tonal-post-romantic scores. I personally hate it.

[Ann Harding]

Maybe I get too worked up about this, but I think it's terrible the way DVD companies, even great ones like the BFI and MoC, don't give credit to composers on their silent releases.

I completely agree. The name of the composer is not give any exposure as if music was a secundary factor. Arte TV over here broadcasts silents sometimes without even the name of the pianist being mentionned once! It's miserable....

[mutantmoose]

I was probably the lead conductor of this particular orchestra since I had a habit of basically coming down with walking phenomena

Best. Typo. Ever.

[dr.giraud]

However, I did watch a silent in silence the other night, a disc of Woman of the World I'd bought at one of the film conventions. I got an immediate Proustian flashback to watching 8mm Blackhawk prints on my wall...

The Grapevine needle-drop scored DVD of A WOMAN OF THE WORLD doesn't quite acknowledge that it's a comedy. I've learned to ignore it--though I sat through enough all-silent silent screenings in college in the 80s to know it's still better than nothing.

Now that's a movie that I'd like to see with a good score!

[Rodney]

I have to agree with rogerskarsten that any really good silent film should still be good without music.

But that depends a lot on the film. Calling Cuckoos without music? Sure, it'd work with just audience response. Strike? Maybe in a kind of artistic minimalist way that would work. 7th Heaven, or Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, or Sunrise without music? No thanks. You'd be missing more than half the emotion. Think about the last time you saw a good talkie that chose to not use music. There's a reason films have been shown with music since the early teens. It works better.

I think one problem with silents at archives is that film programmers don't want to hand control of such a major part of the presentation over to someone they're not sure they trust. And they may worry that the musician will appear to be a bigger "star" than the film.

Directors who wanted to control every aspect of production--Griffith and Von Stroheim come to mind--tried (and generally failed) to control the music to their silents as well. Griffith took his own musicians on roadshows and touted the score to the press (though that score would be abandoned on general release). Von went to the extent of refusing to alow a cue sheet to be issued for Foolish Wives in the hopes that people would use the score he commissioned from Sigmund Romberg. But the industry had a way of working by the mid teens that suited it just fine, and it wasn't until talkies arrived that theater musicians were dislodged from their ability to control the music.

I had an interesting experience at Telluride last summer related to this topic -- I was asked to play for a repeat of the Italian silent Rotaie. I had seen it the day before with a Judith Rosenberg playing (who had to return home early and couldn't play the repeat). I took a different approach, particularly at the end of the film -- playing it for optimism rather than the more sombre treatment in Judith's fine score. A woman came up afterwards and asked me who chose the music. I explained that music had always been left up to the local musicians, and I played whatever I felt was appropriate. She said "I can't believe they let musicians have that much control."

I wasn't quite sure how to take that... but it's the way it goes with silent movies, and may explain why some prefer to watch them silent, even though they're almost always more effective with music.

[silentfilm]

I've had the same experience myself this week. A few years ago a friend in France supplied me with a tape of Bucking Broadway (1917), but it was broadcast with no soundtrack. I thought it was interesting, but not very entertaining.

This weekend I viewed it again off the Criterion BluRay with Donald Sosin's excellent score. The film really came alive. It was a lot more fun.

I do frequently watch silent films in silence, because I have at least 50 16mm prints without a music track. I would never present them to an audience that way though.