Jeff Rapsis / Silent Film Music

Things heating up for Valentine's Day

2012-01-22T14:51:00.007-05:00

We had a good crowd at a screening of 'Metropolis' (1927) last night (Saturday, Jan. 21) at Red River Theatres in Concord, N.H., but I'm already pondering the busy schedule for late January/early February: seven features in three weeks, and three of them I've never played before. (One of them is 'Sunrise' (1927), with George O'Brien and Margaret Livingston, pictured above.) I also have two screenings for a film class at Southern New Hampshire University in Manchester, N.H. taught by my good friend, director Bill Millios.

And on top of that, I'm doing piano music for a DVD release of 'The Bells' (1926), a feature starring Lionel Barrymore that's being issued by Mark Roth of www.reelclassicdvd.com. It's a very exciting project and I look forward to getting some tracks put down to help bring this interesting film to life.

In terms of live performance, however, the big news is Valentine's Day. The week before this holiday (on Tuesday, Feb. 14) brings a bouquet of silent tear-jerkers and romantic dramas, all in honor of a holiday that's all about big emotions. So take your sweetie to a silent film, if nothing else to remind him or her that actions do speak louder than words.

The full schedule of screenings is on the Upcoming Silent Film Screenings page of this Web site. But for those looking for a different way to celebrate Valentine's Day, here's the top three screenings for romantics:

• Tuesday, Feb. 7 at 6 p.m.: 'The Kiss' (1929) starring Greta Garbo. That face! The Great Garbo's last silent film for MGM, a romantic drama that generates plenty of passion even without Garbo's husky Swedish voice. Free admission; at the Manchester (N.H.) Public Library, 405 Pine St., Manchester, N.H.

• Thursday, Feb. 9 at 6:30 p.m.: 'The Sheik' (1921) and 'Son of the Sheik' (1926). A double feature starring Rudolph Valentino, the original Latin Lover and the screen's first superstar. Admission $10; at the Flying Monkey Moviehouse and Performance Center, 39 South Main St., Plymouth, N.H.

• Sunday, Feb. 12 at 4:30 p.m.: 'Sunrise' (1927). Take someone special to see the romantic drama often ranked as the best silent film ever made. A love story that achieves profundity through simplicity. Kleenexes provided. Free admission; at the Wllton Town Hall Theatre, 60 Main St., Wilton, N.H.

Once again, 'Metropolis' (1927)

2012-01-21T11:59:00.005-05:00

An encore presentation of the restored 'Metropolis' (1927) is up for tonight at Red River Theatres in Concord, N.H. Our screening on New Year's Eve was a sell-out, and so the folks there were kind enough to schedule a follow-up to give others a chance to see this great picture with live music.

What's unusual about this screening is that 'The Artist' (2011) is now playing at Red River, which means that tonight, two out of the theater's three screens will be running silent film. Never thought I'd expect to see that happen, but it is kind of a nice piece of synchronicity.

I do look forward to doing it again tonight. The press release that went out earlier this month is below, but here are a few additional notes.

For one thing, I continue to marvel at the strong interest in relatively limited science fiction section of the silent film library. 'Metropolis' has always been popular, but last year I did music for a 1916 version of '20,000 Leagues Under the Sea' for the Boston Sci-Fi Marathon, and the folks at Arisia, another sci-fi/fantasy gathering in Beantown, are talking about running 'The Lost World' (1925) at their 2013 gathering. And Fritz Lang's 'Woman in the Moon' (1929) is a film I would love to score someday. It all seems so counter-intuitive: an obsolete art form (silent film) telling futuristic tales. But the folks who are into it are really into it.

One thing about presenting silent films with live music is that every venue has its own characteristics, and I'm never sure how things are going to sound, even from screening to screening. So many variables go into it, including what season it is. If it's winter, then heavy coats tend to absorb sound. In a small room, that can make quite a difference.

With my synthesizer's stereo output and my two Roland speakers, it seems the sound is at its best when a room has some reverb and also there's some distance for the two channels to mix. A lot of old New England town hall auditoriums work great. But modern function rooms, with their low ceilings and carpeting, not so much.

Acoustically, Red River is a challenging place to do a silent film, at least with my equipment. The place we do them in, the "screening room," has carpeting and fabric on the walls and it all just soaks up sound. And because the room is so small (maximum capacity 60 people) and has a low ceiling, if there's any kind of audience, that further absorbs the sound. Also, when playing, I have to be off to the right side, so I'm not hearing what others hear. So all in all, it's a tough room.

A big problem is getting the sound volume right. Because of the smallness of the room and all the issues problems listed above, things can easily seem too loud, especially over the course of a two-and-a-half hour film. And Metropolis, with its extended three-part climax, can easily add up to too much in terms of music. So it'll be really important to pace myself at tonight's screening - to not go too far too fast in the opening scenes, however tempting, because I need to have places to go later in the movie.

Here's the press release. Hope you can make it tonight! It's a snowy day today in our part of the world, so if nothing else we'll see if 'Metropolis' is more of a bad weather draw than 'Birth of a Nation' in Plymouth, N.H., which attracted all of five people last week after a day of steady snow.

MONDAY, JAN. 2, 2012 / FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For more info, contact: Jeff Rapsis • (603) 236-9237 • jeffrapsis@gmail.com

Red River Theaters to run encore screening of restored 'Metropolis'

Landmark sci-fi fantasy movie to be shown with live music at Concord, N.H. cinema on Saturday, Jan. 21

CONCORD, N.H.—A silent film hailed as the grandfather of all science fiction fantasy movies will be screened with live music on Saturday, Jan. 21, 2012 at Red River Theatres in Concord, N.H. The encore screening was scheduled after a New Year's Eve showing sold out. The show starts at 7 p.m. and tickets are $15 general admission.

'Metropolis' (1927), regarded as German director Fritz Lang's masterpiece, is set in a futuristic city where a privileged elite pursue lives of leisure while the masses toil on vast machines and live deep underground. The film, with its visions of futuristic factories and underground communities, set new standards for visual design and inspired generations of dystopian fantasies from Ridley Scott's 'Blade Runner' to Terry Gilliam's 'Brazil.'

The story centers on an upper class young man who falls in love with a woman who ministers to the oppressed workers, and encompasses mad scientists, human-like robots, and industrial espionage, all set in a society divided between haves and have-nots.

The version of 'Metropolis' to be screened at Red River is a newly restored edition that includes nearly a half-hour of missing footage cut following the film's premiere in 1927. The footage, discovered in 2008 in an archive in Argentina, has since been added to the existing 'Metropolis,' allowing plot threads and characters to be developed more fully.

The restored 'Metropolis,' now 2½ hours in length, will be accompanied by a score created live by New Hampshire-based silent film musician and composer Jeff Rapsis.

When 'Metropolis' was first screened in Berlin, Germany on Jan. 10, 1927, the sci-fi epic ran an estimated 153 minutes. After its premiere engagement, the film's distributors (including Paramount in the U.S.) drastically shortened 'Metropolis' to maximize the film's commercial potential. By the time it debuted in the U.S. later that year, the film ran about 90 minutes.

Even in its shortened form, 'Metropolis' become one of the cornerstones of science fiction cinema. Due to its enduring popularity, the film has undergone several restorations in the intervening decades in attempts to recover Lang's original vision.

In 1984, the film was reissued with additional footage, color tints, and a pop rock score by music producer Giorgio Moroder. An archival restoration was completed in 1987, under the direction of Enno Patalas of the Munich Film Archive, in which missing scenes were represented with title cards and still photographs. More recently, a 2001 restoration combined footage from four archives and ran 124 minutes.

It was widely believed that this would be the most complete version of Lang's film that contemporary audiences could ever hope to see. But, in the summer of 2008, the curator of the Buenos Aires Museo del Cine discovered a 16mm dupe negative of 'Metropolis' that was considerably longer than any existing print. It included not merely a few additional snippets, but 25 minutes of "lost" footage, about a fifth of the film, that had not been seen since its Berlin debut.

The discovery of such a significant amount of material called for yet another restoration, which debuted in 2010 to widespread acclaim. It's this fully restored version that will be screened at Red River Theatres.

"The 'encore' screening will give local fans to see 'Metropolis as it should be seen: on the big screen and with live music," said Jeff Rapsis, who provides live accompaniment to silent film screenings throughout New England. "'Metropolis' stands as an stunning example of the power of silent film to tell a compelling story without words, and reach across the generations to touch movie-goers from the real future that came to pass, which means us."

To accompany a silent film, Rapsis uses a digital synthesizer to recreate the texture of the full orchestra. The score is created live in real time as the movie is screened. Rather than focus exclusively on authentic music of the period, Rapsis creates new music for silent films that draws from movie scoring techniques that today's audiences expect from the cinema.

The restored 'Metropolis' will be shown on Saturday, Dec. 31 at 7 p.m. at Red River Theatres, 11 South Main St., Concord, N.H. General admission tickets are $15 per person. For more information, call (603) 224-4600 or visit www.redrivertheatres.org. For more information on the music, visit www.jeffrapsis.com.

CRITIC COMMENTS on ‘METROPOLIS’

“'Metropolis' does what many great films do, creating a time, place and characters so striking that they become part of our arsenal of images for imagining the world.”
—Roger Ebert, 2010, The Chicago Sun-Times

“If it comes anywhere near your town, go see it and thank the movie Gods that it even exists. There’s no star rating high enough.”
—Brian Tallerico, Movieretriever.com

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For more info, contact:
Jeff Rapsis • (603) 236-9237 • jeffrapsis@gmail.com
Images attached.
More high-resolution digital images available upon request.

Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and...Buster Keaton?

2012-01-17T13:17:00.016-05:00

It was perhaps the most improbable silent film screening I've done yet: Buster Keaton's Civil War epic 'The General' (1927) as part of a massive annual science fiction and fantasy convention at Boston's Westin Hotel. But there it is (above), on the very packed schedule-of-events grid, in the film screening room on Friday, Jan. 13 at 10 p.m., just after the portentous documentary 'Future Shock' (narrated by Orson Welles) and just prior to a midnight showing of the dystopian epic 'Soylent Green' (1973).

The event, "Arisia 2012: Where Science and Adventure Come Together," is billed as "New England's largest and most diverse science fiction and fantasy convention," a claim I have no reason to doubt. On the coldest night of this winter so far, I found myself schlepping my sound gear into a hotel lobby swarming with conventioneers dressed in extravagant and sometimes outlandish costumes: mermaids, warlocks, necromancers, wizards, time lords, trekkies, and maybe a few silent film stars. (I hoped.) It was all I could do to keep from gawking at the passing parade, a surreal mid-winter vision, one composed of pirates from the past and courtesans from the future, where mismatched tube socks and leather corsets and furry beaver hats are apparently the in style. Hey, you heard it here first.

But never mind fashion trends to come. I had never heard of this event, which each year attracts thousands of fantasy devotees to four days of seminars, parties, discussions, celebrations, and public displays of everyone's inner and outer geek, and quite a few bare mid-riffs in the bargain.

I found it strange that a convention devoted to fantasy would take place in such a non-descript modern conference center, with events apportioned into carpeted ballrooms and meeting rooms filled with padded chairs in neutral colors, and with pitchers of ice water lurking on folding trays in the corners, but that didn't seem to faze anyone. If anything, the Westin's bland decor served to make the convention's outrageousness stand out in high relief, which I noticed as non-convention hotel guests made their way through the lobby.

Not being a fellow traveler, I really didn't know what to make of it all. I kept expecting Triumph the Insult Comic Dog to show up and start berating the participants. Look! Here comes a guy with a YOU DON'T KNOW SITH t-shirt. Look! There goes a guy wearing a fez and a kilt. Who are these people, and where do they come from? I didn't know. But it was clear that this was their destination.

Everywhere I turned was something unexpected. Take, for instance, the guy in this picture, whose get-up was highlighted by a mustache produced on a 3-D printer. Apparently the layers of some kind of polymer build up to the point where a three-dimensional object is produced -- in this case, a handsome old-time mustache made out of what appeared to be futuristic puffed wheat and complete with functional nasal clips, which he demonstrated by removing and then reattaching the mustache with the greatest of ease.

In trying to find the film room and load in my gear and stow the car and find the bathroom, I didn't have a chance to grab many pictures. Below is the pirate sword on which I was nearly impaled when going up an escalator. Back in the day, I can only assume the real pirates would have developed some kind of sword etiquette for escalators had they encountered them. Just because they were pirates didn't mean they weren't practical.

And below is a gal who is apparently something of a celebrity among the faithful. I asked if I could take her picture because of her unusual hair augmentation, which looked to me like a collection of those plastic tubes that you can whip around your head and they make a sound. But it turned out she was a featured model in a convention-related blood drive calendar produced last year, and so was quite accustomed to being hounded by the paparazzi.

And then there were intriguing paradoxes to consider, such as a panel discussion on what makes up a good panel discussion. Science fiction or not, I thought this triggered infinity as effectively as any Dr. Who episode:

And how about this self-referencing notice about the sticky issue of blue tape, affixed to the convention center wall by you-know-what:

And this? Maybe that guy printed out too much mustache?

What was I doing there? Well, turns out the Arisia gathering (to find out more about that name, visit http://2012.arisia.org) is the only science fiction/fantasy festival in the United States that still runs actual film as part of its programming. Imagine that! Another odd thing, that a science fiction festival would cling to what's becoming an obsolete format, at least in terms of current films. But I'm not complaining. Update on 1/25/12: subsequent traffic on other message boards has revealed at least one other festival that shows film: an event called Lunacon.

This year, continuous screenings of prints, some 35mm and others in 16mm, were held in the Otis Room, a conference space that's large enough to house a big screen at one end and a makeshift projection booth at the other:

One of the traditions of Arisia is to run a silent picture with live accompaniment, which is why film programmers Scott Norwood and Scott Dorsey got in touch with me a few months ago. They'd heard me do music for several Keaton screenings at the Somerville (Mass.) Theater this past summer, and offered me the honor of being the accompanist for this year's silent feature, Buster Keaton's 'The General.'

I said sure, not quite understanding what an unusual event this is. What was Buster's Civil War epic doing at a sci-fi/fantasy convention? It was primarily a matter of print availability, it seems, but the more I think about it afterwards, the more it makes sense. All silent film is a fantasy of sorts, and early railroad locomotives were the high tech monsters of their time, an original expression of the "Steampunk" mindset.

As an added attraction, last year one of the two Scotts (Scott Dorsey, nicknamed 'Kludge') used what he said was a "Soviet newsreel camera" to film scenes on the 2011 convention on silent 16mm color stock. The result was a 15-minute collection of silent footage with a distinctly "home movie" feel to it, and music was needed. I obliged with tinkly-bell Philip Glass-like accompaniment, primarily so it would contrast effectively with the more traditional orchestra score to follow with 'The General.'

Everyone was awfully nice: the two Scotts, the audience, curious look-inners. After scenes of last year's convention looking like they were from a 1970s TV newscast, Scott Dorsey got up and introduced the General, and off we went. Audience of about 25 people, but pretty lively. The 16mm print was wound on two reels and other than a few rough splicy sections, looked pretty good. I hadn't previewed the film prior to the show, but the score fell into place pretty easily. Not sure why, but that sometimes happens -- maybe it's the lack of pretension or expectations.

And sure enough, even when surrounded by sessions on Larping and Dr. Molotovcocktail's High Tea Party, Buster's filmmaking resonated. Reaction grew as the film unspooled, and by the end they were cheering Buster as much as any gathering of Confederate battle re-enactors would have. I was pleased to get a nice ovation at the end, too.

I can't say enough for guys such as Scott and Scott. Their commitment to film and their knowledge of it makes me feel confident that the medium will be around for a very long time, even if it does get relegated to the commercial fringe. Their offer of a free pass to the entire four-day convention was very generous, and if I do manage to get asked to return next year, I'll try to arrange my schedule to attend.

But alas, as the clock struck midnight, I had to pack up my things and head out, causing me to miss parties such as this:

Snowstorm vs. 'Birth of a Nation': Snowstorm wins

2012-01-12T23:31:00.006-05:00

There's been a noticeable lack of snow in our part of the world (northern New England, U.S.A.) this year—until today, when about 3 to 6 inches finally fell across New Hampshire. And that led to a noticeable lack of audience for this evening's screening of 'The Birth of a Nation' in Plymouth, N.H.: a grand total of FIVE people showed up, even though the snow had stopped by early afternoon.

We haven't been getting big turnouts for the Plymouth screenings, which take place at a renovated venue called the Flying Monkey Moviehouse and Performing Arts Center. But even so, five people is pretty dismal. It probably was the storm, but other factors entered into it as well: the local college (Plymouth State University) is on winter break; everyone here is still recovering from New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation presidential primary this past Tuesday; race is not exactly a hot-button issue in New Hampshire, which has about 12 black people in it.

Still, the show must go on. Or should it? One thing we emphasize is that for silent films to have their intended impact, they really must be screened with an audience—the larger, the better. Well, five people is better than four or three, I suppose, but still it ain't much to work with.

So we took a poll. Before the screening, I asked our attendees (who all sat way in the back of the 400-seat theater for some reason) if they'd like to agree to come back on another date when we might have a better chance at a bigger turnout. I mean, we sometimes do get sizeable audiences in Plymouth—most recently a healthy crowd of 100+ for a pre-Halloween screening of 'Nosferatu' (1922).

We talked it over, but my sense of the room was that they had ventured out to see 'The Birth of a Nation' and, by gum, that's what they were going to see. So off we went!

I don't mind playing for such a small crowd, really, but with an audience that small, the reactions tended to be non-existent. And because of that, the screening had a kind of "if a tree falls in the forest, does it make a noise?" feeling to it. It really wasn't the same as what happens with a bigger crowd is on hand, and it reminded me

I was also reminded of the importance of using the bathroom prior to embarking on a 2½-hour film. Prior to the screening, I sauntered down the block to the Mandarin Taste Restaurant, where I had Chicken Lo Mein and something like six cups of tea. (I had the whole pot to myself, and I was cold, and the tea was warm. What can I say?) Then, about an hour into 'Birth of a Nation,' it hit me—I had to pee really bad, but we were still fighting the Civil War onscreen, and weren't even close to Lincoln's Assassination. Damn!

So I just coped as best I could, that's all, though the playing might have had a slightly rushed quality to it. While all this was going on, I remember thinking to myself about one consolation: "Well, if I end up wetting myself, at least it'll only be in front of five people."

And now I've just checked my fortune from the fortune cookie I received at the end of the meal. It says this: "Only tears can bring a dreamer back to earth."

'Birth of a Nation' (1915) on Thursday, Jan. 12 at Flying Monkey Theatre in Plymouth, N.H.

2012-01-05T11:12:00.009-05:00

When I tell people that we're screening 'The Birth of a Nation' (1915) in honor of the U.S. holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr., I am sometimes greeted with raised eyebrows. Why would we screen this film, infamous for its blatant racism, to mark a day honoring the racial tolerance and progress advocated by Dr. King? What kind of tribute to his legacy is a film in which the Ku Klux Klan comes riding to the rescue?

Well, the simple answer is that 'The Birth of Nation' vividly shows how far we've come since it was first released. More specifically, what Dr. King and so many other advocates for racial justice were up against. And as someone with an interest in vintage film, I can't think of a better way to commemorate this holiday. 'The Birth of a Nation' is a great chance for anyone watching it to examine his or her own attitudes about racism. A phrase suggests itself: "Lest We Forget."

Ironically, the phrase is from a poem by Rudyard Kipling, an old-fashioned British imperialist, and not exactly known for his commitment to racial tolerance. For a time in the 1890s, Kipling lived in our corner of the world, on a farm in Brattleboro, Vt., where he started writing the Jungle Books. There he is on the left. But I digress.

Back to 'The Birth of a Nation.' I think the film falls into that category of silent movies that have become more interesting with the passage of time. Why? Because while we've changed, it remains just as it was when it was first shown in 1915. Seeing it now, a hundred years in the future, can provide invaluable insight into where we've come from as a people, what we are today, and what we might possibly become tomorrow. As Roger Ebert wrote about the film (quoted below in the press release) in 2003:

"...the film represents how racist a white American could be in 1915 without realizing he was racist at all. That is worth knowing. ... That it is a mirror of its time is, sadly, one of its values.”

I hadn't been eager to see this film, and so wasn't familiar with it until I did music for a screening last year. I must say I was swept away by Griffith's almost giddy indulgence on a large scale of all the story-telling techniques he'd been developing in much shorter films in the previous decade. Somehow the film still radiates an excitement on this level that even the blatant racism can't totally destroy.

Hope you can join us at the Flying Monkey in Plymouth, N.H. and see for yourself. Speaking of the press release, here it is in all its glory...

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MONDAY, DEC. 26, 2011 / FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Jeff Rapsis • (603) 236-9237 • jeffrapsis@gmail.com

‘Birth of a Nation’: Silent film masterpiece or racist artifact?

Landmark movie to be screened with live music for MLK Day on Jan. 12 in Plymouth, N.H.

PLYMOUTH, N.H.—What if a movie was acclaimed as a masterpiece, but portrayed the Ku Klux Klan as heroes? What if a movie aimed to show the realities of life during the Civil War, and yet used white actors playing roles in blackface? What does it say if a movie was clearly racist, depicting blacks as an inferior sub-species to whites, but was still a box office smash?

Those are among the questions posed by ‘The Birth of a Nation’ (1915), the ground-breaking epic film from director D.W. Griffith, which continues to inspire controversy nearly a century after its initial release.

In honor of Martin Luther King Day this year, a restored print of the film will be screened with live music at the Flying Monkey Moviehouse and Performance Center in Plymouth, N.H. The screening, part of the Flying Monkey’s silent film series, will take place on Thursday, Jan. 12 at 6:30 p.m. General admission tickets are $10 per person.

Organizers of the Flying Monkey’s film series specifically chose the occasion of Martin Luther King Day to screen ‘The Birth of a Nation,’ long regarded as a masterpiece of early cinema but tarnished by racism and prejudice.

“Although ‘The Birth of a Nation’ has been reviled for its blatant and pervasive racism, it was a huge hit in its day and was accepted as one of the landmarks of early cinema,” said Jeff Rapsis, a New Hampshire silent film musician who will perform a live score for the movie.

“Screening this compromised classic to honor Martin Luther King Day is a chance for today’s audiences to appreciate how far we’ve come, and to also ponder how many of the prejudices on display in this film that we may still harbor, even unconsciously,” Rapsis said.

As the first-ever Hollywood blockbuster, ‘The Birth of a Nation’ thrilled audiences in 1915 with its large-scale wartime action sequences, its recreation of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, and spectacular photography by cameraman G.W. Bitzer.

Even at the time of its release, the movie was regarded as monumentally insensitive to issues of race, depicting blacks as a sub-race inferior to whites and portraying Ku Klux Klan members as heroes. Conceived by Griffith, a native Southerner, as a saga of two families caught up in the Civil War and its aftermath, many viewers and critics regarded the film as a prolonged statement of cinematic bigotry.

Seen today, the film abounds with offensive racial comments and imagery both overt and implied. To complicate matters for contemporary audiences, Griffith had all leading roles of black characters played by white actors in blackface; black actors were kept in the background or used only for crowd scenes, which lends the film a surreal quality to modern viewers.

Despite the racism, the film’s innovative and powerful story-telling techniques, as well as its massive scale, opened Hollywood’s eyes to the full potential of cinema as an art form, exerting a powerful influence on generations of filmmakers to come.

The film’s pervasive influence extended beyond theaters, at times in unfortunate ways. As an unintended consequence, ’The Birth of a Nation’ inspired a revival of the then-dormant Klan, which flourished anew in the south thorough the 1920s, making extensive use of Griffith’s film for propaganda purposes.

The controversy continues today, with ‘Birth of a Nation’ inspiring passions nearly a century after its release. Has enough time passed for today’s audiences to regard this landmark film as an artifact of its time, or an indication of enduring prejudice? This Martin Luther King’s Day, decide for yourself how far we’ve come with a screening of a restored print of this tarnished American classic the way it was intended to be seen: on the big screen, with live music, and with an audience.

The film stars Lillian Gish, Mae Marsh, Henry Walthall, and dozens of other silent-era performers. Gish, who died in 1993 at age 99, continued to act in films as late as 1987, when she appeared in ‘The Whales of August.’ Her later work includes an appearance on the TV series ‘The Love Boat’ in 1981.

All movies in the Flying Monkey’s silent film series were popular when first released, but are rarely screened today in a way that allows them to be seen at their best. They were not made to be shown on television; to revive them, organizers aim to show the films at the Flying Monkey as they were intended—in top quality restored prints, on a large screen, with live music, and with an audience.

‘The Birth of a Nation’ will be shown in honor of Martin Luther King Day on Thursday, Jan. 12, at 6:30 p.m. at the Flying Monkey Moviehouse and Performance Center, 39 South Main St., Plymouth, N.H. Admission is $10 per person, general admission seating. Tickets available at the door or in advance by calling the Flying Monkey box office, (603) 536-2551 or online at www.flyingmonkeynh.com.

CRITIC COMMENTS on ‘THE BIRTH OF A NATION’

“...the film represents how racist a white American could be in 1915 without realizing he was racist at all. That is worth knowing. Blacks already knew that, had known it for a long time, witnessed it painfully again every day, but "The Birth of a Nation" demonstrated it in clear view, and the importance of the film includes the clarity of its demonstration. That it is a mirror of its time is, sadly, one of its values.”
—Roger Ebert, 2003, The Chicago Sun-Times

“If one can put the racial overtones aside, this is quuote probably the most accurate celluloid representation of Civil War times to exist. It was made only 50 years after the Civil War ended, when many people who had actually been through the war were still alive to give first hand accounts.”
—Robert K. Klepper, ‘Silent Films,’ (1999)

“More than a hugely successful spectacle, it was a masterpiece—using Griffith’s trademark cinematic techniques and combinging emotional intensity and epic sweep—but it was a deeply tainted one. Its racism—consciously intended by the filmmaker or not—makes parts of ‘Birth’ extremely difficult to watch today.”
—Peter Kobel, ‘Silent Movies,’ (2007)

I am in awe of 'Man With A Movie Camera'

2012-01-05T00:13:00.008-05:00

I just can't get over it. It's the kind of thing I respond to emotionally. It's real life rearranged into fascinating patterns—something like music, but augmented for the eyes. And it's really gotten to me.

Two days ago, I scored this 1929 film from the Soviet Union, created by Dziga Vertov (see above, with his co-star) in that remarkable era of artistic experimentation before Stalin commandeered the arts for his own purposes. 'Man With A Movie Camera' is a wonderful film to score, with its startling montages and shifting cutting rhythms and so many other elements that lend themselves to music.

Vertov, in demonstrating the possibilities of the movie camera, showed the potential for cinema to reimagine life itself, and releasing an avalanche of raw creativity in the process. 'Man With A Movie Camera' shows us life in ways no one had ever experienced before.

And in doing this, Vertov produced a strutting celebration of life as it is experienced by most people, a piece of art that immortalizes the ordinary all around us by transforming it into something extraordinary. And I find this very moving, especially so in the wild and frentic last five minutes of the picture, the equivalent to the "grand finale." Something about it reaches out and grabs me and makes me feel glad to be alive, and gives me a sense of limitless possibilities.

Of course not everyone will respond to 'Man With A Movie Camera' in this way. So at the conclusion of Tuesday night's screening, I asked our relatively small audience (maybe 15 souls) for reactions. Without hesitating, one of my regular attendees blurted out, "It was AWFUL!" She was, alas, expecting a typical Hollywood story, which 'Man With A Movie Camera' is not.

And so we talked a bit about her response, and it forced me to try to express why I responded so strongly to the film. And I kept coming back to that "music for the eyes" idea. 'Man With A Movie Camera' is really built like a big Mahler symphony, with peaks and valleys, sometimes woven out of the most ordinary material, just like Mahler would sometimes do. (For example: building a funeral march out of a children's nursery song in his Symphony No. 1.)

But it was Mahler who told his pupil Bruno Walter that a symphony must form an entire world, and that's what Vertov accomplished in making 'Man With A Movie Camera.' Vertov used footage of real life to refashion something like a whole new world, or at least a world that would be new to viewers, both then and now.

And I found myself telling our audience that 'Man With A Movie Camera' was one of those silents to which the passage of time has added an important new layer of interest. The film, made more than eight decades ago now, allows us to see what has changed -- and, more importantly, what hasn't. Our gadgets may be different, but the rhythms of life that make up our lives in many ways continue unaltered. We still fall in love, get married or get divorced, grow old, and die. And we know this because Vertov shows it to us.

And in watching this on screen and playing music to support it, I feel connected not just to all those in my own age, but to all those who have gone before me, and who will come after me, too. We're all phrases and notes in a big symphony that started long ago and will not finish for a long time, if ever. Vertov compresses and restructures reality, as captured in 1920s Russia, in a way that helps me sense that even today.

It's enough for me to feel overcome, the same way I remember feeling in the Indian holy city of Varanasi a few years back, when I lit a floating candle for my ancestors and released it on the waters of the Ganges. Circumstances conspired to make me feel truly alive then, and part of something much bigger than myself. And the genius of Vertov's film is that it inspires the same feeling.

'Man With a Movie Camera' (1929) in Manchester, N.H.

2012-01-03T08:53:00.004-05:00

One reason to show Dziga Vertov's experimental avant-garde film 'Man With A Movie Camera' (1929) is all the incredible posters that were done to promote it. They're from that wonderful period of artistic inventiveness in the then-brand new Soviet Union—chiefly the 1920s, before Stalin took control of things and commandeered the creative arts to serve his own purposes. We're showing 'Man With a Movie Camera' on Tuesday, Jan. 3 at the Manchester (N.H.) Public Library (free admission!), and get a load of some of these eye-popping designs from the original release:

The movie itself is a real trip — a blueprint for the much later film 'Koyaanisqatsi' (1983), although filmed in Odessa and in black-and-white. I had known about 'Man With a Movie Camera' for years but had not had a chance to sit down and watch it until just recently, in preparation for the screening we're doing on Tuesday, Jan. 3. (Yikes! That's tonight!)

A lot has been written about this innovative film. My own take is that it's a great example of a silent film that has become more interesting as time passes, as what Vertov captured receds further and further into the past. Seeing the film today allows us to contemplate not only what Vertov put on the screen, but also how much has changed, and (more importantly) how much hasn't.

I think it can be very rewarding—and grounding and comforting, too—to see how people lived some time ago, before the age of automobiles and gadgets and distractions that we now live in. And I think the rhythms and images that Vertov captured and assembled are perfect for this kind of contemplation.

And I hope the music that I do enchances this experience. I plan to break out my best faux Philip Glass, with the goal of using repetition to create that kind of hypnotic effect that I think works so well with Vertov's idea of cinema needing a new visual language. Just as a sculpture celebrates, say, the human form captured in a moment for us all to appreciate, Vertov's film captures "modern" life in a way that allows us to step back and ponder our own life and how we fit into the crazy quilt that he weaves on screen. And music, ideally, enhances that process, providing I don't screw it up.

And, as I said before, the passage of time has added another layer of richness to this contemplation. How much of what is depicted in Odessa nearly nine decades ago is similar to our own experience today? What perspective can we gain on our own sense of life as it rushes by, day after day, seemingly faster and faster?

Come to think of it, that makes 'Man With A Movie Camera' a great film to show as we pass from one year into yet another. Check your watch, turn the calendar, and sit back and think about the part you've been playing in the symphony of life—and what kind of music will be in the next movement.

'Metropolis' and 'The Circus': Two days, two sell-outs!

2012-01-01T22:00:00.007-05:00

Two sold-out screenings in two days: not a bad way to start 2012!

On New Year's Eve, a screening of 'Metropolis' (1927) at Red River Theatres in Concord, N.H. proved popular enough for us to schedule an encore screening later in January. That way people who were turned away would have at least a chance to catch the film later: specifically, on Saturday, Jan. 21 at 7 p.m. Admission is $15. At that point, Red River will also be showing 'The Artist' (2011), so for one night, two of the theater's three screens will be silent films. Imagine that!

Then, on New Year's Day, this afternoon's screening of Chaplin's 'The Circus' (1928) at the Wilton (N.H.) Town Hall Theatre attracted a standing-room-only crowd, the largest audience ever for our monthly silent film series there. It was a nice way to celebration the opening of the theater's big anniversary year. They've been showing films there since 1912, so this year marks the start of Wilton's second century of cinema.

In both cases, I think the energy of the crowd somehow got translated into the music that came out of me. (For 'The Circus,' we used Chaplin's own score, but I accompanied two short subjects beforehand, Keaton's 'One Week' and Laurel & Hardy in 'Big Business.') There's something about a full house that makes you want the accompaniment to be first rate, or at least that's the case with me. And I found that both screenings were pretty successful.

'Metropolis' is a massive film to do music for, but I had strong material (some from an earlier screening, some I developed new) and that helped it all hold together. The most important was what I thought of as the "mediator" theme -- important not only because it goes with Fredrick, the male lead, but because it's an aspirational melody which helps set the tone anytime any character wants something. Plus, the tune is built mostly out of arpeggiated chords, meaning it could easily function as accompaniment or counterpoint to other tunes I used: a "machine" melody with five rising and falling notes, a "hedonistic nightclub" tune used to represent base emotions, the Dies Irae from the Catholic Mass for the Dead (handy in any forboding situation, and fun to harmonize in various ways), and a kind of tick-tock melody for Freder's father, the master of Metropolis, helpful in capturing his character and in illustrating any situation in which someone is facing options or difficulties that are somehow related to him. (Which means anything, really.)

In relatively quiet sections, I'm surprised how all of this music can somehow fit together and play a role in scoring the emotional path of a scene. One theme will morph into another, sometimes in a weird key modulation, and then trail off in another direction, always to illustrate the ebb and flow of what's happening on the screen: not physical actions so much as the emotional temperature of a scene.

Because 'Metropolis' is set in THE FUTURE, I pushed the synthesizer into unusual territory for me, though nothing outrageous. Instead of the usual orchestral texture, a few sequences were done with some semi-weird combo settings to create the right atmosphere.

The most successful example of this is the famous laboratory scene where Rotwang transfers Maria's personality to his "Machine Man." For this, I used a setting called "Random Blocks" that has a kind of bubbly xylophone texture to it, and also a prominent echo every time a note is struck. By continuing to strike the note in rhythm with its own echo, or playing a melodic line with this going on, it's possible to get a very eerie soundscape going. This happened quite effectively on Saturday night and I was very pleased with how it came out, especially because tension was created not through volume but by quietly stacking chords, pulling in and out of dissonances, and generally adding patterns that had more and more notes.

On the down side, I think I peaked too early. 'Metropolis' has an extended triple climax. Three big scenes follow in succession -- the workers destroying the machines, the underground city getting flooded, and then the final confrontations in the streets and the cathedral -- any one of which would serve as a satisfying silent movie climax. But in 'Metropolis,' they follow one after another, and if you push too far too early, you're left with nowhere to go while there's still plenty of film left. I'm afraid I ran into this problem, and because I didn't pace it right, the last parts of the film may not have had the impact that they otherwise might.

Overall, I gave myself a B-, mostly because I felt I didn't plan it out well enough to help build excitement in the final sequences. Instead, I went too far too fast, which tends to tire out people's ears and this diminishes the film's impact. (Also, I messed up playing 'Auld Lang Syne' during the New Year's Eve champagne toast afterwards.)

As for 'The Circus' in Wilton, N.H.: I spend so much time accompanying programs in this venue, so it's instructive to just attend a screening and listen once in awhile. One thing that struck me was how sparse Chaplin's music could be at times: often just a little rhythmic vamp, and sometimes even less than that, especially in a big comic scene. It's a good lesson. Overall, I find Chaplin's silent film scores (the original ones for 'City Lights' (1931) and 'Modern Times' (1936), as well as ones he did later such as for 'The Circus') to be effective, but not very daring harmonically. But he knew what he wanted and it's a treat to hear what he came up with, even if in the case of 'The Circus' it was four decades after making the picture.

Alas, our screening was marred by a technical glitch. The disc, when projected at the 4:3 ratio, had everyone on screen squished vertically. I ran back and asked Dennis Markevarich to fix it, which he did by changing the setting to 16:9! This corrected the proportions, but the resulting image was missing about 10 percent from the top and from the bottom. Rats! Why does this happen? The good news is that most people seem not to have noticed, and there only a few key scenes in which the whole image was necessary, including shots of Chaplin on the tightrope.

Still, it's difficult enough to revive a silent film and show it properly to an audience. With all the things that can go wrong, it's a miracle that we can show 'The Circus' at all!

Encore screening of 'Metropolis' on Jan. 21 in Concord!

2011-12-30T13:34:00.007-05:00

I'm both pleased and sorry to report that as of today (Friday, Dec. 30), our New Year's Eve screening of 'Metropolis' (1927) at Red River Theatres in Concord, N.H. is sold out. Great to see such interest, but I regret we're not going to be able to accommodate everyone who might want to see it that night.

But I've just now spoken to the folks at Red River Theatres and we've scheduled an encore screening for Saturday, Jan. 21 at 7 p.m. Same deal, admission $15. So if you couldn't get in (or couldn't get to) the New Year's Eve screening, there's another chance coming up on the calendar.

In the meantime, if you're itching to welcome in 2012 with some early cinema, we have two other screenings of great silent film coming up in our corner of the world:

• Sunday, Jan. 1, 4:30 p.m.: 'The Circus' (1928) starring Charlie Chaplin, with comedy short films starring Buster Keaton and Laurel & Hardy. Wilton Town Hall Theatre, Main Street, Wilton, N.H.; (603) 654-3456. www.wiltontownhalltheatre.com. Free admission, donations accepted. See one of Chaplin's great silent features (with music by him) and two classic comedies acccompanied by Jeff Rapsis. Fun for the whole family and a great way to ring in 2012.

• Tuesday, Jan. 3, 6 p.m.: 'Man With A Movie Camera' (1929), Carpenter Memorial Auditorium, Manchester Public Library, 405 Pine St., Manchester, N.H.; (603) 624-6550. Soviet director Dziga Vertov's homage to Leningrad, an experimental documentary with no story and no actors, just images. Pure cinema. Monthly series of rarely screened silent films presented with live music in 1913 auditorium. Admission free, donations encouraged.

'Metropolis' on Saturday, Dec. 31 in Concord, N.H.

2011-12-23T11:15:00.006-05:00

A few further thoughts on 'Metropolis' (1927) as we get closer to the screening, which will take place on Saturday, Dec. 31 (New Year's Eve!) at 7 p.m. in Concord, N.H. (A lot more basic info is found further down in this blog.)

• First, thanks very much to New Hampshire Public Radio and the crew at 'Word of Mouth' for the chance to talk about 'Metropolis' and silent film music. Host Virginia Prescott and several very nice behind-the-scenes people were most welcoming, and everyone seemed pleased with the segment, which featured a few musical sequences played live.

The piece aired this past Wednesday, Dec. 21, but I understand will be re-broadcast as part of a show on Saturday, Dec. 24 at noon. However, this being the age of everything-when-you-want-it, you can also hear it right now.

I was especially glad for the chance to play some of my futuristic Broadway show music, which will be used in 'Metropolis' to accompany the "Bad Maria" in her wild nightclub act. It's a tune that I've found to be catchy enough to actually blot out Christmas carols, which is no small feat this time of year.

• Next, if you're interested in attending, please get in touch with Red River Theatres early and reserve your tickets. We're showing 'Metropolis' in the theater's screening room, which has a limit of only about 60 seats, so if you really do want to attend, it's worth reserving the tickets in advance. Also, if the screening books up early, there's a chance we might get to do a repeat, and the sooner we know that, the better.

• Behind the scenes: Below is an interesting production still from 'Metropolis' showing Brigette Helm wearing the "machine man" costume during a break in filming. At least I think that's Helm, if you can believe www.imdb.com, but to my eye it doesn't look very much like her. Anyway: I've heard stories about how Lang would demand a lot from his performers, and this shows something of the reality of what that meant. Whoever it is in the costume, the woman looks like nothing so much as a prize-fighter between rounds of a tough bout. And if it is Helm, my regard for her contribution to 'Metropolis' film goes up another notch, because the robot costume completely conceals whoever is wearing it, so it could have been anyone under there. And yet it was her!

• Finally, the more I look at 'Metropolis,' the more impressed I am with how it's all put together, especially with the missing 25 minutes of footage discovered in 2008. Yes, the visual design is hard to miss. But what's equally amazing, I think, is how director Fritz Lang created a multi-layered story that leads to an exciting and dramatic multi-stage climax—one that really moves and is full of powerful visuals in its own right. As a result, it's a very satisfying film. Hope you can join us!

P.S. And if seeing 'Metropolis' isn't enough, the evening also includes a champagne toast to welcome in 2012!

'Metropolis' on 'Word of Mouth' Wednesday, Dec. 21

2011-12-20T16:54:00.005-05:00

Quick note: on Wednesday, Dec. 21, the ongoing silent film carnival is scheduled to make an appearance on "Word of Mouth,' a noontime program on New Hampshire Public Radio. The host is Virginia Prescott, a very smart and nice person.

With 'Metropolis' (1927) scheduled for Saturday, Dec. 31 in Concord, N.H., we'll talk about the film and creating the score. The interview is slated for the last segment of the hour-long show. For more information on the station (or to listen online), visit www.nhpr.org.

'The Circus' (1928) on New Year's Day in Wilton, N.H.

2011-12-18T16:11:00.015-05:00

Chaplin's great silent comedy 'The Circus' presents an interesting musical conundrum.

When released in 1928, the film (like most other silents) did not have a soundtrack. And so during its initial run, audiences around the world would have heard accompaniment provided on the spot by local theater musicians. That's how cinema-goers experienced the film, which was a solid success for Chaplin and went on to be the seventh-highest grossing film of the silent era.

And then, four decades after the film's original run, Chaplin (then approaching 80 years of age) worked with late-in-life collaborator Eric James to put together music for a re-release. The resulting soundtrack, including a song that gets sung over the opening titles by Chaplin himself, accompanied the 1968 release. And since that time, it's the only score authorized by the Chaplin estate to accompany 'The Circus.'

Yes, Chaplin's score is quite effective, and there's a unique value in knowing what kind of music he preferred to go with certain types of scenes. (It's quite spartan in some places, but that makes sense for a comedy, I think.) However, keep in mind that the music is from a completely different time in his life—four decades distant! And while there's nothing wrong with Chaplin's score, I think an argument can be made for 'The Circus' to be open to other scoring approaches, too.

After all, audiences saw its original release without Chaplin's music. And I've come to think that one of the things that helps make silent film timeless is that the films themselves are open to fresh scoring approaches, both today and in the future. A good score can help bridge the gap between this now-unfamiliar visual form and today's audiences, I think.

Well, the folks who control the Chaplin films feel differently, and they really have no choice. Acting on the wishes of Chaplin (who died in 1977), they insist to this day that whenever 'The Circus' is screened, the recorded score from 1968 be used for accompaniment. No others can be used.

I'm conveying all this to let folks know why we're not doing live music for this film, to be screened on Sunday, Jan. 1 at 4:30 p.m. at the Wilton Town Hall Theatre. (Free admission!)

I do feel that live music is an important part of the silent film experience. But if we're going to show 'The Circus,' we need to follow Chaplin's wishes, at least as his estate interprets them. The good news is, yes, it's a fine score, and does provide a unique point of reference not available for most other silent film artists. What kind of music would Chaplin have preferred for this film? With the score he created, we don't have to guess.

However, how different would the music be if he'd done it in 1928, at the time of the film's initial release? That's something we'll never know. However, just a few years later, he did create a score for 'City Lights' (1931) for its initial release, and it's clearly the work of the same person behind the 'Circus' music much much later.

Well, back to our New Year's Day screening. We're leading off with two silent comedy shorts for which we will have live music: 'Big Business' (1929), starring Laurel & Hardy, is the perfect film for people tired of Christmas cheer, while Buster Keaton's 'One Week' (1920) is another timeless (but time-oriented) comedy to start 2012 off with some laughs.

Hope to see you there! Press release follows below...

MONDAY, DEC. 19, 2011 / FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For more info, contact: Jeff Rapsis • (603) 236-9237 • jeffrapsis@gmail.com

Chaplin's classic comedy 'The Circus' to be screened on New Year's Day in Wilton, N.H.

Holiday weekend family-friendly screening includes silent Laurel & Hardy, Buster Keaton films with live music

WILTON, N.H.—Laugh your way into 2012 with Charlie Chaplin's classic comedy 'The Circus' (1928), to be screened on New Year's Day at the Wilton (N.H.) Town Hall Theatre. The program, part of the theater's monthly silent film series, will also include short silent comedies starring Laurel & Hardy and Buster Keaton, with live music by Jeff Rapsis.

'The Circus' will be shown on Sunday, Jan. 1 at 4:30 p.m. Admission to the family-friendly screening is free, with donations accepted to help defray costs.

Chaplin made 'The Circus' at the height of worldwide fame for his "Little Tramp" character. Set in an impoverished travelling circus, the film is noted for its mix of uproarious comedy and a dramatic story line. 'The Circus' features several classic sequences, including a high wire scene for which Chaplin actually learned to walk on a tight-rope.

In 'The Circus,' Chaplin's tramp plays an incompetent prop man who unwittingly becomes the show's comedy sensation. Offstage, he befriends a young lady horsetrainer (Merna Kennedy) who suffers mistreatment from her abusive father, the owner of the circus. Can the Little Tramp help her escape without losing his own job or ruining the show? And will she return the feelings that he's developing for her?

'The Circus' is a light-hearted romp, but the film was a behind-the-scenes nightmare for Chaplin. During production, he endured the death of his mother, a contentious divorce from his second wife, IRS allegations of unpaid taxes, and a disastrous studio fire that set shooting back months. Despite these obstacles, 'The Circus' went on to become one of Chaplin's most popular successes. It also earned Chaplin a special Academy Award for acting and directing at the very first Oscars in 1929.

Four decades after the original release of 'The Circus,' Chaplin at age 80 composed his own musical score for the picture and rereleased it in 1968 with a recorded soundtrack. The version with Chaplin's score is the only one licensed by the Chaplin Estate for exhibition, so the Wilton Town Hall Theatre's screening of 'The Circus' will feature recorded music rather than the usual live music.

A restored version of 'The Circus' was released again to arthouses in 2010 as part of a worldwide Chaplin retrospective, with contemporary critics praising the film's timeless qualities.

"It's a brilliant combination of light and darkness, tenderness and violence and, yes, laughter and tears," wrote Andrew O'Hehir for salon.com, while Keith Ulrich of Time Out New York wrote "There's an edge to 'The Circus' that suggests a man gazing deep into the void, laughing at the darkness and urging us to do the same."

In the Internet age, 'The Circus' gained notoriety when footage taken at the film's 1928 premiere seemed to show a woman talking on a cell phone. The footage, filmed outside Graumann's Chinese Theater in Los Angeles and included as an extra in a DVD release of 'The Circus,' quickly went viral and become a YouTube sensation. Explanations for the scene included the theory that the woman had traveled through time from the present day, although most observers believe she was using some kind of hearing aid.

At the Wilton screening, accompanist Jeff Rapsis will provide live music for two comedy short films on the program: 'Big Business' (1929) starring Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, and Buster Keaton's 'One Week' (1920).

'Big Business' finds Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy as unsuccessful door-to-door Christmas tree salesmen. An encounter with one particularly unsympathetic customer (Jimmy Finlayson) escalates into a destructive battle sure to please anyone who's had enough of this year's holiday season. Made just before the comedy duo transitioned into sound films later in 1929, 'Big Business' stands as one of Laurel & Hardy's most popular comedies.

In 'One Week,' Buster Keaton and his new bride (Sybil Seeley) attempt to construct a do-it-yourself home, unaware than Buster's former rival for the girl has switched the numbers on the crates. The resulting home is just the beginning of Buster's misfortunes, which all lead to one of the all-time best comedy endings of any silent film.

'The Circus' and other short comedies will be screened on Sunday, Jan. 1 at 4:30 p.m. at the Wilton Town Hall Theatre, 40 Main St., Wilton, N.H. For more information, visit www.wiltontownhalltheatre.com or call (603) 654-3456. The Wilton Town Hall Theatre runs silent film programs with live music the last Sunday of every month. For more information about the music, visit www.jeffrapsis.com.

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For more info, contact:
Jeff Rapsis • (603) 236-9237 • jeffrapsis@gmail.com
Images attached. More high-resolution digital images available upon request.

It's about time: 'Metropolis' (1927) on NYE

2011-12-12T10:15:00.016-05:00

What better way to ring in the new year than with yesterday's view of tomorrow? That's the thinking behind our upcoming screening of 'Metropolis' (1927), the great German silent sci-fi epic from director Fritz Lang, on New Year's Eve at Red River Theatres in Concord, N.H.

As I quoted myself in the press release below (and I love doing that), "'Metropolis' stands as an stunning example of the power of silent film to tell a compelling story without words, and reach across the generations to touch movie-goers from the real future that came to pass, which means us."

The screening, with live music, is on Saturday, Dec. 31 at 7 p.m. at Red River Theatres, 11 South Main St. in Concord, N.H. Admission is $15 per person and seats are limited, so call the theater at (603) 224-4600 or visit www.redrivertheatres.org right away to reserve right now.

The press release is below, but one thing I love about this film is the sheer athleticism of the performers, especially Brigette Helm. If you see this, watch the way she throws herself around the screen, putting her whole body into everything she does! Silent film never came as close to ballet as it did with her performance in 'Metropolis.' It's graceful and seemingly effortless, but not outrageous or over-the-top, and fits the character of the film perfectly, I think. Even her small gestures, such as an eye-blink that assumes much significance, are somehow big.

As for the music, this is a kickass film to score live, with just the right kind of pacing for things to build and develop nicely, and the kind of dramatic scenes that music can add a lot to if it all comes together. I've got several themes I've used in the past ready to go, and I'm developing a couple more to round things out. I might try to push the digital synthesizer a little beyond the traditional orchestral sound I go for, given the film's unusual setting. One of the major challenges is to hold back. The film is just one amazing visual after another, and there's a temptation to go too far too fast. Things do build, however, and you've got to have somewhere to go for the climax.

And finally, though 'Metropolis' is billed as a science fiction flick, the newly restored version we're showing (all 2½ hours of it!) reveals it to be heavy on the Christian spiritual allegory. Don't let that scare you, but any film that includes major scenes in underground churches and on cathedral rooftops has more than technology on its mind.

Still, the movie is jammed with enough proto-televisions and futuristic elevators and 10-hour clocks and massive machinery halls to delight any steampunk geek.

But it's more than that. So come see it!

And if all that's not enough, I'm told that the good folk at Red River have arranged for 'Metropolis' to be followed by a champagne toast to welcome in 2012. (Better brush up on the words to 'Auld Lang Syne,' too.)

* * *

MONDAY, DEC. 12, 2011 / FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For more info, contact: Jeff Rapsis • (603) 236-9237 • jeffrapsis@gmail.com

Red River Theaters to screen restored 'Metropolis' on New Year's Eve

Landmark sci-fi fantasy movie to be shown with live music at Concord, N.H. cinema on Saturday, Dec. 31

CONCORD, N.H.—A silent film hailed as the grandfather of all science fiction fantasy movies will be screened with live music on Saturday, Dec. 31, 2011 at Red River Theatres in Concord, N.H. The show starts at 7 p.m. and tickets are $15 general admission.

'Metropolis' (1927), regarded as German director Fritz Lang's masterpiece, is set in a futuristic city where a privileged elite pursue lives of leisure while the masses toil on vast machines and live deep underground. The film, with its visions of futuristic factories and flying cars, set new standards for visual design and inspired generations of dystopian fantasies from Ridley Scott's 'Blade Runner' to Terry Gilliam's 'Brazil.' The story centers on an upper class young man who falls in love with a woman who works with the poor, and encompasses mad scientists, human-like robots, and industrial espionage, all set in a society divided between haves and have-nots.

The version of 'Metropolis' to be screened at Red River is a newly restored edition that includes nearly a half-hour of missing footage cut following the film's premiere in 1927. The footage, discovered in 2008 in an archive in Argentina, has since been added to the existing 'Metropolis,' allowing plot threads and characters to be developed more fully.

The restored 'Metropolis,' now 2½ hours in length, will be accompanied by a score created live by New Hampshire-based silent film musician and composer Jeff Rapsis.

When 'Metropolis' was first screened in Berlin, Germany on Jan. 10, 1927, the sci-fi epic ran an estimated 153 minutes. After its premiere engagement, the film's distributors (including Paramount in the U.S.) drastically shortened 'Metropolis' to maximize the film's commercial potential. By the time it debuted in the U.S. later that year, the film ran about 90 minutes.

Even in its shortened form, 'Metropolis' went on to become one of the cornerstones of science fiction cinema. Due to its enduring popularity, the film has undergone numerous restorations in the intervening decades in attempts to recover Lang's original vision.

In 1984, the film was reissued with additional footage, color tints, and a pop rock score (but with many of its intertitles removed) by music producer Giorgio Moroder. A more archival restoration was completed in 1987, under the direction of Enno Patalas of the Munich Film Archive, in which missing scenes were represented with title cards and still photographs. More recently, a 2001 restoration combined footage from four archives and ran at a triumphant 124 minutes.

It was widely believed that this would be the most complete version of Lang's film that contemporary audiences could ever hope to see. But, in the summer of 2008, the curator of the Buenos Aires Museo del Cine discovered a 16mm dupe negative of 'Metropolis' that was considerably longer than any existing print. It included not merely a few additional snippets, but 25 minutes of "lost" footage, about a fifth of the film, that had not been seen since its Berlin debut.

The discovery of such a significant amount of material called for yet another restoration, which debuted in 2010 to widespread acclaim. It's this fully restored version that will be screened at Red River Theatres.

"We felt New Year's Eve was a great occasion to screen the restored 'Metropolis,' as it's a film all about the future and things to come," said Jeff Rapsis, who provides live musical accompaniment to silent film screenings throughout New England. "'Metropolis' stands as an stunning example of the power of silent film to tell a compelling story without words, and reach across the generations to touch movie-goers from the real future that came to pass, which means us."

To accompany a silent film, Rapsis uses a digital synthesizer to recreate the texture of the full orchestra. The score is created live in real time as the movie is screened. Rather than focus exclusively on authentic music of the period, Rapsis creates new music for silent films that draws from movie scoring techniques that today's audiences expect from the cinema.

"Silent film is a timeless art form that still has a unique emotional power to move audiences, as the recent success of 'The Artist' has shown," Rapsis said. "With original silent films, which were made in another era, my goal is to help them come to life by using music to bridge the gap between the film and today's audiences. If you can show them as they were originally intended—on the big screen, in a restored print, with live music and an audience—they create the same kind of excitement that made people first fall in love with the movies."

The restored 'Metropolis' will be shown on Saturday, Dec. 31 at 7 p.m. at Red River Theatres, 11 South Main St., Concord, N.H. General admission tickets are $15 per person. For more information, call (603) 224-4600 or visit www.redrivertheatres.org. For more information on the music, visit www.jeffrapsis.com.

CRITIC COMMENTS on ‘METROPOLIS’

“'Metropolis' does what many great films do, creating a time, place and characters so striking that they become part of our arsenal of images for imagining the world.”
—Roger Ebert, 2010, The Chicago Sun-Times

“If it comes anywhere near your town, go see it and thank the movie Gods that it even exists. There’s no star rating high enough.”
—Brian Tallerico, Movieretriever.com

Ring in the New Year with 'Metropolis,' 'The Circus'

2011-12-08T23:43:00.006-05:00

The silent film calendar is now clear until after Christmas, but then things come back to life in a big way with three screenings in four days. Let's take attendance...

• Saturday, Dec. 31, 2011: Doing music for a New Year's Eve screening of 'Metropolis' (1927) at Red River Theatres, an independent cinema at 11 South Main St. in Concord, N.H. Welcome in 2012 with German director Fritz Lang's eye-popping futuristic fantasy, now augmented with a half-hour of additional footage discovered in Argentina in 2008. One of the great cinematic experiences of any era, and featuring an astonishingly athletic performance by actress Brigitte Helm. (That's her above.) Showtime is 7 p.m.; tickets are $15 each and seating is very limited. Call the box office at (603) 224-4600 and reserve your tickets today. Many thanks to Jason Greenleaf at Kino/Lorber for arranging clearance to screen the restored version.

• Sunday, Jan. 1, 2011: We're screening 'The Circus' (1928), Chaplin's gag-filled feature, as part of our monthly silent film series at the Wilton Town Hall Theatre at 60 Main St. in Wilton, N.H. Admission is free; the program starts at 4:30 p.m. This film is packed with great routines and set pieces, including the scene where Chaplin walks the tightrope with some friends (see above) along for the ride. I'm always amazed to think that Chaplin actually learned to tightrope walk for this sequence! Also included will be a Buster Keaton silent comedy short (title to be announced) and, just when we've all had quite enough of the Christmas season, our friends Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy will be on hand to wreak holiday havoc in 'Big Business,' a classic comedy short from 1929. Please note that the Chaplin film will be screened with Chaplin's own recorded score (per the wishes of the Chaplin estate), but I'll do live music for the comedy shorts. And many thanks to Sarah Finklea of Janus Films for arranging permission for us to screen the Chaplin feature!

• Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2011: And now for something completely Soviet: 'The Man With A Movie Camera' (1929), an experimental Russian silent film, will be screened at the Manchester (N.H.) Public Library, 405 Pine St., at 6 p.m. Looking forward to doing music for this, a new one for me. It's the latest installment of a monthly silent film series we run in the library's vintage 1913 Carpenter Auditorium; admission is free.

Up next: 'When The Clouds Roll By' (1919)

2011-12-02T10:00:00.006-05:00

Things quiet down in December, when the holiday season seems to crowd out silent film from many calendars, including my own. But there is a good one coming up on Thursday, Dec. 8: the Douglas Fairbanks romantic comedy 'When The Clouds Roll By' (1919), which we're screening on Thursday, Dec. 8 at 6:30 p.m. at the Flying Monkey Moviehouse and Performance Center in Plymouth, N.H.

This one has Doug in top leading-man form, romping through a contemporary boy-meets-girl story just prior to embarking on the series of historical adventure roles that would cement his reputation as one of the great stars of the 1920s. (That later Fairbanks, complete with trademark pencil-thin mustache, is one of the models for the male lead character in the new silent film 'The Artist,' which still hasn't reached us here in the sticks yet.)

But 'When the Clouds Roll By' stands on its own as a fun film, one that pokes fun at the then-new profession of psychiatry. As such, it features some unusual scenes of Fairbanks hallucinating. At one point, after eating a dinner that doesn't agree with him, Doug dreams of being chased by his meal (in the form of actors dressed as food) through the countryside. There's another sequence in which he miraculously walks up a wall and then across the ceiling, anticipating Fred Astaire in 'Royal Wedding' by a generation.

It's not all weirdness and stunts, though. 'When The Clouds Roll By' features a strong romantic story, a wonderfully rousing climax, and boasts a great pedigree on the technical side, too—for instance, the cinematographer was none other than Victor Fleming, who would later go on to direct 'Gone With the Wind' and 'The Wizard of Oz.'

I first saw this picture at the Kansas Silent Film Festival in 2005, and at the time it came as a revelation. If film that I'd never heard of could be this good and display such raw creativity, just how much additional gold was buried in so many other silent pictures that were out there? More than many "classics," 'When The Clouds Roll By' whetted my appetite to explore the genre much further and deeper than I had previously.

See if it has the same effect on you! The screening is Thursday, Dec. 8 at 6:30 p.m. at The Flying Monkey Moviehouse and Performance Center, 39 South Main St., Plymouth, N.H. Tickets are $10 per person. For more info on the theater, visit www.flyingmonkeynh.com.

Thanksgiving? Time for 'Peter Pan' again!

2011-11-11T19:46:00.004-05:00

Hard to believe, but we'll soon be presenting our 4th annual screening of 'Peter Pan' (1924) on Thanksgiving weekend at the Wilton (N.H.) Town Hall Theatre. It's Sunday, Nov. 27 at 4:30 p.m. -- a perfect way to round out the long holiday weekend of eating and shopping with a vintage movie for kids of all ages. The screening is free, but donations are accepted...

...And once again, all proceeds of this screening will be turned over the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, Mass. At the suggestion of Dave and Ali Stevenson, we've done this each year in the spirit of Peter Pan author J.M. Barrie, who wanted all royalties from his play to go to a London children's hospital.

Dana-Farber is the benificiary of the Jimmy Fund, well known in our corner of the world as a leader in the fight against cancer in children and adults. So please join us for a wonderful family afternoon at the movies, and I hope you contribute generously to help those who will not stop working to find a way to beat cancer.

Since we started this tradition in 2008, we've raised well over $1,000 for Dana-Farber, and I do hope we can push that amount much higher with this year's charity screening. Hope to see you and the whole family at 'Peter Pan!' If nothing else, the "audience participation" element of the film works best with a full house, so please do your part and be there!

And, as a bonus, to help everyone get into the holiday spirit, we'll also screen a selection of very odd early Christmas films, some more than a century old.

Up next: 'The Big Parade' (1925) in Plymouth, N.H.

2011-11-07T12:47:00.008-05:00

Here comes Veterans Day (Friday, Nov. 11 in the USA) and with it comes my annual attempt to honor those who've served in the armed forces by screening a silent film with live music. Hey, somebody's gotta keep the memory of World War I alive!

This year, it's a screening of 'The Big Parade' (1925) at the Flying Monkey Moviehouse and Performance Center in Plymouth, N.H. on Thursday, Nov. 10 at 6:30 p.m. I've done this picture several times and it's a great film for music.

For me, the big thing about this film is that it divides into two very different segments. The first, when the doughboys go to France, engage in various hijinks, fall in love, and so on, is essentially a romantic comedy. With music, it's very important to hold back throughout this section. Why? The payoff is when the troops are called up to the front, and the film throws its characters (and us along with them) right into the midst of deadly battle.

I think it comes across as terrifically effective if the music can then (and only then) take on a decidedly different character. The effect I'd like to achieve is that of waking from a dream and realizing you're in a situation that is real and something that you can'twake up from.

So please join us on Thursday, Nov. 10 for one of the great war films of all time, 'The Big Parade,' with live accompaniment by me. Here's the press release below...

P.S.: In the latest installment of "brush with greatness," the performer appearing next at the Flying Monkey after me is the great Leon Redbone, who's there on Saturday, Nov. 12. For more info, visit www.flyingmonkeynh.com!

NOV. 3, 2011 / FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Jeff Rapsis at (603) 236-9237 • e-mail jrapsis@gmail.com

Flying Monkey to mark Veterans Day with classic World War I epic film

Silent masterpiece 'The Big Parade' to be screened with live music on Thursday, Nov. 10

PLYMOUTH, N.H. — In honor of Veterans Day, the silent film classic 'The Big Parade' (1925) will be screened one time only on Thursday, Nov. 10 at the Flying Monkey Moviehouse and Performance Center in Plymouth, N.H. General admission is $10 per person.

The show, which starts at 6:30 p.m., will feature live accompaniment by silent film musician Jeff Rapsis. Rapsis provides music for the Flying Monkey's monthly silent film series, which aims to honor the recently renovated venue's historic roots as a local moviehouse.

'The Big Parade,' a landmark war film, was chosen as a way for the Flying Monkey to salute all local servicemen and women on the occasion of Veterans Day on Friday, Nov. 11. The date of Veterans Day descends from the declaration of Armistice that ended World War I in 1918.

'The Big Parade,' a sprawling World War I epic and a box office sensation, made MGM into a powerhouse studio in Hollywood's golden years. The movie, released just a few years after World War I ended, was hailed by critics as the first Hollywood film to depict the harsh reality of combat and its impact of troops in the trenches and foxholes. Its hellish battle scenes were staged on a massive scale and still retain their ability to shock audiences.

The picture, based on the novel "What Price Glory?", follows the story of a young man (John Gilbert) who rebels against a privileged background by enlisting in the army just before the U.S. enters World War I.

He is shipped out to France, where he falls in love with a local French woman before being transferred to the front. There, he and his squadmates come face to face with the German war machine, where they must face the ultimate tests of duty and honor in a battle they come to see as meaningless.

In addition to vivid battle scenes, the film contains a famous dramatic sequence in which the French woman (Renée Adorée) realizes her love for the soldier, and tries to find him to say goodbye as the massive convoy of troops pulls out for the front. Another celebrated sequence depicts the light-hearted first meeting of the soldier and the girl, in which he teaches her how to chew gum.

'The Big Parade' went on to become the top-grossing movie of the entire silent film era, earning $6.4 million domestically and making director King Vidor into the Steven Spielberg of his day. It stood as MGM's biggest single box office hit until the release of 'Gone With the Wind' in 1939.

Music for 'The Big Parade' will be provided by local composer Jeff Rapsis, who is preparing original material for the Flying Monkey screening. In improvising live movie scores, Rapsis tries to bridge the gap between modern audiences and silent film.

"Live music adds an element of energy to a silent film screening that's really something special," Rapsis said. " 'The Big Parade' clocks in at well over two hours, but it's filled with great scenes that lend themselves well to music. It's a real privilege to create a score to help this great picture come back to life," Rapsis said.

All movies in the Flying Monkey's silent film series were popular when first seen by audiences in the 1920s, but are rarely screened today in a way that allows them to be seen at their best. They were not made to be shown on television; to revive them, organizers aim to show the films at the Flying Monkey as they were intended—in top quality restored prints, on a large screen, with live music on a robust sound system, and before a live audience.

‘The Big Parade’ will be shown on Thursday, Nov. 10 at 6:30 p.m. at the Flying Monkey Moviehouse and Performing Arts Center, 39 Main St., Plymouth, N.H. Admission is $10 per person. For more info, call (603) 536-2551 or visit www.flyingmonkeynh.com. For more info on the music, visit www.jeffrapsis.com.

Notes on scoring 'Faust' (1926)

2011-11-06T22:12:00.003-05:00

We screened Murnau's 'Faust' (1926) today at the Wilton (N.H.) Town Hall Theater the score fell together exceptionally well, I thought. So here are a few notes while it's still all fresh in my head.

First, something I didn't use: the Dies Irae, the traditional melody from the Catholic Death Mass. I had prepared an arrangement of it, and used it in a screening of 'Nosferatu' (1922) last month. And I was all set to make it one of the building blocks for Faust -- in fact, it was supposed to open the film. But in the end, I didn't use it, partly because it didn't seem to fit the other material I developed, and also because I didn't want to repeat myself.

Most of what I would have done with the Dies Irae, however, was accomplished with a simple melody in 3/4 time that wound up being very effective, I thought, as accompaniment for scenes in which Mephisto (played by Emil Jannings) makes mischief, and also for the film in general. I don't know what it was about this melody, but it was enough to carry quite a lot of the film.

One fairly basic device was to equate "good" with music in major keys, while evil was accompanied by music in "minor" keys. Nothing too daring about that, I know, but what was neat was that the 3/4 time melody starts in a minor key, then shifts to a major key in the middle, and then back to minor for the finish.

And many times, I found some emotional shift happening in a scene when the major part of the melody kicked in. So it often seemed like I was in synch with the rhythms that director F.W. Murnau baked into the film, which helps it all in terms of audience acceptance and effect.

The film is bracketed by similar scenes at the very beginning and end, so that helps provide a framework for the music. Not only does the film's conclusion merit some dramatic accompaniment, but the return to the opening setting (and shifting back to what we heard at the beginning, but transformed) also gives music a chance to reinforce the journey and the distance we've all come.

Probably the toughest scenes to score are those that make up the semi-comic sequence in which Mephisto interacts with Gretchen's aunt. After more than an hour of building up Mephisto as all-powerful, suddenly the film confronts him with the unwanted attentions of an older woman. What kind of music goes with that? And to make things worse, the film cuts back and forth to Faust and Gretchen, who are seriously in love. I ended up keeping Mephisto's 'devil music' in 3/4 time, but more bumptious, for his scenes with the Aunt, and then keeping the 3/4 beat going for Faust and Gretchen but laying over it some softer chords that sounded a bit more aspirational at first, then grew as the emotional temperature of the scenes rose.

Most of the score ended up being built out of elements taken from the 3/4 time melody. The only other material was a 6/8 march first heard at the beginning of the film during the village celebration, and later morphed into many different shapes for different purposes. I also had a "religious chord sequence" that I first developed for a screening of 'King of Kings' last year, and which came in handy here in many places, especially as material for the big ending.

Audience response was strong. Found out later than the screening was extra credit for an English class from a nearby high school, which explains the group of teenagers all sitting close to one another on one side of the theater.

'Faust' (1926) postponed to Sunday, Nov. 6

2011-10-31T09:27:00.007-04:00

The big snowstorm that hit our corner of the world this past weekend left the Wilton (N.H.) Town Hall Theatre without power, and so the planned screening of 'Faust' (1926) on Sunday, Oct. 30 has been postponed to Sunday, Nov. 6 at 4:30 p.m.

I wasn't able to update this blog until now (Monday morning) because it's the first Internet access I've had since the storm hit our area on Saturday. Yes, the storm itself had blown over by Sunday morning. But what it left behind was a landscape of downed trees and power lines, and no landline or cellphone service. Fortunately for us, our house in Bedford, N.H. had power restored fairly early; even now, large parts of our town are without power, and it could take several days to restore everyone, I'm told.

Having no way of knowing if the Wilton screening was still on, I loaded up the gear and off I went. I found the roads into Wilton barricaded due to downed trees, but managed to thread my way through back streets to the downtown area. There, theater manager Dennis Markavarich had posted handwritten "CLOSED NO POWER" signs on the doors, but I knocked and he was there anyway. The town (and the theater) had lost power on Saturday night, and no one knew when it might be restored. Later, I discovered (see the map) that Wilton was right in the heaviest bands of snow.

Well, I apologize to anyone else who may have made the trek out there to see 'Faust.' With no power, we had no show, and we had no way to make a decision about it beforehand and get out the word. However, it's still a film that's really worth seeing, and so I hope folks can make it out to our "replacement" showing on Sunday, Nov. 6 at 4:30 p.m. We're also screening Buster Keaton's comedy short 'The Haunted House,' (1922), in honor of Halloween but also because it contains, improbably, a big reference to 'Faust.'

Back in Wilton, phone service had also been lost completely, prompting the town to put temporary signs along roads telling people to drive to the fire department in case of emergency. But what was really unusual was the lines of cars at gas stations -- in some cases, dozens of vehicles snaking out of station parking lots and down roads, blocking traffic lanes and so on. It reminded me of the gas shortage lines of the 1970s. It was, of course, the combination of many stations closed with people needing fuel for gas-powered generators. Back where I live in Bedford, with 60 percent of the town is still without power, after dark the cold landscape throbbed with the asymetric hum of generators running all night.

What does this have to do with silent film? Other than some of the gas lines having the potential to deteriorate into scenes similar to Laurel & Hardy's comedy short 'Two Tars,' not much. But I at least wanted to try getting the word out about our changing plans.

By the way, we're still showing 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame' (1923) at the Manchester (N.H.) Public Library on Tuesday, Nov. 1 at 6 p.m. -- unless we get another two feet of snow between now and then. After Hurricane Irene in August and now this, anything's possible.

Update: It's now Monday evening (Oct. 31), and I've seen news reports this evening that describe Wilton as one of the hardest-hit communities in the state. There's even a small chance that the power may not be on by this next weekend, so keep your fingers crossed and we'll update things as they happen.

Coming on Sunday, Oct. 30: 'Faust' (1926)

2011-10-24T13:42:00.011-04:00

I don't know what's going on, but I'm going through a period where fully formed melodies are coming to me all at once. It's weird—I'll be doing something like driving or riding my bike, my mind occupied by other things, and suddenly I'll find myself with a rich, completely formed melody in my head.

This happened a week ago, when I started humming an expansive tune that will work well as a main theme for 'The Big Parade.' Where it came from, I have no idea. (For details on this melody, see the last post.) And it happened again this past Saturday, when I was out for a brief bike ride on one of the last relatively warm weekend afternoons I expect we'll have in our part of the world before Old Man Winter sits on us for the next six months.

Right after leaving the house, I found myself thinking in 3/4 time, exactly in rhythm with the pedals on the bike. And I found myself thinking of 'Pee Wee's Big Adventure' (1985), perhaps because of the picture of Frances Buxton that I'd used in the last post, and also because I'd just read something about how film composer Danny Elfman (who did the film's distinctive score) suffers from hearing loss, and maybe also because of the prominent role of a bike in that picture.

And as I pedalled out onto County Road, right into my head came a rollicking waltz accompaniment, which was then topped by a sardonic melody that seemed to be tailor-made for Emil Jannings as "Mephisto" in 'Faust' (1926). It was right there, a four-phrase melody that was ripe with expressive possibilities! I tried to "solfeg" it (the musical term for sounding out the notes) while I rode, thinking it was in E minor, but couldn't quite figure out the harmony of the middle portion of it. A minor? Something else?

So upon returing, I went to the piano and found that the melody in my head was in B minor, which was cool because that's the key traditionally associated with the underworld. (So I was off by a major fourth—hey, I'm no Mozart.) And the harmony thing was basic but tricky: B minor, then to C major, then back to B minor. Unusual, but a move that the French composer Camille Saint-Saëns seemed to use quite often. Anyway, it has the flavor of a lot of his stuff, especially the "Danse Macabre," which might have been in my head along with all the bicycles and images from 'Pee Wee's Big Adventure.'

Geez, I ought to rig this so you can hear some of these melodic scraps. I'm working on it. For now, if you'd like to hear the tune I thought up on a bicycle, come see 'Faust' (1926) on Sunday, Oct. 29 at 4:30 p.m. at the Wilton (N.H.) Town Hall Theatre in Wilton, N.H.

And also, a special thanks to film blogger and reviewer Jay Seaver for mentioning me and the music I did at a screening of 'Peter Pan' (1924) earlier this month at the Brattle Cinema in Cambridge, Mass. Thanks, Jay! Didn't realize you were in attendance. Hope to do more screenings in the Boston area as opportunities arise.

Preparing for 'Faust,' 'Hunchback,' and 'Parade'

2011-10-19T12:15:00.014-04:00

After a busy stretch with multiple screenings in New Hampshire, Vermont, and Massachusetts, a bit of a lull right now, with a couple of weeks to prepare for the next batch of silent film action.

• First up is Murnau's 'Faust' (1926), which we're screening for Halloween at the Wilton (N.H.) Town Hall Theatre on Sunday, Oct. 30 at 4:30 p.m. I've been eager to do this one for some time now, as it's visually quite grand and something about the Murnau films brings out the Richard Strauss in me: long, arching melodies with odd leaps, and often a 3/4 time waltz-type underscoring. I don't have material set for this yet but I look forward to developing it this week. Despite the overall grimness of the material, this one should be fun, as Emil Jannings as Mephisto kind of reminds me of the character of Frances Buxton in 'Pee Wee's Big Adventure.' What do you think?

• Almost immediately following is 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame' (1923), another one I've never done but wanted to. It's Tuesday, Nov. 2 at 6 p.m. at the Manchester (N.H.) Public Library, where we've started to pull some nice crowds since moving our Manchester series there from the Palace Theatre. On this one, I have yet to watch the film all the way through, so the score is still very much in the embryonic stage.

• And then it's 'The Big Parade' (1925), which we'll be uncorking on Thursday, Nov. 10 at 6:30 p.m. at the Flying Monkey Moviehouse and Performance Center in Plymouth, N.H. (It's the day before Veterans Day!) I've done music for this several times before and it's always gone well, but I've never been totally satisfied with the material I've used. So I'm already in the process of coming up with a completely new suite of material that I hope will help the film come to life on many levels for contemporary audiences. We'll see. A plus here is that the Flying Monkey continues to improve its presentation; for our recent showing of 'Nosferatu,' the house sounds (which I plug into) was absolutely incredible. Afterwards, I had people saying they had chills running up and down their spine from the film! So I'm looking forward to creating a suitably dramatic soundtrack for 'The Big Parade.' Weirdly, a wonderful and expansive main theme came to me at random while driving around yesterday. As soon as I got home, I wrote it out lest it fade from consciousness, never to be recovered. It's a good one, but I'm always suspicious when such a fully formed melody seems to write itself. Sure enough, I later realized that it has the exact same chord progression as the 'Going Home' melody in the second movement of Dvorak's 'New World' symphony. But it's still my own tune, and I'm looking forward to developing it for use in 'The Big Parade.'

• And finally, still hoping to do music for a screening of 'Clash of the Wolves' (1925) somewhere as part of the now-in-progress tour for Susan Orleans' new book, 'Rin Tin Tin, the Life and the Legend.' Not looking likely at this point, however, as planned showings in Massaschusetts and Maine have evaporated, and her one appearance in our neck of the woods is now a signing (no film) at the Brookline (Mass.) Booksmith on Friday, Dec. 2. The closest actual 'Clash' screening is the Avon Theatre in Stamford, Conn. on Tuesday, Nov. 8, but they've said they don't have room for live music, so there you go. I might venture down there anyway just to see it in 35mm—something that will be increasingly hard to do with the industry and so many theaters converting to digital. Well, her tour seems to be going well and I hope the book does well. :)

Saturday, Oct. 15 in Brandon, Vt.: 'Cat and Canary'

2011-10-15T12:19:00.005-04:00

We finish up our 2011 season of silent film in Brandon (Vt.) Town Hall on Saturday, Oct. 15 with a 'Chiller Theatre' presentation of 'The Cat and the Canary' (1927), Paul Leni's wonderfully evocative haunted house thriller. It's being dubbed 'chiller theater' because the town hall is currently unheated, and it being October in New England, things can get downright frigid once the sun goes down. So we're taking the precaution of urging attendees to dress warmly, and hoping that once things get going, the magic of silent film will heat things up as well.

I have truly enjoyed presenting silent films in Brandon with live music during the past two years. People there have been enthusiastic, the screenings have raised money for the ongoing renovation of the town hall (which will someday have heat!), and I look forward to another season next year. Send in your requests and we'll see what we can do!

The screening of 'Cat and the Canary' is at 7 p.m. and is free to the public, though donations are accepted to help the renovation. And if it's not too cold, I have a short surprise to follow as a bonus. See you there. Here's the press release with more information...

* * *

SUNDAY, OCT. 2, 2011 / FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Jeff Rapsis • (603) 236-9237 • jeffrapsis@gmail.com

'Cat and Canary' (1927) to play Brandon (Vt.) Town Hall with live music on Saturday, Oct. 15

Creepy haunted house silent film thriller to be shown after sundown in 'Chiller Theater'

BRANDON, Vt.—'The Cat and the Canary' (1927), a haunted house thriller from Hollywood’s silent film era, will be screened with live music as part of 'Chiller Theatre' on Saturday, Oct. 15 at 7 p.m. at the Brandon Town Hall in Brandon, Vt. Admission is free; donations are encouraged, with proceeds to benefit the Town Hall's ongoing restoration.

The Halloween-themed screening is the final show for this season's silent film series at the Brandon Town Hall. Organizers have dubbed it "Chiller Theater" in part because the town hall remains unheated. Attendees are encouraged to dress warmly and bring a blanket to keep warm.

'The Cat and the Canary' stands as the original movie thriller -- the first picture to feature the reading of a will in a haunted mansion complete with clutching hands, a masked killer, disappearing bodies, and secret passageways.

Silent film starlet Laura LaPlante leads the cast as a young heiress who must spend the night in the creepy old mansion, which is filled with relatives who all have motives to frighten her out of her wits. Meanwhile, a dangerous escaped lunatic is loose on the grounds. Can she and the others make it through the night?

Created for Universal Pictures by German filmmaker Paul Leni and based on a hit stage play, 'The Cat and the Canary' proved popular enough to inspire several remakes, including one starring Bob Hope. It was also the forbearer of all the great Universal horror classics of the 1930s and '40s.

The Brandon screening will use a fully restored print that shows the film as audiences would have originally experienced it. 'The Cat and the Canary' will be accompanied by live music by New Hampshire composer Jeff Rapsis, who specializes in silent film scoring. Rapsis will improvise the score on the spot during the screening.

"Silent film is all about the audience experience, and this one is a perfect Halloween crowd-pleaser," Rapsis said. "It has something for everyone—spooky scenes, some good comedy, and it's all fine for the whole family."

Critics praise the original 'Cat and the Canary' for its wild visual design and cutting edge cinematography. Film reviewer Michael Phillips singled out the film for using "a fluidly moving camera and elaborate, expressionist sets and lighting to achieve some of the most memorable shots in silent film, from the amazing tracking shots down the curtain-lined main hallway to the dramatic zooms and pans that accompany the film's shocks."

Leonard Maltin called the original 'Cat and the Canary' a "delightful silent classic, the forerunner of all "old dark house" mysteries."

The program also includes vintage short subjects.

'Cat and the Canary' will be shown on Saturday, Oct. 15 at 7 p.m. at Brandon Town Hall and Community Center, Route 7, in Brandon, Vt. Admission is free; donations are encouraged, with proceeds to support ongoing renovation of the town hall. For more information, visit www.brandontownhall.org. For more info on the music, visit www.jeffrapsis.com.

Notes on scoring 'Peter Pan' and 'Nosferatu'

2011-10-14T09:54:00.005-04:00

You'd think two films could not be more different. I mean, one is an uplifting fantasy for children of all ages, while the other is about a guy who sucks blood from people and spreads the plague wherever he goes.

But 'Peter Pan' (1924) and 'Nosferatu' (1922) actually have a lot in common. I had the privilege of doing live music for them on consecutive days this week ('Pan' on Wednesday, Oct. 12 at the Brattle Theater in Cambridge, Mass., and then 'Nosferatu' on Thursday, Oct. 13 at the Flying Monkey Theater in Plymouth, N.H.), and I found myself surprised at the similarities. For starters, they're both fantasies -- even more so than most silent films -- and they both follow a similar story arc. They both start in a relatively contemporary setting with ordinary people, who are then transported to a distant locale where they encounter evil. In 'Peter Pan,' the Darling kids fly off to Never Never Land, thinking it'll be great, but then encounter Captain Hook. In 'Nosferatu,' Mr. Hutter rides off to Transylvania to close a property deal, and winds up encountering you-know-who. Both end with a return to the starting place, though with different results.

So in terms of music, I found myself building the score along the same lines. In both films, quite a bit of material in the opening sequences used material with a sharpened 4th in the scale, which creates four whole tones in a row and imbues any sort of melody with a kind of wonderous quality, I think. Both have hints of uncertainty right from the start: with 'Peter Pan,' it's the apprehension of Mother Darling about the mysterious boy who's been lurking outside the window, while in 'Nosferatu' there are a series of ominous incidents (the dead flowers) that hint at evil to come. So in both cases, I was able to sneak in some unsettling material to help bring that out -- in the case of 'Peter Pan,' it was just a slide up a half step, but that's all that's needed. Less is more.

However, each film required a kind of "anchor" melody to signify the status quo, and for it to be played cleaning through at least once. Why? Because more than an hour later, I think it really helps to have this melody return to augment the emotional release that comes with the story's denouement. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Each film then features a journey to the strange local, which lends some motion to the narrative. In both films, I tried to bring this out in the score, keeping things energetic and having the music perform the age-old function of signifying a scene change. And once we're in the new locale, it was time to uncork the bigger musical moves to showcase the new surroundings and reactions of the characters (and the audience) to them. Things diverge a bit here, because Ernest Torrence as a not-so-menacing Captain Hook (who, among other things, is studying up on his etiquette) is not nearly as sinister as Max Schreck's coffin-dwelling vampire in need of dental work. But in both films, they served as the catalyst for the music to take a turn for the big, which I could do with maximum effect because I'd kept things small and light up until then.

'Peter Pan' then climaxes with a pirate battle, while 'Nosferatu' is a bit more measured, taking its time for the title character to make his way to Wisborg and set up shop. In either case, though, I looked at these respective sections as similar to the "development" section of a piece of music in sonata form -- the part where you take your themes and mix them up and work them out and chop them up and put them back together again, all to serve the on-screen action and emotion. At any given screening, there's no telling how this will go, but I'm pleased to report that in both cases it seems to fall together nicely.

And each film ends with a restoration of some sort, providing me my chance to bring out the big "anchor" theme (in 'Peter Pan,' it was about motherhood; in 'Nosferatu, it was love) for one big rising climax prior to the final cadence.

One note about audience reaction, which was distinctly different. The 'Peter Pan' crowd at the Brattle was quiet to the point of reverence, which I kind of expected, as the screening followed a book-signing by Harvard scholar Maria Tatar, who just published an annotated edition of J.M. Barrie's play. But they did perk up for the big "clap to save Tinkerbell" scene, which always gets everyone going. (I was pleased, by the way, when Tatar told me afterwards that she had no idea the silent 'Peter Pan' could be such a compelling film.) Up in Plymouth, we drew a lively crowd indeed, with full-throated screams breaking out during the spooky organ music prelude. There was also a lot of good-natured laughter by folks new to silent film, which sometimes happens when you show this flick or 'Phantom of the Opera.' No harm, but it was enough to cause one guy about halfway through to shout loudly (vulgarity alert!), "Will you shut the fuck up!?"

Reception was enthusiastic at both venues. We had about 40 folks for 'Peter Pan,' and maybe twice that for 'Nosferatu,' which was by far the largest house we've had yet up in Plymouth, where I've been doing monthly screenings for more than two years. Let's hope it's a breakthrough and attendance builds further from there!

Thanks to everyone at the Brattle and the Flying Monkey for their support of live music with silent film. I'm looking forward to the next screening, which is Saturday, Oct. 15 (tomorrow!) in Brandon, Vt., where the final film of the 2011 season is Paul Leni's thriller 'The Cat and the Canary' (1927).

Thursday, Oct. 13: Notes on scoring 'Nosferatu'

2011-10-11T17:40:00.010-04:00

You know Halloween is just around the corner when 'Nosferatu' shows up on the calendar of your local theater. And that's the case at the Flying Monkey Moviehouse in downtown Plymouth, N.H., where we're running F.W. Murnau's creepy adaptation of the 'Dracula' tale on Thursday, Oct. 13 at 6:30 p.m. Admission is $10 per person.

'Nosferatu' is a terrific silent film for music, I think. As a drama, it's easier to score (for me) than a comedy, which requires constant precision timing for the music to augment the laughs while not overwhelming them. But with a drama, and especially an eerie one such as 'Nosferatu,' there's a lot more freedom for music to build atmosphere and tension and whatever else helps bring the film to life for contemporary audiences.

I first did music for 'Nosferatu' by accident. Four years ago, I was booked to do music for a screening of 'The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari,' another landmark of German expressionism. However, on screening day, problems arose with 'Cabinet' and we had to substitute 'Nosferatu' at the last minute. I hadn't prepared anything for this film, but it was one of those times when everything fell together just right. Sometimes it happens! I think one of the reasons was the visual appearance of actor Max Schreck, whom I understand Murnau selected specifically because of his appearance. Something in what Schreck looks like makes creepy music just flow naturally.

For Thursday's screening, I have a few ideas in mind for what I might do, including a helpful forboding chord sequence that I invented for other 'Nosferatu' screenings, and an arpegiatted version of the Dies Irae from the Catholic Death Mass should prove handy. Not sure how much time I'll have to tweak any of the synthesizer settings ahead of showtime, but I'll try to keep remembering how less can be more. It's especially important not to get too creepy too soon, but to let it build naturally during the first half-hour, until we get to Nosferatu's castle.

Because 'Nosferatu' is often tackled by groups who don't do silent film music on a regular basis, the film is occasionally burdened with an ineffective or insensitive score: too loud, too much, too soon, smothering the film under a tsnami of sound. People who do that forget that the music is supposed to support the film, not overwhelm it. I attended a 'Nosferatu' screening about 10 years ago that featured music by a local rock band, and what they played was so loud that it literally made my ears hurt. I don't know about you, but that's not my recipe for effective accompaniment.

Well, that's a taste of what to expect at 'Nosferatu.' Hope you can make it! Below is the text of the press release that went out last month.

TUESDAY, SEPT. 20, 2011 / FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Jeff Rapsis • (603) 236-9237 • jeffrapsis@gmail.com

Silent film frightfest at Flying Monkey on Thursday, Oct. 13

'Nosferatu' (1922), pioneer classic horror flick, to be screened with live music in Plymouth, N.H.

PLYMOUTH, N.H.—Get into the Halloween spirit with a classic silent horror film! 'Nosferatu' (1922), the original screen adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel 'Dracula,' will be screened with live music at the Flying Monkey Moviehouse and Performance Center in Plymouth, N.H. on Thursday, Oct. 13. The show, which starts at 6:30 p.m., will feature live accompaniment by silent film musician Jeff Rapsis. General admission is $10 per person.

'Nosferatu' (1922), directed by German filmmaker F.W. Murnau, remains a landmark work of the cinematic horror genre. It was among the first movies to use visual design to contribute to an overall sense of terror. To modern viewers, the passage of time has made both this unusual film seem even more strange and otherworldly. It's an atmosphere that silent film accompanist Jeff Rapsis will try to enhance in improvising live music on the spot for the screenings.

In 'Nosferatu,' German actor Max Schreck portrays the title character, a mysterious count from Transylvania who travels to the German city of Bremen to take up residence. A rise in deaths from the plague is attributed to the count's arrival. Only when a young woman reads "The Book of Vampires" does it become clear how to rid the town of this frightening menace.

Modern critics say the original 'Nosferatu' still packs a powerful cinematic punch. “Early film version of Dracula is brilliantly eerie, full of imaginative touches that none of the later films quite recaptured,” reviewer Leonard Maltin wrote recently. Critic Dave Kehr of the Chicago Reader called 'Nosferatu' "...a masterpiece of the German silent cinema and easily the most effective version of Dracula on record.”

The film, shot in 1921 and released in 1922, was an unauthorized adaptation of Stoker's novel, with names and other details changed because the studio could not obtain rights to the novel. For instance, "vampire" became "Nosferatu" and "Count Dracula" became "Count Orlok." After the film was released, Stoker's widow filed a copyright infringement lawsuit and won; all known prints and negatives were destroyed under the terms of settlement. However, bootleg copies of the the film would surface later, allowing 'Nosferatu' to be screened today as audiences originally saw it.

The Dracula tale would be remade many times, including a famous version in 1931 starring Bela Lugosi in the title role. The character of Dracula would go on to become a staple of cinematic horror, appearing in more than 200 commercial feature films to date—second only to fictional detective Sherlock Holmes.

All movies in the Flying Monkey's silent film series were popular when first seen by audiences in the 1920s, but are rarely screened today in a way that allows them to be seen at their best. They were not made to be shown on television; to revive them, organizers aim to show the films at the Flying Monkey as they were intended—in top quality restored prints, on a large screen, with live music, and before a live audience.

‘Nosferatu’ will be shown on Thursday, Oct. 13 at 6:30 p.m. at the Flying Monkey Moviehouse and Performing Arts Center, 39 Main St., Plymouth, N.H. Admission is $10 per person. For more info, call (603) 536-2551 or visit www.flyingmonkeynh.com. For more info on the music, visit www.jeffrapsis.com.

Upcoming films in the Flying Monkey's silent film series include:

• Thursday, Nov. 10, 2011, 6:30 p.m.: "The Big Parade" (1925) starring John Gilbert, Renee Adoree; The Flying Monkey Movie House and Performance Center, 39 South Main St., Plymouth, N.H.; (603) 536-2551; http://www.flyingmonkeynh.com/. Director King Vidor broke new cinematic ground with this epic drama that took viewers right into the trenches and showed the ugly side of then-recent World War I. Screened in honor of Veterans Day. Admission $10 per person.

• Thursday, Dec. 8, 2011, 6:30 p.m.: "When The Clouds Roll By" (1919), starring Douglas Fairbanks Sr.; The Flying Monkey Movie House and Performance Center, 39 South Main St., Plymouth, N.H.; (603) 536-2551; http://www.flyingmonkeynh.com/. Fairbanks tangles with a twisted psychiatrist in this unusual romantic comedy. Will love win out? Find out in this contemporary (for 1919) tale, made just prior to Fairbanks launching his series of swashbuckling historical adventures. Admission, $10 per person.

--- 30 ---

For more info, contact:
Jeff Rapsis • (603) 236-9237 • jeffrapsis@gmail.com
Images attached.
More high-resolution digital images available upon request.

Coming Wednesday, Oct. 12: My Brattle Debut!

2011-10-06T22:38:00.006-04:00

I'm thrilled to report that on Wednesday, Oct. 12, I'll be doing live music for a screening of the original silent film version 'Peter Pan' (1924) at the Brattle Theater in Cambridge, Mass. Show starts at 8 p.m., and is part of the theater's three-day festival of fantasy films involving either Peter or Alice, as in Wonderland.

If you're not familiar with the New England cinematic landscape, let me tell you that the Brattle is the really, really big time for vintage cinema. Just off Harvard Square, the Brattle has been showing classic and independent films for something like six decades now, continuing the tradition long after so many others were wiped out by the VCR revolution in the 1980s.

But the Brattle soldiered on, and continues to do so today. Under the leadership of Ivy Moylan and Ned Hinkle, it continues to program all kinds of great film. (I checked and just tonight they screened 'Dr. Strangelove' (1964) and 'Duck Soup' (1933) -- how cool is that?) I was actually a member many years ago, when I had more of a chance to get down there, but I still attend screenings when I can.

What's great about the Brattle is the commitment to screening film as it was intended to be seen: on the big screen, using actual film prints, and with an audience. And I'm pleased to report that this commitment extends to scheduling the occasional silent film, and using live music whenever possible, which is what we're doing with 'Peter Pan.'

Several Halloween-type silents with live music (from others) are coming at the end of this month -- for more info, see www.brattlefilm.org. For me, my big chance will be doing the music for Peter Pan. It's not actually my musical debut at the Brattle; in 2005, the theater screened 'Dangerous Crosswinds,' an independent feature film directed by Bill Millios for which I did the music.

But still, next week I'll be doing it live for the first time. I encourage you to check it out -- not only is the original 'Peter Pan' a real hoot, but it's a great film for music, too. Hope to see you there.

It's looking like a busy week. I also need to prepare for a screening of 'Nosferatu' (1922) on Thursday, Oct. 13 at the Flying Monkey Theater in Plymouth, N.H., and then 'The Cat and the Canary' (1927) on Saturday, Oct. 15 in Brandon, Vt. More on those later. For now, here's the 'Peter Pan' press release, with more info about the Brattle screening on Wednesday, Oct. 12...

OCT. 1, 2011 / FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Jeff Rapsis • (603) 236-9237 • jeffrapsis@gmail.com

Silent film version of 'Peter Pan' at Brattle Theatre on Wednesday, Oct. 12

Rare screening of legendary cinema classic to feature new musical score performed live

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.—It was the film that introduced movie-goers to visions of flying children, magical fairies, human-like animals and menacing pirates. It was the original silent film adaptation of 'Peter Pan,' a picture personally supervised by author J.M. Barrie. The film, starring actress Betty Bronson (at left) in the title role, became a major hit when released around Christmas of 1924, with audiences eager to get their first big-screen look at the wonders of Never Never Land.

Thought lost for many years, the original silent 'Peter Pan' maintains its freshness nearly 90 years after its release. Boston-area audiences can see for themselves when the first 'Peter Pan' (1924) is screened with live music on Wednesday, Oct. 12 at 8 p.m. at the Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle St., Cambridge, Mass. Tickets are $9.75, with discounts for students, seniors, children, and Brattle members.

The screening of 'Peter Pan' will be accompanied by silent film musician Jeff Rapsis, who has prepared new material for the 115-minute picture. Rapsis improvises the score for each screening in real time, using a digital synthesizer to recreate the texture of a full orchestra.

"Live music is an integral part of the silent film experience," said Rapsis, who accompanies films at venues all across New England. "Music not only supported the action, but clued in the audience to changing moods and created an overall atmosphere. This new music for 'Peter Pan' is designed to help bring to life this film's special qualities of fantasy and child-like wonder."

The screening is part of the Brattle's "Peter and Alice" repertory series, which runs from Tuesday, Oct. 11 through Thursday, Oct. 13 and celebrates two iconic fantasy figures -- Peter Pan and Alice of the "Alice in Wonderland" stories. More information on the other screenings can be found at www.brattlefilm.org.

In 'Peter Pan,' first presented as a stage play in 1904 and then issued in book form, three London children are visited one night by a strange youth in search of his shadow. Peter Pan, accompanied by the meddlesome fairy Tinkerbell, teaches his new friends how to fly, and then convinces them to journey to Never Never Land. There they encounter Indians, mermaids, and a band of pirates whose leader, Captain Hook, is Pan's sworn enemy.

This sets the stage for an epic battle, the outcome of which will determine if the children may ever return home.

Though the Peter Pan story is well known today due to subsequent adaptations (and a brand of peanut butter), the tale was freshly invented when Hollywood first brought it to film in the early 1920s. In England, author Barrie agreed to allow the adaptation, though he retained right of refusal over casting and insisted that any written titles in the film be taken directly from his own text. After an extensive talent search, Barrie settled on unknown 18-year-old actress Betty Bronson for the title role, and filming began in 1924.

The film's highlights include special effects that maintain their ability to dazzle even today. The film's memorable images include a group of mermaids entering the sea and a pirate ship lifting out of the water and taking flight. 'Peter Pan' also includes a cast of animal characters played by humans in costume, including the family dog Nana and an alligator who serves as Hook's nemesis, lending the film a magical quality.

After the film's release, no copies of the original 'Peter Pan' were known to exist, and for many years the picture was regarded as lost. However, in the 1950s a single surviving print turned up in the George Eastman Archives in Rochester, N.Y., from which all copies today have descended.

"If you're not familiar with how accomplished silent film could be at its peak, then 'Peter Pan' will surprise you," Rapsis said. "The Brattle screening is worth checking out because it's a chance to see this great film as it was intended: in a theater, with an audience, on the big screen, and with live music."

'Peter Pan' (1924) will be shown on Wednesday, Oct. 12 at 8 p.m. at the Brattle Theater, 40 Brattle St., Cambridge, Mass. Admission is $9.75, with discounts for seniors, students, children, and Brattle members. For more information on the screening, visit www.brattlefilm.org, e-mail info@brattlefilm.org, or call (617) 876-6837. For more information on the music, visit www.jeffrapsis.com

"Double" feature: Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (1920)

2011-10-01T13:51:00.015-04:00

Geez, with so many creepy films on tap, it must be getting close to Halloween. We have Alfred Hitchcock's murderous 'The Lodger' (1927) on Saturday, Oct. 2 at 4:30 p.m. in Wilton, N.H., and then John Barrymore in the original 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' (1920) on Tuesday, Oct. 4 at 6 p.m. at the Manchester (N.H.) Public Library.

For info on 'The Lodger,' see the post prior to this one.

I'm looking forward to 'Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde' (1920) on Tuesday, Oct. 4. The story is one of those great innovative tales that an author (in this case, Robert Louis Stevenson) comes up once in awhile, and you wonder how no one ever thought of it before. Though published as a novella, the tale seems tailor-made for the movies, and so it's no surprise that it's been made into something like a dozen different versions.

The Barrymore film holds up well, I think. I saw an interesting comment about this version on the Internet Movie Database site: that this original version benefits from being so antique, the Victorian atmosphere is achieved more naturally than in many technically superior remakes!

This is aligned with something I've come to believe -- that the more time that passes, silent film will become more interesting because it captures life in a way that no other medium can.

Weird trivia department: the Wikipedia entry for this film lists avant garde composer Edgard Varèse as playing a policeman! But that's Wikipedia for you.

I sometimes joke that in doing music for silent film, I'm collaborating with dead people. Regarding the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, I once collaborated on a stage adaptation of the work with author Kurt Vonnegut, who was very much alive at the time, although he didn't know we were working together.

What happened was that some time in the 1970s, Vonnegut had sketched out a wacky musical comedy treatment of the Jekyll and Hyde story that was never produced. No songs were written, but he thought enough of it to include the script in 'Palm Sunday,' a collage of non-fiction and other material that was published in 1980. (At right is a picture of Vonnegut from about that time. He died, alas, in 2007.)

After graduating from college in 1986, I returned to my hometown of Nashua, N.H., where I found myself in charge of directing an annual student-produced musical variety show at my former high school. For a really slam-bang second act, I figured we'd take Vonnegut's treatment and actually get it on stage.

So I wrote songs where Vonnegut indicated they should go, and off we went. I had a college friend in New York City who actually worked for Vonnegut's wife, Jill Krementz, and I was hoping to use that connection to get the author to attend. It didn't happen -- to our surprise, the internationally acclaimed author had other fish to fry. For a while there, though, it was like 'Waiting for Guffman,' or Godot, or some such thing.

Still, it was a lot of fun. Among Vonnegut's tweaks to the story was to have Dr. Jekyll use LSD in his potion and turn into a giant homicidal chicken, all of which we staged. It was pretty subversive stuff for high school theater, but that all now seems like a lifetime ago. Any cast members out there? Whitney Rearick, whatever happened to you?

Well, here we go again with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde -- this time, the 1920 film version (no homicidal chickens) on Tuesday, Oct. 4 at 6 p.m. at the Manchester (N.H.) Public Library. Hope to see you there! Here's the press release...

MONDAY, SEPT. 19, 2011 / FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Jeff Rapsis • (603) 236-9237 • jeffrapsis@gmail.com

Original 'Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde' to screen Tuesday, Oct. 4 at Manchester Public Library

Silent film thriller starring John Barrymore to be shown on the big screen with live music

MANCHESTER, N.H.—It was a sensational best-selling novel, then an immensely popular stage play. So it was just a matter of time before the movies tackled 'Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde,' Robert Louis Stevenson's classic tale of a man tortured by two personalities—one thoroughly good and the other completely evil.

'Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde' (1920), the original silent film adaptation of Stevenson's classic story, will be shown at the Manchester (N.H.) Public Library on Tuesday, Oct. 4 at 6 p.m. The program, the latest in the library's silent film series, will be accompanied by live music performed by silent film composer Jeff Rapsis. Admission is free, with donations welcome.

Starring iconic actor John Barrymore, the film was a huge early hit for Paramount Pictures. It helped establish the "thriller" genre and showed the potential of the movies to vividly tell disturbing and creepy stories.

Dr. Jekyll, a London physician and philanthropist, becomes fascinated with the dual nature of man after the profligate Sir George Carew exposes him to temptation. When Jekyll invents a potion that separates the good from the evil in a person, he decides to live both roles and names the evil persona Mr. Hyde.

Jekyll is in love with Millicent, the daughter of Sir George; meanwhile, Hyde prowls the poorer districts of London, debases and discards Theresa, a dance hall performer. Jekyll's control over Hyde weakens gradually to the point where his alter ego resorts to murder, forcing Hyde into a showdown to save his loved ones and reign in the evil he himself has spawned.

The film put Barrymore, a noted stage actor, on the cinematic map. Following 'Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde,' Barrymore would go on to be one of the biggest stars of early cinema. His handsome visage, dubbed "the great profile," was instantly recognizable to movie-goers of the time, who flocked to see Barrymore in later films such as 'Sherlock Holmes' (1922), 'Don Juan' (1926), and 'The Beloved Rogue' (1927).

Barrymore's performance in 'Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde' is noteworthy in part because, in an era of limited special effects, his portrayal of the early stages of Jekyll's transformation was done using only facial expressions and gestures. Make-up was only used later in the film following the full transformation of the Hyde character.

Stevenson's story has been refilmed many times, including versions in 1931 and 1941, and was most recently remade in 2008 as a TV movie starring Dougray Scott.

In screening the original 'Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde,' the Manchester Public Library aims to recreate all essential elements of silent film experience: high quality prints shown on a large screen, with live music and an audience.

"These films caused people to fall in love with the movies for a very good reason," said Jeff Rapsis, who will improvise a musical score during the screening. "They were unique experiences, and if you can recreate the conditions under which they were shown, they have a great deal of life in them. Though they're the ancestors of today's movies, silent film is a very different art form than what you see at the multiplex today, so it's worth checking out as something totally different."

Rapsis performs his music on a digital synthesizer that reproduces the texture of the full orchestra and creates a traditional "movie score" sound.

‘Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde' will be shown on Tuesday, Oct. 4 at 6 p.m. in the Manchester Public Library's Carpenter Auditorium, 405 Pine St., Manchester, N.H.; (603) 624-6550. Free admission; donations encouraged. For more information on the library, visit http://www.manchesternh.gov. For more info on the music, visit www.jeffrapsis.com.

Coming Oct. 2: 'The Lodger' in Wilton, N.H.

2011-09-29T00:00:00.007-04:00

Back in New England after a week in another "New" -- New Mexico, where I spoke at a newspaper conference and rode on not one but two narrow gauge mountain railroads. But now it's back to silent film screenings, and next up is a film I've wanted to do for a long time: Alfred Hitchcock's 'The Lodger' (1927), which we're screening on Sunday, Oct. 2 at 4:30 p.m. at the Wilton (N.H.) Town Hall Theatre.

Hitchcock was still quite active when I was growing up in the 1960s and '70s, so he's been a real figure to me since at least then, which makes him one of the few folks active in silents who was still part of contemporary culture in my lifetime. As a kid, I never saw 'The Birds' (1963), but somehow knew it was the scariest film ever made, at least until Steven Spielberg came out with 'Jaws' (1975). (By the way, I saw 'Jaws' this past August at the Somerville Theatre in Somerville Mass., where they screened a fantastic 35mm print. The thought occurred to me that it owed a lot to Hitchcock's 'The Birds,')

It was only while in college (at Fordham in New York City) did I begin to become aware of what I now think of as Hitchcock's best work -- the big feature films of the 1950s, including 'Vertigo' (1959), the remake of 'The Man Who Knew Too Much' (1956), 'Rear Window' (1954) and 'The Trouble With Harry' (1955).

At the time, these hadn't been released to television and hadn't been shown in theaters for years. I'd never seen any of them, so it was big news in 1984 when new prints were struck and made available for limited theatrical runs. I forget which moviehouse in NYC ran them, but a group of us made pilgrimages to see them all. I came away with a new appreciation for Hitchcock, I think in part because I saw his work as he intended it: screened in a movie theater packed with people caught up in the action. The Hitchcock screenings still stand as some of the great "movie theatre" experiences of my life.

And then, in 1989, I saw a home video release of 'North by Northwest' (1959), which I had never seen before and which instantly became one of my favorite films of all time, and remains so. At that point, I was also beginning to become aware of the contributions that composer Bernard Herrmann made to Hitch's films of this era. This appreciation would grow to admiration and, later, astonishment when I started doing film music of my own. Herrmann was a pioneer in finding ways for music to add so much to a film -- for it to serve not as background, but as a full participant.

More than anyone else, I think Herrmann created what we think of today when we think of "film music." (A close second would be Carl Stalling, who scored the Warner Bros. cartoons for more than two decades. I'm serious!) And I find that I use a lot of Hermann's techniques, even though he wasn't around in the silent era, because it's a musical approach that we now all have in our bones. It bridges the gap and helps modern audiences to "get" silents, I think, at least in the way I try to do music for them.

And Hitchcock himself was one-of-a-kind: a master storyteller in film who turned the thriller genre into something of his own personal amusement park, with recurring trademarks and themes and even the famed cameo appearances. His secret, I think, was to not show everything (which cinema could do) but to leave things to an audience's imagination. And that can make them infinitely more intense and personal.

At his best (and he had a high batting average over a very long career), Hitchcock produced grand entertainments that took audiences on wild rides through the human psyche. And I'm pleased to say that many of the elements we'd come to expect from "the master" were present in 'The Lodger' (1927), his first full-fledged thriller. (Yes, he worked on films prior to this, but always thought of 'The Lodger' as his first.)

So I'm really looking forward to presenting this one on Sunday in Wilton. Here's the press release. See you there! And by the way, the Film Forum in NYC is currently screening some of Hitch's great films from the 1950s. They're running 'Vertigo' on Saturday, Oct. 29, and I hope to make there prior to a mini-Fordham reunion later that day in da Bronx.

FRIDAY, SEPT. 16, 2011 / FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Jeff Rapsis • (603) 236-9237 • jeffrapsis@gmail.com

Hitchcock's first, 'The Lodger,' to screen Sunday, Oct. 2 at Wilton Town Hall Theater

Creepy silent thriller about killings in London marked legendary director's debut; to be shown on the big screen with live music

WILTON, N.H.—A half-century of murder has to start somewhere. And for movie director Alfred Hitchcock, it began with 'The Lodger' (1927), a silent thriller that stunned audiences when it was first released, and contained many of his trademark touches.

'The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog,' will be shown at the Wilton Town Hall Theater on Sunday, Oct. 2 at 4:30 p.m. The program, the latest in the theater's silent film series, will be accompanied by live music performed by silent film composer Jeff Rapsis. Admission is free, with donations welcome.

The film, shot in England and based on a story and stage play by Marie Belloc Lowndes, concerns the hunt for a serial killer in London. British matinee idol Ivor Novello plays Jonathan Drew, a quiet, secretive young man who rents a room in a London boarding house. Drew's arrival coincides with the reign of terror orchestrated by a mysterious "Jack The Ripper"-like killer, who murders a blonde woman every Tuesday evening.

As the film progresses, circumstantial evidence begins to mount, pointing to Drew as the murderer. Suspense and drama escalate in true Hitchcock fashion as the viewer wonders if the lodger really could be the killer—and if so, what danger awaits the landlord's daughter, who is falling in love with the mysterious stranger. The all-British cast includes Malcom Keen, Arthur Chesney, and Marie Ault.

'The Lodger' introduced themes that would run through much of Hitchcock’s later work: an innocent man on the run, hunted down by a self-righteous society, and a strong link between sexuality and murder. About 'The Lodger,' Hitchcock scholar Donald Spoto wrote that for "the first time Hitchcock has revealed his psychological attraction to the association between sex and murder, between ecstasy and death."

'The Lodger' also launched the Hitchcock tradition of making a cameo appearance in each of his films. In 'The Lodger,' Hitchcock appears briefly about three minutes into the film, sitting at a desk in a newsroom with his back to the camera and using a telephone. The cameo appearance tradition, which continued for the rest of his long career, came about in 'The Lodger' when the actor supposed to play the part of the telephone operator failed to turn up, and Hitchcock filled the breach.

Some critics say 'The Lodger' broke new ground in the previously moribund British cinema, showing a truly cinematic eye at work. In creating the movie, Hitchcock had clearly been watching contemporary films by German directors F.W. Murnau and Fritz Lang, whose influence can be seen in the ominous camera angles and claustrophobic lighting.

While Hitchcock had made two previous films, in later years the director would refer to 'The Lodger,' his first thriller, as the first true "Hitchcock film." The movie has since been remade several times, most recently in 2009, in an updated version starring Alfred Molina and Hope Davis.

In reviving the original 'The Lodger,' the Wilton Town Hall Theater aims to show silent movies as they were meant to be seen—in high quality prints, on a large screen, with live music, and with an audience.

"All those elements are important parts of the silent film experience," said Jeff Rapsis, who will improvise a musical score during the screening. "Recreate those conditions, and the classics of early Hollywood leap back to life. They all featured great stories with compelling characters and universal appeal, so it's no surprise that they hold up and we still respond to them."

Rapsis performs on a digital synthesizer that reproduces the texture of the full orchestra and creates a traditional "movie score" sound.

‘The Lodger' will be shown on Sunday, Oct. 2 at 4:30 p.m. the Wilton Town Hall Theater, 40 Main St., Wilton, N.H.; (603) 654-3456. Free admission; donations encouraged. For more information, visit http://www.wiltontownhalltheatre.com. For more info on the music, visit www.jeffrapsis.com.

Report from Brandon, Vt.: 'Way Down East'

2011-09-18T11:27:00.010-04:00

I just have time this morning to dash off a brief note about our screening last night (Saturday, Sept. 17) of 'Way Down East' (1920) up in Brandon, Vt. This has to rank as one of the all-time most satisfying silent film experiences I've ever had. The music came together well, and the audience was in the zone right from the start, reacting energetically to events as they unfolded -- sometimes surprisingly so. I've done this film several times and it's the first time, in reaction to the Martha Perkins town gossip character, I've ever heard anyone mutter the word "Bitch!"

This is a town that sustained a fair amount of flood damage several weeks ago from the remains of Hurricane Irene, which unloaded a ton of rain when it encountered the Green Mountains. This caused the modest creek that runs through the center of Brandon to swell to enormous proportions, overflowing its channel and turning Route 7 into a river. Three weeks later, the damage is all too visible: the Brandon House of Pizza, built over the river, is completely gone; other buildings have had the earth around their foundations scoured away; a cute riverside park where a month ago I heard a band play Dixieland Jazz now looks like a gravel pit.

Here are a few pictures, all taken within 250 feet of the Brandon Town Hall, where we show the films. (Good thing this month's flick wasn't 'Noah's Ark.')

This last photo shows where the Brandon House of Pizza used to be.

So maybe a cathartic experience was in order. I don't know. But I can say that last night's reaction to 'Way Down East' was perhaps the strongest I've encountered yet, both during the film and after. Besides the rowdy audience participation (with a special emphasis on booing and hissing), we got not one but two big spontaneous cheers -- one when Lillian Gish finally stands up to the Lowell Sherman character, and then when Richard Barthelmess rescues her from the ice floes. The film is solid enough so that by then, an audience is carried along just like Ms. Gish on the ice, swept up in the unstoppable momentum. But still, the rescue produced a-hooting and a-hollering the likes of which I can't recall. (Now I'm sounding like one of those town bumpkin characters in the film.)

All this energy produced BIG laughs at the "triple wedding" scene at the end, and at business that taken on its own isn't all that hilarious. But it's just what is needed for a satisfying finish, and it still worked wonderfully more than nine decades after this film was released. (And in some ways, nine decades isn't all that long.) And in the "music/live performance" category, the ending could not have been better staged: as the "The End" title came on, I was just completing a cadence that worked well for the big finish, and then the projector turned off and the house lights came on just as I was hitting the last two chords, after which I instantly stood up and turned around. I write this out in detail because I want to remember what it was like: instantly, a cheer went up, the start of an ovation that lasted probably two or three minutes, which is an awfully long time. And people stood!

I can't express how much this means to me -- that the music I make up in 2011 helps a film from 1920 come to life and move an audience in this way. As I sometimes joke, I've finally found my artistic niche: collaborating with dead people! And as the good folk in Brandon continued to applaud, I found myself grateful for the opportunity to do this, and also glad that all the people who worked so hard to produce this film would, I hope, be pleased that it could still mesmerize an audience even as so much else about life seems to change faster and faster. Well, for at least one evening, we were able to commune with something that hasn't changed -- the ability of stories told with images and music to provide a communal experience. It's a great feeling, and I'm so glad that people can respond to it in this manner, even after their community has suffered a catastrophic flood.

Okay, now off to do music for 'The Strong Man' (1926) at the Leavitt Theatre in Qgunquit, Maine. It's the last show of the season there (summer only), and let's hope for a good turnout.

Notes on scoring 'Way Down East' (1920)

2011-09-15T23:04:00.005-04:00

Whew! Just got done doing music for 'Way Down East' (1920) and wanted to jot down a few notes. Screening (two and a half hours without a break!) was at the Flying Monkey Moviehouse and Performance Center in Plymouth, N.H. (That's Richard Barthelmess and Lillian Gish up there in the photo.)

I don't know what it is about this movie or the other big D.W. Griffith pictures, including 'Birth of a Nation' (1915) and 'Orphans of the Storm' (1921). Viewed alone, they seem creaky as heck in comparison to the slick Hollywood films made just a short time later. But they really do come to life when shown as they were intended: in a theater on the big screen, accompanied by live music and with an audience present.

We didn't have a big audience at tonight's screening (about 20 people) but I could tell it was engaged throughout. Even some of the supposedly cornpone humor got laughs, and it was gratifying to hear the applause when Barthelmess rescues Gish from her doom at the film's climax.

In terms of scoring, less turned out to be much more. For the first hour, I swapped between a strings-only texture for the village scenes and a harpsichord setting for the Boston scenes and then later when the Lowell Sherman character comes to town. Once we got settled into the village setting, I switched to a full orchestra to lay the groundwork for the big climax.

I didn't have too much prepared in advance, as this is the kind of film where the pacing (and familiarity of it) allows me to develop material right there, and that's what happened tonight. It all came together quite nicely, especially the scene with Barthelmess and Gish meet alongside the river. Griffith's cross-cutting at times ambushed me and led to some inelegant transitions, especially with brief shots of the town chatterbox lady stalking through the streets on her way to tell her big secret.

One problem that I'd like to fix when I do this film again on Saturday, Sept. 17 (up at Brandon Town Hall in Brandon, Vt.; the show starts at 7 p.m.) is to manage things better in the final sequence. In terms of music, it's worth getting pretty intense when the squire returns home to toss Lillian Gish out, but then the secret to making it really work is to then back down.

The tempo can keep moving, but the drama and tension have to be in the pace and the harmonies, rather than the volume. First, it takes awhile for Gish to get out on those ice floes, and Barthelmess has a lot to do before he tracks her down. So big music gets awfully tiresome if it continues all this time.

Plus, you really need to let the audience hear its own reactions to the scenes on the ice floes in order for the final catharsis to burst forth in all its glory. I think I stepped on that a little tonight, but I'll try again on Saturday.

What's interesting to me about this film is how much of it seems like the stage production that it was based on. The first two hours of the film, with some exceptions, looks like it could have been acted on a stage: interior sets, characters entering and exiting, and so on.

It's only in the climax where Griffith takes the camera fully outside and brings the action along with him, setting it in an outdoor landscape filled with peril and suspense. Earlier movies had many exciting outdoor sequences, to be sure. But 'Way Down East' shows more clearly than most how directors were discovering the motion picture's potential to take audiences to new places and tell stories in new ways.

More than 90 years after its first release, that freshness and excitement are still present in 'Way Down East.'

Showing next: 'Way Down East' in three states

2011-09-08T23:43:00.003-04:00

Looking forward to doing music for no less than three screenings of 'Way Down East' (1920), the great D.W. Griffith melodrama, in three states spread over four days. (That's old D.W. himself up above, addressing his cast during the filming.)

In order, the screenings are: The Flying Monkey Moviehouse and Performance Center in Plymouth, N.H. on Thursday, Sept. 15 at 6:30 p.m.; the Brandon Town Hall and Community Center in Brandon, Vt. on Saturday, Sept. 17 at 7 p.m.; and then the Leavitt Theatre in Ogunquit, Maine on Sunday, Sept. 18 at 2 p.m. (There's a chance that the Leavitt may be closed for the season by then, but for now the screening's still on.)

These road show screenings allow me to do silent film programs in multiple venues and not have to work up original music to completely different films in quick succession. Instead, I can concentrate on one film, which enables me to do a better job accompanying. Also, it's interesting to see how the music evolves over several performances.

With 'Way Down East,' the challenge is to stay sharp as this lengthy flick unfolds. At well over two and a half hours, it's definitely in the "marathon" category. But I've done it before, and it's surprising to see how much of a reaction the film still provokes throughout.

And the climactic sequence, with Lillian Gish riding on the ice floes to what seems to be certain doom -- well, there's nothing quite like it. Last time I screened this movie (a few years back in Wilton, N.H.), the audience was practically jumping out of their seats as Richard Barthelmess picked his way across the river, racing against time to save Gish. The poster image here provides an idealized version of what's at stake in this great scene.

What's the outcome? Come and see for yourself. Hey, it's not like you don't have a few options coming up. For more details, here's the press release sent out about the Flying Monkey screening on Thursday, Sept. 15. For info on other screenings, check out the "Upcoming Screenings" link at the upper right. Thanks!
* * *
MONDAY, SEPT. 5, 2011 / FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Jeff Rapsis • (603) 236-9237 • jeffrapsis@gmail.com

Silent film classic 'Way Down East' at Flying Monkey on Thursday, Sept. 15

D.W. Griffith blockbuster, filmed partly in New England, to be screened in restored edition accompanied by live music

PLYMOUTH, N.H. — The iconic image of silent film star Lillian Gish trapped on ice floes and headed for a raging waterfall will once again come to life when the film 'Way Down East' (1920), one of the top movies of its era, is revived the big screen on Thursday, Sept. 15 at 6:30 p.m. at the Flying Monkey Moviehouse and Performance Center in Plymouth, N.H. Admission is $10 per person.

The movie, a blockbuster melodrama directed by cinema pioneer D.W. Griffith, is set in old-time rural New England, and was filmed partly in New Hampshire and Vermont. It stars Gish in an acclaimed performance as a wronged woman trying to make her way in an unforgiving world. Can she find love and redemption, or will she ride to her doom on the ice floes of the raging river?

'Way Down East' will be screened with live music played by Jeff Rapsis, a New Hampshire-based silent film accompanist who performs at venues across New England. Rapsis provides music for the Flying Monkey's monthly silent film series, which aims to honor the recently renovated venue's historic roots as a local moviehouse.

"These films were created to be shown on the big screen to large audiences as a communal experience," Rapsis said. "With an audience and live music, they come to life in the way their makers intended them to. The Flying Monkey screenings are a great chance for people to experience films that first caused people to first fall in love with the movies."

In 'Way Down East,' Gish stars as a poor New England country girl who travels to Boston to visit her rich relatives in the hopes of getting some financial help. While there, she's dazzled by upper class society and romanced by a rich womanizer (Lowell Sherman) who takes advantage of her innocence by tricking her into a sham marriage just to get her in bed.

Convinced she's found the husband of her dreams, Gish returns home to the country only to be unceremoniously dumped. In delicate 1920s terms, she tells her faux husband she's pregnant; he orders her to get an abortion. Instead, Gish goes into exile to have the baby, finds herself persecuted for giving birth out of wedlock, and flees even further into the country to seek refuge. The film was noteworthy in its time for addressing such "unmentionable" topics as abortion and women's rights.

Modern critics hail 'Way Down East' for Gish's remarkable performance, which continues to mesmerize audiences nearly a century after the film's release. "Gish provides an abject lesson in screen acting and brings home the importance and effectiveness of seeing a film in a theater with a crowd," wrote Paul Brenner on www.filmcritic.com in 2007. "If you are not moved at the scene of Gish baptizing her dead baby, then you should check the obituaries of your local paper to see if you are listed."

Much of the acclaimed ice floe sequence was filmed in March 1920 on location in New Hampshire and Vermont on the Connecticut River and the White River, as the winter pack ice was breaking up. Gish later said that she suffered frostbite by following director Griffith's command to always keep one hand in the water. 'Way Down East' cemented Gish's reputation as one of the silent era's major stars. She would continue to work in films and, later, television, until the 1980s. Gish died in 1993 at age 99.

'Way Down East' was based on a popular stage drama of the time, for which director Griffith paid the then-astounding sum of $175,000 to turn into a movie. The picture, however, proved to a be a huge moneymaker, taking in $4.5 million, making it the fourth-highest grossing movie of the silent film era. The receipts kept Griffith's studio afloat during a subsequent series of box office flops. 'Way Down East' would be the last of Griffith's great blockbusters; tastes changed as the 1920s rolled on and Griffith's Victorian style fell out of favor.

Accompanist Jeff Rapsis has written new musical material to help capture the film's rural atmosphere and also bring out the dramatic power of 'Way Down East.'

"This picture was a huge hit when it was released, and it still holds up well today, even with all of Griffith's moralizing," Rapsis said. "As a melodrama, it's a great film for an audience to cheer on the good folks and boo and hiss the bad guys. But there's an additional level of interest now because the film captured a way of life that's long since disappeared. With the passage of time, seeing 'Way Down East' is now like seeing a historical photograph come to life."

'Way Down East' will be shown on Thursday, Sept. 15 at 6:30 p.m. at the Flying Monkey Moviehouse and Performing Arts Center, 39 Main St., Plymouth, N.H. Admission is $10 per person. For more info, call (603) 536-2551 or visit www.flyingmonkeynh.com. For more info on the music, visit www.jeffrapsis.com.

Harry Langdon — not so fast!

2011-09-07T11:48:00.009-04:00

Among Hollywood's great silent clowns of the 1920s, Harry Langdon has the reputation of being an acquired taste. Among some, he's known for not producing laughs with modern audiences. I remember reading part of Walter Kerr's great 1975 book 'Silent Clowns' in which the author recalls audiences greeting Keaton's 'The General' (1927) with "constant, astonished laughter" while a screening of Langdon's 'The Strong Man' (1926) produced bupkiss. And I guess that sealed it with me.

But, after last night's screening of Langdon's rarely seen feature 'Long Pants' (1927), I'm now prepared to say that Langdon should not be sold short at all when it comes to laughter. He does very well, thank you. All that's necessary is to tell people (even those who've never attended a silent film) that Langdon was popular as a reaction to the fast-paced frenetic style of silent comedy, and it seems to do the trick.

Last night, our little-publicized screening of 'Long Pants' at the Manchester (N.H.) Public Library attracted a total of five people. (I was surprised we got any, it being the day after Labor Day weekend.) Never mind Langdon—all of them had never attended a silent film screening of any kind. But right from the start, you could tell that Harry had them. Well, Harry and director Frank Capra, whose sure hand and sense of story-telling could clearly be seen in how the film was laid out.

And rather than the stony silence that Kerr got when he ran 'The Strong Man,' last night Harry received the "constant, astonished laughter" that Kerr concluded was Buster's province. Really. Harry got laughs trying to impress Alma Bennett, the girl of his dreams on his bicycle, and it built steadily from then on. The weirdly dark "trying to kill his bride" sequence got a big reaction. And things really took off in the extended slapstick that follows the jailbreak, which is top-notch silent comedy.

The only moment that didn't get an expected strong laugh was when Harry finally reacts to Alma Bennett's criminal roughhousing ("I'm surprised!"), which I think forms the comic climax of the film, but which was met with silence. Oh well. But on his walk home, through the same woods where he tried to kill Priscilla Bonner earlier in the film, things grew warm very quickly, and I tried to build the music to illustrate the transformation to Harry finally realizing what he had left behind.

And so the ending, which seemed rather perfunctory me in previewing the film, came across in live performance as the perfect finish to a very satisfying comic adventure. I was as surprised as anyone! And the audience, even just five people, really seemed to eat it up. As Harry gets clobbered one last time by the upturned dinner table, somehow it all seemed just exactly right.

Afterwards, we talked, and two young gals who had taken in the picture on a whim, said they probably would not have watched it on television, but that they found 'Long Pants' to be a strangely beguiling and compelling experience in a theater. The three other folks (two sisters and their wheelchair-bound mother) agreed. And we went on talking for about a half-hour about the picture and silent films in general.

And I thought how we've screened 'Tramp Tramp Tramp' and 'The Strong Man' (both 1926) several times, and they always get a good response. And now, with 'Long Pants' joining them in getting a good reaction, I'm prepared to say that maybe Harry shouldn't be put in the "acquired taste" box. In my experience, he does very well for himself. 'The Strong Man' seems to hold its own with audiences especially well, but 'Tramp Tramp Tramp' has a succession of marvelous things, and 'Long Pants' is right up there, too.

Maybe times have changed and all silent comedy (and silent film in general) now seems fresh and new to people in a way that wasn't possible when Walter Kerr was screening flicks in the 1970s.

After all, silent film really is a different art form that seems to surprise people who've never encountered it before (in a theater with live music), which is something I saw again last night at the Manchester Library. For these newcomers, it's pointless to compare the various styles and approaches of Chaplin, Keaton, etc. For them, all the films are stripped bare of context, and so they must stand or fail on their own.

Though Harry does require a little nudge (explaining how his approach was different), the stories in his features are strong enough to carry the day, and the comedy is something that people still respond to. And so more and more I'm convinced his stuff is some of the best and most balanced that was done in the silent era—a little warmer than Lloyd, though not as maudlin as Chaplin, and often as inventive as Keaton.

But there I go comparing.

By the way, one of the more interesting personal connections to the silent film era I've encountered was meeting Harry's nephew, also named Harry Langdon, at the Kansas Silent Film Festival in 2007. (Here's a picture of him on the left.) Harry (the younger) was born around 1940, so never actually met his famous moviestar uncle, but still had a lot to say about the family and was a really nice guy.

Report on 'Summer Romance' Sunday, Sept. 4

2011-09-05T06:13:00.005-04:00

Very pleased at how the music turned out of 'Flirting with Fate' (1916) and 'Kiki' (1926), a double feature on Sunday, Sept. 4 that finished up our summer romance series at the Wilton (N.H.) Town Hall Theatre. (The show was postponed from Aug. 28 thanks to the remnants of Hurricane Irene.)

For 'Flirting with Fate,' an early Douglas Fairbanks romp, I had an all-purpose "aspirational theme" that contained the DNA, I thought, of something a lot more integrated. (Mahler, where are you?) But it worked fine for this Fairbanks film, which is slightly darker than most due to its emphasis on suicide. (Suicide? Romp?) There's Doug on the left overhearing his assassin-to-be.

I also came up with a "rump-te-dump" slow 6/8 theme for Doug in his non-crisis moments, and once again came away amazed at how Fairbanks seems to bring out that side of me without any prompting. The same thing happened in 'The Mark of Zorro' (1921) when it came time to illustrate the laid-back side of her Don Diego Whatever-His-Full-Name-Is.

Must be something in the contrast between Doug's dashing on-screen image and the need to express the opposite, sometimes, in terms of music. Used the harpsichord setting for this one, if only for contrast with 'Kiki' to come, and like a good accompanist, obeyed the instruction of the intertitles to play the Wedding March from Wagner's 'Lohengrin.'

'Kiki' was a blast to accompany. I love doing these kinds of films, where people try to outwit each other at close quarters. The musical potential for that alone is huge, especially if you have a memorable tune or two that you've already introduced, and keeping this kind of scene going seems to come naturally to me.

And I did have a good tune for 'Kiki,' I thought -- a bouncing 'Can Can'-like melody that could easily be transformed to take on pretty much any emotion needed. Rooted in the film's stage revue milieu, the music got featured play in the one big stage scene, but also served to keep the rest of the film fizzing along quite nicely, I thought.

When I first looked at this picture, I didn't get Norma Talmadge as the title character. She seemed completely unsympathetic to me: selfish, destructive, dishonest, and so on. But then I realized that I was probably taking it the wrong way. I had to think of her character as more like Barbara Streisand in 'What's Up, Doc?' -- a person who single-mindedly pursues the man she desires, not letting little things like an existing girlfriend get in the way.

In introducing the film, I said only that, and I think it helped audiences not familiar with 'Kiki' (and who is these days?) get her character. And the film got a nice reaction throughout from our moderately sized crowd -- more of a reaction that I expected. The theater scene, in which Talmadge wrecks a revue by dancing anywhere but in the chorus line of which she's a member, when off especially well, with the bouncing chorus theme getting more and more wound up as the chaos progressed.

It was great fun to do music to the conclusion of this scene, which consists of the cast trying to kill each other behind the curtain, but interrupted again and again by the curtain rising for yet more applause. Switching back and forth from smooth "exit" music to chaotic argument music helped it spring to life in a way that surprised me even as we were doing it.

And I loved the love music I came up with as the film progressed. Built on a simple rising series of chords, the melody could leap up and soar any time it was needed, as I discovered in the scene where Talmadge is kissed by Ronald Coleman for the first time. And there it was, ready to be pulled out anytime the sparks flew between the two leads. And it came in handy to punch up the rather languid ending; 'Kiki' is the only silent film I know of that concludes with a phone conversation!

Up next: music for Harry Langdon in 'Long Pants' (1927) tomorrow night at the Manchester (N.H.) Public Library, then screenings of 'Way Down East' (1920) next week in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine.

Silent Sunday (Aug. 28) postponed to Sept. 4

2011-08-27T21:18:00.006-04:00

Update: With slow-moving Hurricane Irene expected to huff and puff and dump a ton of rain on our part of the world all day tomorrow, the screening of 'Flirting With Fate' (1916) and 'Kiki' (1926) scheduled for Sunday, Aug. 28 at 4:30 p.m. at the Wilton (N.H) Town Hall Theatre has been postponed until Sunday, Sept. 4 at 4:30 p.m.

I regret any confusion caused by prior announcements confidently stating that the show would go on. Well, Mother Nature had other ideas, so we're postponing the show until a week later, on Labor Day weekend. Hope a few more folks will be able to make it, as these two films make a great conclusion to our 'Silent Summer Romance' series.

In any case, it's all for the best as I seem to have developed an acute case of tennis elbow in my left arm. Youch! So I'm laying off the keyboard for a few days in hopes that it clears up. For now, it's icepack city.

Hurricane due? For now, silent films still on...

2011-08-25T15:15:00.012-04:00

The U.S. East Coast may be bracing for a visit from Hurricane Irene this weekend, but we're still going ahead with our planned screening of two features on Sunday, Aug. 28 at 4:30 p.m.: Douglas Fairbanks Sr. in 'Flirting with Fate' (1916) and Norma Talmadge (that's her on the left in the photo above) and Ronald Coleman in 'Kiki' (1926). It's the final installment of our "Summer Romance" silent film series at the Wilton (N.H.) Town Hall Theatre, and with a hurricane possibly raging at showtime (Sunday afternoon), looks like we'll go out with some drama as well, at least in terms of the weather.

(Update Saturday morning: Irene still on her way, but Dennis M. of the Wilton Town Hall Theatre says he plans to be open on Sunday afternoon, so it's still a go as of now...)

Alas, there wasn't time to change the program to something more storm-related: Keaton's 'Steamboat Bill, Jr.' (1928), perhaps, with its cyclone finale. Showing that during an actual hurricane would have been way cool, as the kids say.

But I've been prepping the two romances, and that's what we're sticking with. Neither are mainstream silent classics, but they both have a lot to offer. In the case of the Fairbanks film, it's a fast-moving early feature made before he turned to historic or exotic swashbuckling epics, and interesting for the glimpse it provides into daily life at the time. It also has a surprisingly dark edge to a romantic comedy, and I'm curious to see how an audience responds.

And then there's 'Kiki,' which I have been looking forward to doing for a long time, but then, when I recently screened it to start putting music together, it was completely different from the film I expected. I thought it told the story of a street urchin who was rescued from the streets of Paris by a ruthless promoter, but instead it was a lighter-than-air backstage romance! Oops! I had it confused with the life story of Edith Piaf, apparently.

With its chorus girl cast and stage setting, 'Kiki' is full of music, right from the beginning, where everyone working in the theater is shown bouncing his or her head in time to the music being rehearsed. Should be a fun one to score, but the challenge will be 'Kiki' herself. As a character, I found little about her to be sympathetic at all; rather, she came across as sort of Parisian chorus girl by way of Harpo Marx, a ruthless gnome from another world eager to disrupt the life of a man she may or may not really love. (That's her, charmingly busting through a guy's harp after falling off stage.) Or maybe kind of like Barbara Streisand in 'What's Up, Doc?' (1973), but without the accent. (Though I hear Norma did have a Brooklyn accent.)

I'm thinking that serious music of any kind is not going to help, and so I may get into Offenbach mode and stay there for this one. Will it hold together? See for yourself on Sunday, Aug. 28 at 4:30 p.m. at the Wilton Town Hall Theater. Admission free, but donations sure appreciated!

Saturday marathon, Sunday with Buster

2011-08-22T22:15:00.007-04:00

Just a few notes on films from this past weekend while they're still fresh in my mind.

On Saturday, Aug. 20, played from 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. for films at the Wilton (N.H.) Town Hall Theatre, with an hour for lunch. Part of our annual Mirthquake festival, the morning was non-stop obscure comedy shorts and fragments, some with intertitles in German or Danish, while the afternoon saw two back-to-back features: Eddie Cantor in 'Special Delivery' (1927) and then the immensely silly 'Cruise of the Jasper B.' Hey, look! There's our name above the doors to the main theater!

Not much of an audience for these films, alas, but playing all the shorts cold (I'd never seen any of them) was a great workout for a silent film accompanist. And I really mean that, because I find it takes awhile for me to get "in the zone," meaning the music comes naturally and without a lot of conscious thought. And the best way for me to achieve that state, it seems, is to just immerse myself in the process and do it until I'm completely absorbed. Then things begin to flow with an ease that's hard to describe, and which sometimes surprises me.

I saw that happen on Saturday in Wilton. After a morning of running through one silent comedy short after another, I was in a state where the music just came naturally. And so I was as astonished and delighted as anybody as a full-fledged and finished-sounding score emerged for 'Special Delivery,' the Eddie Cantor film. I based in mostly on the old "Bye Bye Blackbird" tune by Ray Henderson and Mort Dixon, which a little research reveals was the "#16 song of 1926" and which Eddie sings (and dances to) in the middle of the film.

When a character in a silent film asks street musicians to play "Bye Bye Blackbird," and it's a tune that a lot of people would still recognize, then I think it's wise to come through with the tune rather than anything else. And in this case, it was fortuitous, because the melody is well-suited for Cantor's character: by turns jaunty but also a little wistful. So it became the "theme song" for the whole picture, which means not that I kept playing it over and over again, but that I put it in a blender and used little pieces of it here and there to accompany scenes and interactions. I think I only played the actual complete tune (or actually, the chorus, the part that everyone knows) twice: once at the very beginning over the opening credits, and then when Eddie actually does sing it. I had a few other melodies going for other characters, such as the Jobyna Ralston love interest and the William Powell confidence man, and it all came together very effectively, I thought.

And like a lot of things, this level was hard to sustain. The next feature, 'The Cruise of the Jasper B' (1926), was fun, but I think I peaked for the Cantor film and fatigue was starting to set in. It's a fun film and I had a good time starting out with full-fledged pirate music from the briny sea for the 18th century prologue, and then taking the swashbuckling theme and distorting it to accompany the "modern" action eight generations later. But it's hard to keep up the level of intensity during this kind of a marathon, and but the middle of 'Cruise' I found it more difficult to stay focused. Plus, it's a zany comedy and demands a certain kind of freshness, I think, that's hard to conjure up after playing for nearly six hours. :)

Still, it was fun, and I was surprised at the end when the lights came up to find a small group of people in attendance. Most were apparently early arrivals for the next film at 4:30 p.m., 'Sitting Pretty' (1948), but I'll take any audience I can get. I have to say, though, that if these folks were silent film newbies, the completely silly ending of 'Cruise' (with the entire U.S. military under mobilization to attack a mothballed 200-year-old pirate ship) did not probably make the most coherent impression...

A much better impression was made, I think, the next day (Sunday, Aug. 21), when I trekked out to the Leavitt Theatre in Ogunquit, Maine for my first-ever experience with Blu-ray hi-def silent film transfers. Two nautically flavored Keatons were on the program: the short 'The Boat' (1921) and 'Steamboat Bill, Jr.' (1928), both shown in the new Kino Blu-ray transfers. (For what it's worth, a snapshot of what was onscreen during the pre-show tryout is posted here.) They did look quite sharp, even though the theater's throw lens seemed to have some slight imperfections that caused the edges to ghost.

But no matter -- we had a nice crowd of about 25 people on hand, though it grew smaller when a couple realized that the 2 p.m. matinee was not a screening of 'Crazy Stupid Love' and walked out. Oh well! But here's a shot of the Leavitt's marquee, and I can see how they might have gotten confused...

And as I write this, New England is in the sights of Hurricane Irene, which is scheduled to arrive here this Sunday and go right up the Maine coast. Both those films, with their extended cyclone sequences, would have been perfect! Off by a week. Timing is everything...

Instead of hurricanes, we'll be screening films about love this coming weekend, as we finish off our mini "Summer Love" series at the Wilton (N.H.) Town Hall Theatre with a double feature: 'Flirting with Fate' (1916), an early Douglas Fairbanks; and Norma Talmadge in the restored 'Kiki' (1926). The show will go on, come rain or wind or whatever, so hope to see you there!

Mirthquake 2011: Two days down, one to go

2011-08-20T06:49:00.003-04:00

Here's a progress report on 'Mirthquake,' the annual multi-day festival of obscure comedy films we do here in southern New Hampshire. We've screened some interesting cinema, both silent and sound, but attendance so far has been pretty pitiful.

For me, the highlight has been doing music for feature films that rarely get screened anywhere. On Thursday night at UNH-Manchester, we ran 'Exit Smiling' (1926), the sole silent film of stage star Beatrice Lillie.

I didn't have a chance to preview the film so played it cold, which was something I wanted to do to help prepare for Cinefest in Syracuse next March, where I'll do a lot of that. It was an interesting challenge because the movie, a backstage story about a troupe taking a tired melodrama on tour, turned out have rich musical possibilities. One minute they're on stage doing the melodrama (a certain kind of overblown music worked well for that), and the next minute, they're off-stage and acting like real humans, so I tried for a more, well, human texture.

Funny how things progress. You need to start somewhere, and so for the main theme of the movie (associated with the Beatrice Lillie character) I used a mild ragtime-y tune I made up last year for Clara Bow in 'It' (1927). It's actually quite an extended melody, with a bridge and a final cadence and spins on an on, so once you introduce it you've got plenty to work with right there. So I stubbornly stuck with it all through the film, even though it turned out to not be exactly right for Beatrice Lillie and her adventures, I thought, until right at the end. (It's just a little too sunny, and doesn't express the vulnerability of her character as I got to know it in the film.)

But you have to hang your hat on something or an improvised score isn't going to hang together at all, so I did the best I could to adapt the tune to the film's story. I kind of lost track of who was doing what to regarding the Jack Pickford character, so it was hard to do really dramatically effective scoring for parts of the film, but you keep going and hope for the best.

One issue with this one was the piano, a Yamaha grand I know well, and it's a killer to play -- very tough action, not a lot of delicacy or "give." After about an hour, my hands were fatigued and the playing starting getting noticeably sloppy. But what can you do? It's just one of those things you deal with as the film continues to run and hope for the best.

For 'Exit Smiling,' though, I'd love to plan out a score that has aggressively cheesy music for the on-stage melodrama, and keep repeating it as scenes are repeated on the stage, to emphasize the "otherness" of the stage action, and have a more coherent package of material for the off-stage stuff. And then, as the film progresses to its climax, and only then, start mixing the two together as the actions off-stage begin to resemble more and more the melodrama that the company acts out night after night. I think I got about 40 percent of the way there playing the film cold, and I'd love another shot.

Ain't that always the case, though?

And then last night, on Friday, Aug. 20, I got to play for 'Two Arabian Knights' (1927), the World War I buddy comedy-adventure that seems like the ancestor of all the Hope-and-Crosby "Road" movies that would come not long after. (The formula: Take two American wise guys, add in a beautiful dame for them to fight over, and put them in an exotic setting.) I had previewed this film, but only once and without playing, partly because I wanted to see it and partly because the Friday night screening was the only one that had an admission charge. I'm glad I did because the progression of exotic settings (a German prison camp, a Russian cargo steamer, an unspecified "Arab" country) really demands that the music be front and center, and the film ranges so widely there's really no way to anticipate what's going to happen next. (Though the title offers a big clue.)

I was surprised at what I think of as the "love music" that I came up with on the spot for the princess character. One thing I like about Mirthquake is that I'm required to play a lot of things cold over several days, and by the end it all seems to flow so naturally. That was happening last night with the love music, which somehow started well and gradually soared as the big "unveiling" scene (in which Mary Astor removes her face mask) progressed. It's a very effective scene, done in close-up, and to see her until-them shrouded face has the same kind of dramatic impact as the unveiling of Lon Chaney as the Phantom of the Opera. (With a very different kind of face, though.) The music came together very effectively, as I took a short melodic phrase over arpeggiated accompaniment and modulated through a cycle of keys, upping the intensity each time. And at just the right moment, I thought (the first kiss, of surprising intensity), I wound up with a pedal tone on the dominant note of the scale, and then held it there as the right hand worked through a rising series of chords that all worked wonderfully. Sometimes it happens!

For the "Arab" scenes, I switched to an exotic setting I have that I sometimes use for films set in foreign lands. And I knew that a key element of the story involves a gong being struck three times, and I wanted to be ready for that. But you know what? I was way too early with the exotic stuff, which didn't fit the many scenes with just the two Americans in them, so I switched back to standard orchestra and it worked much better. (For the gong, I just used the bass drum and cymbal crash.)

Attendance, frankly, has been disappointing. For 'Exit Smiling,' besides the regular crew, we had exactly two members of the public attend, and for 'Two Arabian Knights' it was a total of four paid admissions. We'll see if things pick up for today's screenings at the Wilton Town Hall Theatre, which start in about two hours, so I better get going. More later!

Also a Felix the Cat cartoon and 'Broke in China,' a Mack Sennett short starring Ben Turpin.

attendance, alas, was two people, other than Dave Stevenson, Mark Johnson, and the small group of local regulars.

Mirthquake: Giant sponges and more!

2011-08-15T22:14:00.006-04:00

I'm still gasping for breath this evening after previewing two of the features we have slated for this year's Mirthquake: 'The Cruise of the Jasper B' (1926) starring Rod LaRocque; and Eddie Cantor's long-lost-but-now-found 'Special Delivery' (1927). They're both lulus, and they make up a significant part of the program on Saturday, Aug. 20 at the Wilton (N.H.) Town Hall Theater. Both are programmed in the block starting at 1:30 p.m., following lunch, so if you want to see two completely wacky films that you're unlikely to witness otherwise, here's your chance.

Of the two, 'Cruise' is definitely goofier, and that's saying quite a lot. Any film that opens with a title card harking back to "1725, Daylight Savings Time" is heading for zanyville, and that's where this one goes almost immediately. Not to spoil the plot, but just to give you an idea of what goes on; a last will and testament lands on the bare back of female lead Mildred Harris (the first Mrs. Charlie Chaplin, divorced by the time 'Cruise' was filmed) while she's in the tub, leaving a copy of the text on her skin. From then on, she is chased throughout the film by Snitz Edwards (yes, the popular silent-era character actor), who wants to wash her back for reasons that are too complicated to get into here. Suffice it to say, it's the only movie I've ever seen where a woman is stalked throughout by a man with a giant sponge. And it was directed by Cecil B. DeMille, of all people.!

But 'Special Delivery' is right up there as well. In it, song-and-dance man Cantor plays a postman, and I'm glad I previewed it for music. It has scenes such as one where Cantor randomly asks some street musicians to play "Bye Bye Blackbird," and they do, and he proceeds to sing a few verses, drawing a crowd. He then easily completes his day's work as a letter carrier, since everyone on his route happens to be in the audience. Nice! But if the music isn't right there, it wouldn't work so well. The supporting cast is pretty high-end in this one: you get Harold Lloyd's main squeeze Jobyna Ralston as the leading lady, and none other than William Powell playing a slimy confidence man. And look, there's Spec O'Donnell, the silent era's ultimate gawky adolescent, with a cameo appearance. And as a bonus, the film was directed by "William Goodrich," which all you silent film fans will know was the pseudonym that Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle adopted for his behind-camera work after being banned from the screen following the 1921 scandal.

All this and shorts subjects, too, on Saturday, Aug. 20 at 10:30 a.m. at the Wilton Town Hall Theatre in Wilton, N.H. It's free to all, and I'm eager to see how audiences react to these films, so the more, the merrier. The films run until about 4:15 p.m. that day, with a break for lunch from noon to 1:30 p.m. And for other Mirthquake screenings, please check the "Upcoming Screenings" found on the upper right.

Preparing for Mirthquake Aug. 18-20

2011-08-13T14:07:00.005-04:00

Looking ahead, the next scoring project is our annual Mirthquake, a three-day festival of silent and early sound film comedy that'll run from Thursday, Aug. 18 to Saturday, Aug. 20. The screenings take place in various venues around southern New Hampshire, our corner of the world. We bill it as "New England's Largest Vintage Festival" because I think it's New England's only vintage film festival.

So come join us for what should be an interesting three days of comedy films you're not likely to see screened anywhere else. In earlier years, I used to fret that the programming didn't contain enough "mainstream" silent classics such as the Chaplin, Keaton, or Lloyd features, but I'm over that, as I schedule those films often enough on my own.

For Mirthquake, the programming is now entirely in the hands of Dave Stevenson and his cohorts Mark and Cole Johnson. The theme this year is, I believe, a salute to film comedy pioneer Mack Sennett, whose Keystone Studio was established nearly a century ago. Still, the films are a varied lot, with a good mix of silent and sound comedies.

For me, the big programs are the silent features. There are four of them: an Eddie Cantor comedy, 'Speedy Delivery' (1927); the comedy adventure buddy flick 'Two Arabian Knights' (1927); 'Exit Smiling' (also 1927), the only silent film of stage star Beatrice Lillie; and something called 'The Curse of the Jasper B' (finally a different date: 1926!) starring Rod LaRocque. (With a name like that, he had no choice but to go into silent film.)

All these features are new to me, and I'm looking forward to scoring them. Not sure how much preview time I'll have with them (real life will likely intervene in the next few days) but I don't mind playing them cold if it comes to that. Hope to see you there. Below is the press release, which contains the complete schedule. For more info, check http://mirthquake.looserthanloose.com.

* * *

THURSDAY, AUGUST 11, 2011 / FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Jeff Rapsis • (603) 236-9237 • jeffrapsis@gmail.com

Classic early screen comedies highlight 'Mirthquake' festival Aug. 18-20

New England's largest vintage film event to include three days of obscure comedy features, short subjects

MANCHESTER, N.H.—The great and not-so-great comedians who showed early movie audiences how to laugh will return to the big screen for Mirthquake, a three-day festival devoted to celebrating vintage film comedy in local theaters in Manchester, Wilton, and Concord, N.H.

The festival, which runs from Thursday, Aug. 18 to Saturday, Aug. 20, includes screenings of great silent comedies starring pioneer funnymen Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Fatty Arbuckle, and many other lesser-known comics. Programs will include silent and early sound comedies from the earliest days of the movies through 1940. Shows are planned for several southern New Hampshire venues, with all silent films accompanied by live music.

"We invite the public to see these great comedies, which helped audiences first fall in love with the movies," said Jeff Rapsis, musical accompanist for the silent films. "These films come to life when shown in the environment for which they were designed: on the big screen, in a real theater, with live music, and with an audience."

In addition to dozens of short films presented on 16mm film and DVD, organizers plan several feature film screenings as part of this year's Mirthquake. Highlights include a scarce Eddie Cantor feature comedy called 'Special Delivery' (1927) and also 'Two Arabian Knights' (1927) starring William Boyd and Louis Wolheim, a box office hit that won the Oscar for best comedy at the first-ever Academy Awards.

This year's festival pays special tribute to comedy pioneer Mack Sennett's Keystone Studios, with many comedies featuring performers and directors who learned their trade at Keystone.

It's the fifth year that Mirthquake has presented early movie comedies in southern New Hampshire for local residents and visiting film buffs alike. It's the largest vintage film event in New England.

All events at this year's Mirthquake are open to the public. Most screenings are free; only the screening of 'Two Arabian Knights' on Friday, Aug. 19 at Red River Theatres in Concord carries an admission charge.

The complete schedule of screenings of all films is online at http://mirthquake.looserthanloose.com. Highlights of this year's Mirthquake line-up include:

THURSDAY, AUG. 18

• 9 a.m. to noon, 1:30 to 4:30 p.m., Silent and Early Sound Comedy Shorts. Manchester Public Library, Carpenter Auditorium, 405 Pine St., Manchester. Free! Extensive line-up of dozens of early comedies on film and DVD starring Buster Keaton, Mickey Rooney, Charley Chase, and "Snookey the Human-zee," among others.
• 7 p.m. 'Exit Smiling' (1926) starring Beatrice Lillie and Jack Pickford. UNH-Manchester third floor auditorium, 400 Commercial St., Manchester. Free! Stage icon Beatrice Lillie, in her only silent film role, stars as a travelling theatre troupe's worst actress who dreams of all she could be if she only had the right opportunities. Jack Pickford co-stars as a runaway bank clerk who joins the troupe as a lead actor. Screened with a Ben Turpin silent comedy short and a Felix the Cat cartoon.

FRIDAY, AUG. 19

• 9 a.m. to noon, 1:30 to 4:30 p.m., Silent and Early Sound Comedy Shorts. Manchester Public Library, Carpenter Auditorium, 405 Pine St., Manchester. Free! Dizzying array of short comedies featuring obscure performers such as Joe Penner, Edgar Dearing, Harry Gribbon, Clark & McCollough, and more.
• 7 p.m., 'Two Arabian Knights' (1927) starring William Boyd and Louis Wolheim. Red River Theatres, 11 S. Main St., Concord; $10 admission. One of Hollywood's original "buddy" movies in which two World War I soldiers escape from a German prison camp, only to find themselves launched on a far-ranging odyssey that takes them to the Mideast. Program includes three early silent film comedies starring Charlie Chaplin and Ford Sterling.

SATURDAY, AUG. 20

A full day of comedy at the Wilton Town Hall Theatre, Main Street, Wilton, N.H. All films free!
• 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., Silent Comedy Shorts starring Lloyd Hamilton, Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle, Al St. John, and others.
• 2 to 4:30 p.m., 'Special Delivery' (1927) starring Eddie Cantor, Jobyna Ralston, and William Powell. Program includes added attraction, 'The Curse of the Jasper B' (1926) starring Rod La Rocque.
• Saturday, Aug. 20, 8 p.m. to whenever, Obscure and Unusual Vintage Film. The Red Barn Diner, 61 Elm St., Manchester, N.H. Free!

Mirthquake is a not-for-profit festival; most screenings are free but donations are accepted. Any proceeds are used to cover expenses of screening the films. For complete details about the 2011 Mirthquake, visit http://mirthquake.looserthanloose.com

Report on Aug. 11 Raymond Griffith screenings

2011-08-12T10:42:00.005-04:00

Last night went up to Plymouth, N.H. to accompany a pair of Raymond Griffith films at the Flying Monkey Moviehouse and Performance Center, which has the most interesting name of all the places I play. It being Raymond Griffith, I didn't count on a huge turnout. And it being a fine mid-summer evening with several large competing events happening right in town that night, my expectations were reduced accordingly.

So it was nice to get 16 people, and even nicer to hear some pretty energetic reactions as 'Paths to Paradise' (1925), the first Griffith feature, began to build steam. It's a wonderful film that I often call the "unfinished symphony" of silent film comedy becuse of the missing last reel, and how the film has a satisfying finish in spite of that. Still, I would love to see the missing end rediscovered at some point...

Playing at the Flying Monkey is always interesting because it's not really set up as a moviehouse (despite the name) and so the finer details of film exhibition sometimes go astray. Last night, it was lights. After we started 'Paths to Paradise,' the house lights went down, but all the side lights of the theater were left on.

Well, the film was still watchable, and there was no way I could get it fixed without stopping the music, so I just let it go. When it was time for the second film, 'Hands Up!' (1926), I knew the theater's sound guy would walk past me in the front to change the DVD, so I would have a chance to tell him to turn out all the lights, please. And that's what caem to pass. Verdict: Much better in full darkness.

One constant issue with this place is that at the end of a screening, invariably the house lights do not come up, and so we're all left sitting awkwardly in the dark for a bit. It happened again last night. It's just all part of the fun of doing this, I guess.

Perhaps the most alarming part of the screening was that for the first time ever, the DVD-R of 'Paths to Paradise' that I use began to get stuck while playing. It happened at a couple of moments early on, so I braced myself for disaster, knowing that no one connected with the theater was actually watching the film, so it would be up to me to stop everything if things ground to a halt.

Luckily, we moved on from that bad patch, but from then on I had to contend with the constant anxiety of wondering if and when the disc might get stuck for good. It's a big distraction when you're trying to use all your brain space to create music, but it's just something you have to deal with, as the film is moving on and you have to do your best no matter what.

Somehow, the score kept together and I was actually quite satisfied with what I did for 'Paths,' and even more so for 'Hands Up.' For the second film, I pulled a romantic melody out of nowhere that served me in good stead for the entire film, and also came up with a little tune to underscore whenever Griffith is being a wise guy. It first appeared when he was swindling the Indian chief in a dice game, and led into the later scene when he teaches the "savages" how to dance properly, which I consider one of the highlights of all silent film comedy.

I know I'll do this film again, so I'm writing it into my book of tunes, as it would have worked perfectly in some earlier scenes and allowed the whole presentation to be more integrated. Shows you how this is a really organic process that extends from one screening to the next. And now that I think of it, the Griffith "wise guy" theme is distantly related to a figure I was using a lot at a screening of 'Steamboat Bill, Jr.' (1928) in Boston last Sunday night.

Nothing for this weekend, which is good. These screenings energize me, but over time they can be draining. It's been a heavy schedule for the past few months and I find that doing them at this pace (plus keeping up with regular life, which involves managing three dogs, helping manage a small business, teaching college, and being a husband among other things) can actually wear me down.

Up next: The three-day 'Mirthquake' festival of obscure films at venues around southern N.H. It's Thursday, Aug. 18 through Saturday, Aug. 20, and the only really big gulp for me will be a six-hour marathon in Wilton, N.H. where the films are all silent and the only music will come from me. I'm looking forward to it! I'll post more here in a bit, but if you need info now, go to http://mirthquake.looserthanloose.com

My "Mr. Holland's Opus" moment

2011-08-08T20:19:00.014-04:00

Okay: A busy first week of August saw screenings in an old resort ballroom in New Hampshire, an even older town hall in Vermont, and a wonderful movie theater in Somerville, Mass. that's dedicated to preserving the 35mm film experience. Let's take them in reverse order, starting with an experience last night that moved me unexpectedly and quite deeply, too.

• On Sunday, Aug. 7, I experienced what was one of the highlights of my musical life so far. Usually these writings are reports about the movies and the screenings and how the music worked (or didn't), but for a moment let me tell you about my own personal reaction to something that I'm just beginning to get my head around.

Last night, after doing improvised scores for a screening of Buster Keaton films at the Somerville Theatre, just outside Boston, Mass., a large audience treated me to a huge and prolonged ovation that just completely blew me away. And I stood there, after more than two hours of film music, and it washed over me: this middle-aged guy, who in high school couldn't get into Boston University's Tanglewood Institute for young composers (I know, boo-hoo), was thrilled and gratified and humbled to come to Boston (the "big city" in my lifelong home of New England), make his music in public, and receive such a response. Nearly three decades later, I felt I had finally, finally arrived as a musical artist with something to say.

I really mean it. And I never expected to be in such a position, and yet there I was, with about 250 people hooting and hollering, and not stopping, for music that I just did. (If I had expected it, I would have dressed better.) I took a few bows, but then didn't know what else to do, and then it kind of hit me all at once, and I just couldn't believe it. It was probably the closest this musician will ever get to his own personal "Mr. Holland's Opus" moment.

And I realized that it marked something of a milestone in this creative journey, and I'm profoundly grateful to everyone who played a role in getting me there: to the folks at the Somerville; to early supporters such as N.H. filmmaker Bill Millios, film archivist Dave Stevenson, and Wilton Town Hall Theatre owner Dennis Markevarich; to friends and colleagues and family (especially my wife Susan) who've been dealing with my silent film music thing for quite some time now; to Rick and Jemi Broussard, who hooked me up with the Somerville Theatre; to lifelong inspirational figures, chief among them the composer Charles Ives; to new friends such as the film blogger Raquelle, seen here with me after the screening; and to the filmmakers themselves, my now-absent collaborators who left such a rich accidental legacy for us to explore and ponder today.

And finally, thank you to everyone who came to the Keaton program last night. Silent film needs an audience to exist, and without you, my co-collaborators in the dark, the films (the ones that survive) would just be long strips of plastic wound on reels sitting in cans on darkened shelves somewhere. And it has become clear to me that the music I do is much the same way: it needs an audience to come forth, and without you, it would still be just ideas in my head and perhaps go no further. Thank you, thank you for bringing it out of me. To someone who has always had music in his head, but for a long time never had a place for it to go. It's something of a dream come true.

Wow! It's been an entire day since last night's screening in Somerville and, as you can see, I'm barely getting my head around the experience and its aftermath. It was especially heartening to have so many people come up afterwards and talk about the Keaton films ('Steamboat Bill Jr.' with 'Cops' and 'The High Sign,' all in 35mm) and how much they enjoyed seeing them in a theater with live music. Great questions, wonderfully supportive comments, and enough interest for me to go back to the keyboard and do an impromptu session on silent film scoring techniques for a small audience.

As for scoring the Keaton films, things went pretty well, despite one very alarming technical glitch right at the beginning when the house lights went down, taking my synthesizer and sound system with it. It's got the making of one of those dreams you don't want to have: you introduce a program to 250 people in a theater, and turn around, and your instrument is as dead as a wooden canoe. I had no choice but to turn around and shout "Wait!" and ask for the power back. Somehow it returned quickly (thank you whoever did that!) but I still had to wait for the darned thing to reboot, even as the first film, Cops, was starting on screen. At least I got a few laughs by remarking loudly, "They didn't have THESE kinds of problems in the 1920s!"

Kept to an organ setting for the two shorts, which went by quickly. Cops is very satisfying to score because it builds so well, from small comedy to massive city-wide chase. The key moment, and one I always have trouble with, I think, is when the bomb goes off during the police parade, which launches the big chase. Keaton lingers on the static aftermath of the explosion quite a bit before cutting to the actual chase, and I've never found a satisfying way to build the music and make the transition. Have to work on that one. Weird, too, that this 35mm print was missing significant footage, sometimes cutting out of one gag before the payoff and going immediately to other scenes. I've known the film my whole life, though (it was one of the first 8mm prints I bought from Blackhawk as a teenager!) and had a solid sense of when to push, and when to pull back to keep the energy going.

I had never done 'The High Sign' before and wasn't sure because it was truly "early" Keaton, his first film made after leaving his mentor Arbuckle, and made before he'd truly formed his unique comic personality and outlook. I've always found the Arbuckle films to be a bit slapdash and loose for my taste, but once again the audience proved me wrong, with 'The High Sign' getting big and sustained laughs, especially with the ridiculous gesture that forms the film's title. For scoring, some tricky patches in a shooting gallery with gunshots and bells ringing to make the comedy fully work; I did the best I could but next time will get someone with an actual bell to do that sound effect, which I think is so essential to the humor.

'Steamboat Bill Jr.' is a wonderful film for music. Its rural riverboat setting lends itself to a certain kind of simply melody, and the main one I came up with proved to be versatile enough to work throughout the film without (I hope) becoming tiresome. And the tail end of it, a rising little "answer" phrase, formed the basis for another tune, much lighter in character, to go with the film's boyfriend/girlfriend scenes. And then, completely unexpected, was a little 6/8 tune that kept coming up to quietly underscore the small-scale comedy.

And that brings us to the hat scene. One of the most interesting scenes in this picture is when Buster's gruff father, Ernest Torrence, takes him into a store to try on hats, most of them ridiculous. After things get going, it doesn't take long for the scene to shift to a view of father and son as if they're looking into a full-length mirror (a brilliant trick in and of itself!) and then we're treated to a wonderfully diverse procession of ill-advised headgear. Never was Keaton's comic abilities seen to greater advantage, I think, and he's more than matched by Ernest Torrence. It's a wonderful scene.

But what about music? I recall, years ago, I saw this film done with a live score by a talented and energetic group. It was a memorable performance, but I was struck by how they chose to handle the hat scene. Right at the start, they launched into a heavy, up-tempo gallop, like raucous circus music, loud and fast and unrelenting. And you know what? It killed the comedy! And I think a big reason was that you couldn't hear the audience around you laughing, and so that magical silent film audience reaction thing didn't kick in. And despite the brilliance of the scene, I found it left me cold.

So now, all this time later, here we are at the hat scene again. So I tried to keep the underscoring to a minimum until the audience reaction kicked in, and only then did I bring things up a bit in terms of intensity, but not too much, and then only by a few discords or pushing up a key rather than in volume or tempo. In doing music for silent film comedy, I'm becoming convinced that less really is more.

I was very happy with the extended night scenes, where Buster sneaks over to the rival riverboat to see his girlfriend, also a textbook example of more is less. It's night. It's quiet. As my copywriting colleague Paul Donovan at PC Connection used to say, "Do I have to draw you a map?" Making up the prominent "Prisoner's Lament" in the jailhouse scene went well, and the whole extended storm climax fit together nicely, though the Korg synthesizer is really showing its age, which is now eight. After all this pounding, the bounce of its weighted action keys is pretty much gone, and there are other symptoms. During 'Steamboat,' a tone stuck after pressing a key, and not once or twice, but three times, each time forcing me to switch quickly to another setting and then back to get it to stop. Sheesh! It blows your concentration and doesn't sound right, either, but anyone I asked later said they notice it.

• On Saturday, Aug. 6, made the drive up to Brandon, Vt. for the latest summer silent film screening at their historic Town Hall, which is in the process of restoration. Another solid crowd, about 75 people, came for a program of Laurel & Hardy shorts and 'Paths to Paradise' (1925), a rare film starring Raymond Griffith. The L & H films slayed them, leading off with 'Double Whoopee' (1929) and then 'Early to Bed' (1928) and 'Angora Love' (1929).

All three produced big laughs, and they're all fun to score, because the Laurel & Hardy comedy technique is so musical to begin with: definite rhythms, peaks and valleys, often leading to the one "purple moment," the place in a piece of music that Rachmaninoff said everything else in a score was leading to. (And how appropriate that one of their films, from 1928, is called 'Their Purple Moment.')

What were Saturday night's purple moments? SPOILER ALERT! In 'Double Whoopee' it's the multiple-person chaos in the lobby followed by prince's final fall into the shaft; in 'Early to Bed,' it's Ollie and Stan doing battle in Ollie's fountain followed by Ollie cracking up; in 'Angora Love' it's the cop getting the water in the face, followed by the litter of goats (or whatever a group of baby goats is called) emerging from under the bed.

And the reaction to 'Paths to Paradise' was really, really gratifying. How great to have people who've never heard of Raymond Griffith get caught up in one of his pictures after all these years of obscurity. 'Paths' does take awhile to get going -- the usual flash point is the comic dance in the flashlight scene about halfway through the film. But once it takes flight, it sweeps everyone along with it. Some of the bigger moments in the climactic chase had people spontaneously applauding -- this for a character to whom they had just been introduced. Nice work, Mr. Griffith!

Weird trivia: Afterwards, people could not believe that one of the two clumsy detectives in 'Paths' was the same guy who played the irate landlord in Laurel & Hardy's 'Angora Love': Edgar Kennedy. It's a small silent world!

• Tuesday, Aug. 2: Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't record some impressions from an unusual screening that I think will endure as another highlight of the summer. Last month I was contacted by Matt Van Wagner, a fellow ex-ensemble member of the late and much-lamented Granite State Opera. (He's a tenor, and also plays trumpet.) Matt had a proposition: How about a silent film show at Twin Lakes Villa, a resort in New Hampshire's Lake Sunapee region that he and his family visit every year. My reply: Sure! (It doesn't take much.)

And lo, I found myself tooling up Interstate 89 late on a beautiful summer afternoon, arriving at the resort about 6:30 p.m. Everyone was still on a picnic at the summit of nearby Mount Kearsage, so I got to poke around the well-manicured grounds and well-kept buildings.

What I found was an incredibly well-preserved hotel and resort property that must not have looked much different a century ago. Really! It was from the same era as the old grand hotels up north in New Hampshire's White Mountains, but on a smaller scale. Owned by the same family for five generations, it had somehow survived intact into the 21st century, open for only 10 weeks each summer, serving communal meals that were announced by the ringing of a big old bell mounted over the wide porch that wrapped around the first floor of the three-story main building.

The films were to be screened in the "ballroom," which was the entire first floor of a separate three-story building connected to the main building by a covered wooden walkway. The screen was, yes, a bedsheet that had been strung across the small proscenium stage at one end of the hall, the floor of which was filled with chairs for more than a hundred people.

And as the light faded and the picnickers returned, the seats filled and off we went. Great response to Keaton's 'One Week' (1920), which is an excellent intro not just to Buster but to all of silent film comedy. Our feature was Harold Lloyd's great 1928 film 'Speedy,' and right from the beginning, the reaction to this was just incredible.

The reason? Well, what started it was baseball. In the film, Harold's character is obsessed with baseball, and his team is the New York Yankees. New Hampshire is Red Sox country, and there's a long-standing rivalry between the two teams that's on par with India and Pakistan. Normally it's not an issue, but in the summer, Yankees fans come up from New York to visit, and they keep their allegiance no secret.

So, in the case of 'Speedy' last Tuesday night, the minute the Yankees make their appearance, good-natured partisan reaction started behind me. I'd never seen that happen before, to this extent, with cheering and booing and everything in between. But the net effect was to really loosen up everyone at a very early stage, and I think that paved the way for a truly intense experience that carried through the whole picture. Lloyd: master of getting a reaction in ways that still work today. (I'm sure the Yanks were just as loved/hated in the days of Babe Ruth, too.)

One nice touch was that since Matt played the trumpet, I invited him to sound the bugle calls that lead into the films first climax, the battle in the streets. Matt did an excellent job doing two versions of one of those tunes we all know but I never know the name of ("Charge?"), and then a final blast as the action really starts. Thanks, Matt!

Big reaction at the end and lots of good questions and comments. Talk of me going up there again next summer, and I'd love to do it, especially if they can arrange for the same kind of weather. Speaking of which, in the weird coincidence department, when the storm developed in 'One Week,' it unexpectedly started raining outside for real!

'Steamboat Bill Jr.' on Aug. 7: Ain't no secret!

2011-08-05T16:10:00.010-04:00

Really looking forward to this weekend's screening of Buster Keaton's 'Steamboat Bill Jr.' (1928) on Sunday, Aug. 7 at the Somerville Theatre in Davis Square in Somerville, Mass. It's one of the great silent comedy features, and we're showing it in 35mm along with two Keaton shorts, also in 35mm: 'The High Sign' (1921) and 'Cops' (1922). Admission is $12 adults, $8 students/seniors.

One thing that's been on my mind as I prepare music for this show is that we hope to pull enough of an audience for the monthly series of silent films there to continue, and in the past few days we've lucked out with some good press, both mainstream and in what I fondly think of as the "film nerd" blogosphere. (I include this effort in that category.)

First, yesterday (Thursday, Aug. 4) I was the subject of an interview posted on "From Out of the Past," a highly regarded blog about vintage cinema that's maintained by a very knowledgeable film buff in the Boston area. She did a great job and I very much appreciated the questions as well as the chance to explain a little about what I try to do. Here's a direct link to the interview.

Then, this morning I found that our screening was included in this weekend's picks by Boston Globe movie critic Ty Burr, as posted on www.boston.com. I'm especially thrilled that he described me using the word "estimable," which I've never been called before. I can't wait to go home and look it up. :) In meantime, you can check out the estimable Ty Burr's post.

Finally, Boston radio station WBUR-FM 90.9 (one of the city's two public radio stations) this afternoon broadcast an 11-minute piece about me and film music as part of their "Radio Boston" program. The segment turned out wonderfully, I thought, and I was amazed at how they could edit me into coherence without any seams showing. The whole interview, in the form of a Web page and link to the sound file, is here.

For me, the unexpected thrill about this (besides how easy it was to park in downtown Boston) was that the interview was conducted mid-day this past Wednesday, and it so happens that's exactly the time that National Public Radio's weekly 'Car Talk' program is taped in the same studios. So, when heading down to the parking garage to get some more of my gear, who should I run into in the elevator but Tom Magliozzi, one of the two Click and Clack brothers!

Tom (he's on the left) was heading to the same garage where I was parked, so we had a nice chat. (He's kind of looking like the Commander in the old "Schweppes" ads lately.) At the time, I didn't have have the presence of mind to link cars and silent film, but then he didn't want to talk shop and was probably more interested in getting away from this lunatic anyway and going on his way. Then, going up, the doors opened to find his younger brother Ray standing there waiting to go down, and so I got to speak to him as well. When I mentioned I'm a silent film accompanist, his response was "Hey, silent films are coming back!" Nice! I'll take all the encouragement I can get.

Even if I didn't recognize the brothers by sight, all doubt would have been removed when either one of them opened their mouths. In fact, it was hearing Tom's unmistakable cackle down the hall that made me first realize he was, well, down the hall. I already knew what they looked like, so it wasn't a case of "Hey, you look different than I imagined you on the radio." But the one thing that struck me was how small they both appeared in person compared to what I would have expected. Really -- they were both shorter than me, and I'm 5-foot-8, and that made them seem tiny.

So I guess radio magnifies size. Either that, or enjoying their program over the years had me expecting larger-than-life characters. Maybe there is a silent film connection, in that this is related to what Gloria Swanson's character said in 'Sunset Boulevard' when told she used to be big. "I am big," she replied. "It's the pictures that got small."

Countdown to Steamboat Bill, Jr. on Aug. 7

2011-08-02T12:12:00.008-04:00

Tomorrow (Wednesday, Aug. 3) I head down to Boston for an interview at WBUR-FM, one of Beantown's National Public Radio outlets, for an interview about the upcoming screening of Buster Keaton's film 'Steamboat Bill, Jr.' (1928) on Sunday, Aug. 7 at 7 p.m. at the Somerville Theatre in Davis Square, Somerville, Mass.

I'm looking forward to this, not only because it's fun to be on the radio and chat about silent film, but also because an interview will help get out the word for this particular screening. It's worth attending because it's in 35mm, but also because a big turnout (say, 100 people or more) will encourage the Somerville's management to continue programming silent films in 35mm with live music.

I must say I've been thrilled with the shows I've done at the Somerville so far this year and I do hope we can continue. The music has worked out well, I think, but what's been truly amazing to me is the chance to see the Keaton films in 35mm on the big screen and with a bright light. To me, it's like seeing these films for the first time.

For this weekend's program, we not only have 'Steamboat Bill, Jr.' but also 'The High Sign' (1921) and 'Cops' (1922), both of which I'm looking forward to. So I do hope you can join us (and bring a friend or two or three or a dozen) to help fill some seats.

For music, I'm planning on pipe organ for the two shorts, then full orchestra for Steamboat. One thing to keep in mind with the feature is that I need to avoid ramping up too early and taking things too fast in the climax. We'll see if I can restrain myself or if I get carried away, much like Buster nearly does. And if you haven't seen the film, you'll just have to attend this Sunday's screening to find out what I mean by this.

Admission is $12 per person. See you at the movies!

Oh, and here's another nice bit of publicity. On Thursday of this week, an interview with me will be posted on a wonderfully enthusiastic classic film blog maintained by a woman known to me only as "Raquelle M." We've been in touch since the July screening and I very much appreciate her support of our screenings. The blog is called Out of the Past, and it's filled with a lot of perceptive writing about vintage cinema. Thanks, Raquelle, and hope to see you at the Somerville! :)

And P.S.: On Saturday, Aug. 6, I'm accompanying a program of Laurel & Hardy silent comedy shorts ('Double Whoopee' (1929), 'Early to Bed' (1928), and 'Angora Love' (1929) and Raymond Griffith's wonderful feature 'Paths to Paradise' (1925) at the Brandon Town Hall and Community Center up in Brandon, Vt. Show starts at 7 p.m. if you happen to be in the neighborhood!

Forecast: Heavy dose of Buster Keaton to hit area

2011-07-27T18:58:00.006-04:00

A look at the calendar shows not one but two big Buster Keaton screenings coming up. On Sunday, July 31 at the Wilton (N.H.) Town Hall Theatre, I'm accompanying 'Our Hospitality' (1923) as part of our "Summer Love" series exploring the films of the Talmadge sisters. 'Our Hospitality' is the only film to feature Natalie Talmadge, Buster's wife, in a leading role, so including it was a natural. We're also running two Keaton shorts that I've never played in Wilton: 'The Playhouse' (1921) and 'My Wife's Relations' (1921). Showtime is 4:30 p.m. and admission is by donation; hope to see you there!

Then, a week later, it's a 35mm print of 'Steamboat Bill Jr.' (1928) at the Somerville Theatre in Davis Square down in Somerville, Mass. The show is on Sunday, Aug. 7 at 7 p.m., and also includes 35mm prints of 'The High Sign' (1920) and 'Cops' (1922). I've just sent out press materials for this one, which has an admission charge of $12 for adults, but it's a small price to pay for seeing a silent film in 35mm on the big screen and with live music. Hope to see you there, too.

If you'd like more info, here's the press release...

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WEDNESDAY, JULY 27, 2011 / FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Jeff Rapsis • (603) 236-9237 • jeffrapsis@gmail.com

Buster Keaton silent film comedy series continues at Somerville Theatre

All-35mm program on Sunday, Aug. 7 includes feature ‘Steamboat Bill Jr.’ (1928) with live music

SOMERVILLE, Mass.—Silent film returns to the big screen at the Somerville Theatre in August with a program of classic Buster Keaton comedies accompanied by live music.

The screening, on Sunday, Aug. at 7 p.m. at the Somerville Theatre, 55 Davis Square, Somerville, Mass., will include Keaton’s classic feature film ‘Steamboat Bill Jr.’ (1928) as well as two short comedies, ‘The High Sign’ and ‘Cops.’ General admission is $12 per person, $8 for students/seniors.

All movies will be shown in rare 35mm prints and with live music provided by New Hampshire-based silent film accompanist Jeff Rapsis.

'Steamboat Bill Jr.' finds Buster cast as the bumbling son of a rundown riverboat’s rough captain. When a rival brings a newer boat to town, the family is forced to face competition, just as Buster is forced to ride out a cyclone threatening to destroy the community. The film includes the famous shot of an entire building front collapsing on Keaton, who is spared by a conveniently placed second-story window.

'Steamboat Bill Jr.,' widely regarded as one of Buster's best, was the comedian's last independent feature before signing with MGM studios, where he lost creative control over his work and his filmmaking career began a long decline.

‘The High Sign’ (1921) and ‘Cops’ (1922) rank among Keaton’s best short comedies, made shortly before he made the leap into full-length feature film production. Both films are highlighted by extensive physical stunt work by Keaton, with ‘Cops’ often singled out as a masterpiece of short film comedy.

Keaton, who grew up performing with the family vaudeville act, was known for never smiling on camera, an important element of his comic identity. A trained acrobat who learned at an early age how to take a fall, Keaton was also famous for doing all his own stunts on camera in the era before post-production special effects became common.

Critics continue to hail Keaton’s timeless comedy as well as his intuitive filmmaking genius. In 2002, Roger Ebert wrote of Keaton that “in an extraordinary period from 1920 to 1929, he worked without interruption on a series of films that make him, arguably, the greatest actor-director in the history of the movies.” Keaton, who never attended school, did not think of himself as an artist but as an entertainer using the new medium of motion pictures to tell stories and create laughter.

The Somerville Theatre’s commitment to 35mm film presentation in both contemporary and classic movies means a rare chance to see Keaton’s work in its original format, in the best available prints.

“This show is a great opportunity to experience silent film as it was intended to be shown -- on the big screen, in high-quality prints, with live music and with an audience,” said Ian Judge, the Somerville Theatre’s general manager. “With so many theaters converting to digital, we’re pleased to continue to present films in 35mm, the standard format for more than a century. There’s nothing like it, and that’s especially true for films of the silent era.”

Music for the Keaton screenings will be performed by Jeff Rapsis, a New Hampshire-based musician who accompanies silent film screenings at venues across New England. Rapsis works without sheet music, instead creating an improvised score on the spot. He uses a digital synthesizer that reproduces the texture of the full orchestra, creating a traditional "movie score" sound and helping link today’s audiences to films of the silent era.

In creating an improvised score, Rapsis tries to use music to amplify audience reaction, a key element of the silent film experience.

“These films were not meant to be seen by people alone or at home,” Rapsis said. “They were created to be experienced by large crowds in a theater like the Somerville, and getting swept up in the audience reaction is one of the great things about silent film. When it happens, either in a comedy or drama or any kind of film, it can be almost cathartic.”

‘Steamboat Bill Jr.’ and Keaton short comedies will be shown on Sunday, Aug. 7 at 7 p.m. the Somerville Theatre, 55 Davis Square, Somerville, Mass. (617) 625-5700. Admission is $12 adults, $8 students/seniors, general admission seating. For more information, call (617) 625-5700 or visit http://www.somervilletheatreonline.com. For more info on the music, visit www.jeffrapsis.com.

The perils of multiple soundtracks

2011-07-25T12:28:00.003-04:00

Had something happen at a screening in Ogunquit, Maine yesterday (Sunday, July 24) that showed the perils of live performance. We'd just finished 'Tol'able David' (1921) and were now into the first part of 'Hell's Hinges' (1916), which opens in a church, or a mission, really, and I was playing organ music. Each time I'd stop to start a new phrase, I heard what sounded like an ice cream truck in the distance. Strange. Then I realized what was going on: the film's piano soundtrack was playing softly through the house speakers. 'Tol'able David' had no soundtrack, so no one noticed that the DVD player's sound was on until 'Hell's Hinges' was popped in.

So I was sitting there, playing church music and wondering what to do, when loud pop music starts playing. It was coming from the sushi place underneath us, where the staff was cranking some tunes while doing evening prep. Sheesh! Not just two competing soundtracks, but three! Never had that before. Figuring it couldn't get any sillier, I kept playing, wondering what Charles Ives would have made of the cacophony.

Finally, at a scene change, I stopped playing, stood up, and called back to the projectionist to cut the sound, which he did. In the meantime, he had run down to the sushi place to ask them to tone it down, so it all got straightened out pretty fast. Luckily, it was only at the beginning of the film, not at some key moment, so 'Hell's Hinges' was able to reestablish its momentum.

Another variable with live screenings is the weather. Bad weather is good, and good weather is bad. The really hot weather we've had for the past week in this part of the world (+100 degrees) has been tough on silent film attendance, especially because neither of the two venues I played this past weekend have air conditioning. So we had about 40 people at Brandon Town Hall in Brandon, Vt. (down significantly from screenings earlier this season) and a grand total of 11 people at the Leavitt Theatre in Ogunquit, Maine.

Looking forward to this weekend's screening of Buster Keaton in 'Our Hospitality' (1923) at the Wilton (N.H.) Town Hall Theatre on Sunday, July 31 at 4:30 p.m., and then a 35mm Keaton program featuring a great print of 'Steamboat Bill, Jr.' (1928) on Sunday, Aug. 7 at 7 p.m. at the Somerville Theatre in Davis Square, just outside Boston, Mass.

The projectionist there, David Kornfeld, sends out advance notes about the quality of archival prints that the theater is scheduled to run, and he's already got the Keaton prints. Here's an excerpt so you'll have some idea what to expect. (He also had something nice to say about the accompaniment, which is very flattering!)

KEATON FILMS. The last of this series (though there may be others soon --- fingers crossed) accompanied by Jeff Rapsis. Two shorts & a feature, all 1.33 (again). Yay.
COPS. Print from 1969, back when they knew how to print B&W. Excellent density, looks great on the bench, BUT: emulsion scratches (which may show), lots of repairs, and a goodly number of splices. One of Keaton's most famous shorts: well worth watching.
THE HIGH SIGN. Print from 1971. No scratches on this, but some splices and repairs. Density is quite good. A little contrasty, but they may be from the source material.
STEAMBOAT BILL JR. The last feature Keaton made independently, before his disastrous move to MGM, and it contains some of the most amazing stunt work of his career, including what is likely the most dangerous gag of his life. This is on 3M stock, something most of you wont know about, but 3M produced some of the most silver-rich B&W stock Ive ever seen, & this one is no exception: incredible density, will blow your sneakers off. No scratches, but some repairs & splices in reels 4 & 2, fewer in reels 1 & 3.
You should definitely make it a point to see these: again: they rarely show, rarely get shown on film, are rarely projected correctly, and rarely have music as good as Jeff's.
Running on 7 August, @ 7pm. Be here!

Sunday, July 31: 'Our Hospitality' and two shorts

2011-07-21T14:25:00.007-04:00

This month's 'Summer Romance' screening at the Wilton (N.H.) Town Hall Theatre is 'Our Hospitality' (1923), Keaton's great family feud feature. We're showing it on Sunday, July 31 at 4:30 p.m. (More info is in the release below.)

'Our Hospitality' was a natural for this, as it's the only film to include Keaton's wife Natalie in a major role, and it's bookended in this series with films starring her two more famous sisters. Last month, we ran Constance Talmadge in 'Her Sister From Paris' (1925), a delightful comic romance, and in August we'll screen 'Kiki' (1926), the one light role from Norma Talmadge, who's more well known for her dramatic roles. Many thanks to Tim Lanza of Douris Corp. for giving us permission to screen all three of these wonderful pictures.

I accompanied 'Our Hospitality' last month at the Somerville Theatre in Boston, and was very pleased with how it all came together. Every time I see this film, I come away more impressed with how Buster made the transition from short films to features with such assurance. Take the film's beginning: it was Keaton's masterstroke to stage the 'Our Hospitality' prologue completely straight, without even a hint of comedy. As he later said, a real story was necessary to sustain a full-length feature, and in opening 'Our Hospitality' the way he did, he set the stage for a strong tale that held the interest of an audience, but also supported much Keaton comic business along the way.

Also, I think the period authenticity of this picture (it's set in the 1830s) is so well done that it's almost overlooked by viewers today. It's an old movie, so no surprise that it looks, well, old. But back in the 1920s, when it was made, I imagine Keaton and his team had to work hard to get it to look like it was the 1830s -- just as hard as they would work a few years later to recreate the Civil War period in 'The General.' In 'Our Hospitality,' they went so far as to build a working replica of Stephenson's early railroad locomotive, 'The Rocket' for the scenes in which Buster journeys to collect his interitance. But there are many smaller touches, such as the crude pipes that men smoke, and the many Dutch names in the "New York" scenes, all included without comment. And all those period firearms!

The two Keaton shorts we're running also have a strong "romantic" angle. 'The Playhouse' (1921) has Keaton exploring his feelings for identical twins, while 'My Wife's Relations' (1922) is a wild farce in which Buster is mistakenly married to...well, come see for yourself. Some critics believe the film, made shortly after his marriage to Natalie, was a not-so-veiled expression of how Keaton felt about the powerful Talmadge clan that he'd married into, but there's really no way to truly know. Buster would say he was just trying to get laughs, and I have a feeling he'll get them when we run this picture.

Here's the press release for the screening, which went out last week. Hope to see you there!

* * *

FRIDAY, JULY 15, 2011 / FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Jeff Rapsis • (603) 236-9237 • jeffrapsis@gmail.com

'Our Hospitality' silent film Sunday, July 31 at Wilton Town Hall Theater

Classic Buster Keaton feature-length comedy to be screened on the big screen with live music

WILTON, N.H.—He never smiled on camera, earning him the nickname of "the Great Stone Face." But Buster Keaton's comedies rocked Hollywood's silent era with laughter throughout the 1920s. Acclaimed for their originality and clever visual gags, and admired for their realistic stories and authentic location shots, Keaton's films remain popular crowd-pleasers today.

See for yourself with a screening of 'Our Hospitality' (1923), one of Keaton's landmark features, at Wilton Town Hall Theater on Sunday, July 31 at 4:30 p.m. The program, the latest in the theater's "Summer Romance" silent film series, will be accompanied by live music performed by silent film composer Jeff Rapsis. Admission is free, with donations welcome.

The program includes two classic short comedies completed by Keaton before he moved up to features: 'The Playhouse' (1921) and 'My Wife's Relations' (1922).

In reviving the Keaton films, the Wilton Town Hall Theater aims to show silent movies as they were meant to be seen—in high quality prints, on a large screen, with live music, and with an audience.

"All those elements are important parts of the silent film experience," said Rapsis, who will improvise scores on the spot for each film. "Recreate those conditions, and the classics of early Hollywood leap back to life. They all featured great stories with compelling characters and universal appeal, so it's no surprise that they hold up and we still respond to them."

Rapsis performs on a digital synthesizer that reproduces the texture of the full orchestra and creates a traditional "movie score" sound.

'Our Hospitality,' a period comedy set in the 1830s, tells the story of a young man (Keaton) raised in New York City but unknowingly at the center of a long-running backwoods family feud. Highlights of the picture include Keaton's extended journey on a vintage train of the era, as well as a dramatic river rescue scene that climaxes the film. The film stars Keaton's then-wife, Natalie Talmadge, as his on-screen love interest; their first child, newborn James Talmadge Keaton, makes a cameo appearance, playing Buster as an infant. Keaton's father also plays a role in the film.

Keaton, along with Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd, stands today as one of the silent screen's three great clowns. Some critics regard him as the best of all; Roger Ebert wrote in 2002 that "in an extraordinary period from 1920 to 1929, (Keaton) worked without interruption on a series of films that make him, arguably, the greatest actor-director in the history of the movies." While making films, Keaton didn't think he was an artist, but merely an entertainer trying to use the then-new art of motion pictures to tell stories and create laughter.

As a performer, Keaton was uniquely suited to the demands of silent comedy. Born in 1895, he made his stage debut as a toddler, joining his family's knockabout vaudeville act and learning to take falls and do acrobatic stunts at an early age. He spent his entire childhood and adolescence on stage, attending school for exactly one day.

An entirely intuitive performer, Keaton entered films in 1917 and was quickly fascinated with them. After apprenticing with popular comedian Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, Keaton went on to set up his own studio in 1920, making short comedies that established him as a one of the era's leading talents. A remarkable pantomime artist, Keaton naturally used his whole body to communicate emotions from sadness to surprise. And in an era with no special effects, Keaton's acrobatic talents meant he performed all his own stunts.

In 1923, Keaton made the leap into full-length films with 'Our Hospitality,' which proved popular enough for him to continue making features for the rest of the silent era. Although not all of Keaton's films were box office successes, critics later expressed astonishment at the sudden leap Keaton made from short comedies to the complex story and technical demands required for full-length features.

‘Our Hospitality’ will be shown on Sunday, July 31 at 4:30 p.m. the Wilton Town Hall Theater, 40 Main St., Wilton, N.H.; (603) 654-3456. Free admission; donations encouraged. For more information, visit http://www.wiltontownhalltheatre.com. For more info on the music, visit www.jeffrapsis.com.

Scoring 'A Throw of Dice' (1929) in Wilton, N.H.

2011-07-17T23:22:00.006-04:00

We ran the proto-Bollywood silent epic 'A Throw of Dice' (1929) this afternoon for an audience of about 50 people at the Wilton (N.H.) Town Hall Theatre. First time I've done this film, but won't be the last, as it holds up very well and has a lot of interest for contemporary audiences, I think.

The score was built out of materials that I hoped help tell the story and signal shifts in mood or "between the lines" stuff. (That's a funny term to use for a silent film, but I can't think of a better way to put it.) So I had a two-part fanfare (statement and response style) for the good prince, a minor key melody for the bad prince, a tune for the gal they both loved, and a motif for gambling, which itself plays a big role in the story. (Not surprising, given the film's title.)

Other stuff happened here and there for other characters, and a scene that features "jugglers" (the film's all-purpose term for court entertainers) resulted in some unplanned carnival-like music that stood in stark contrast to the mostly-Asian-sounding scales I used otherwise. I actually liked this, as it seemed refreshing and came just when the film needed it.

The strategy to use music to help the audience tell the princes apart (outlined in an earlier post) seems to have worked. But I was a little late on some cues and several things didn't work as planned. Funny the stuff that people remember, though. One of the synthesizer settings I used a lot is a mix that includes bird tweeting sounds to give it an "untamed jungle" flavor. I happened to be using it at the very end, and afterwards several people complemented me on the use of the bird calls for the final shot. I guess that's the kind of thing that sticks with people.

Taking a breather now before hitting the road this weekend with 'Tol'able David' and 'Hell's Hinges' in Brandon, Vt. and Ogunquit, Maine. Will brush up Thursday or Friday, just to make sure I handle the cross-cutting in 'David' so that the film's finale holds together like it should. Otherwise, it's off to the movies!

Oh, got a request this afternoon to screen 'Pandora's Box' (1928), the Louise Brooks film directed by G.W. Pabst. It's on my list -- we'll see when we can get to it.

Dramas and westerns and epics, oh my!

2011-07-15T12:06:00.008-04:00

Entering a busy stretch of accompanying some very different types of silent film, and here's a few notes.

• Screened double feature of 'Tol'able David' (1921) and 'Hell's Hinges' (1916) last night at the Flying Monkey Moviehouse in Plymouth, N.H. Small mid-summer turnout, mostly because of competing events, including a big music festival. But those on hand saw a terrific pair of movies.

Spoiler alert! Of the two films, 'David' is the tougher to score at the climax, primarily because of the frequent cross-cutting that takes place between the battle in the cabin and scenes at the town store where people are innocently waiting for the mail hack. The sequence has the potential for immense power if the music is on top of the cuts. But if it's off even just a little, it draws attention to itself and the whole thing collapses, I think. The task is complicated further when Esther arrives in town and a posse starts forming. This means the town music needs to then start stirring up its own drama, but it needs to be separate from the music that follows David's battle out in the cabin and then his courageous ride into town. And then it all has to come together when David arrives. It worked okay last night, but I'm looking forward to other chances to do this film later this month, in Brandon, Vt. and Ogunquit, Maine.

'Hell's Hinges' is a real "what you see is what you get" film, meaning there's not a lot of layers or subtlely to it, so scoring can be pretty straightforward. The movie produced five themes: a religious hymn associated with the pastor, a "love" melody for his sister, a syncopated signature for the saloon owner (and for general debauchery), a motif for William S. Hart, and some seductive music for the gal who preys upon the minister. And that was enough to build a film score in real time -- one that I thought helped bring it to life in a way that surprised even me.

What happened was as the film played, I found all of the themes combining in unexpected ways that helped move the drama forward. For instance, the minister and his sister riding the stagecoach to his new post worked well with a rhythmic "horse trot" version of the religious hymn. Their arrival is the first time William S. Hart lays eyes on the sister, and so both those themes got worked in, even as the religous hymn's chord structure was still underneath. And then the reaction of the crowd made use of the saloon owner's syncopation, which broke apart as they realized that Hart wasn't going to scare the bejesus out of the newcomers. All that in just a small sequence!

Another part that came together really well was near the end, when the town's religious people flee into the country and meet with Hart, returning from afar. They tell him what's happened, and the look on Hart's face is amazing. He then leaps onto his horse in fine early movie fashion and rides off the to the rescue. The mixture of desperation and heroic action, using primarily the religious hymn and Hart's motif, helped the sequence jump to life in the same way Hart did on the screen!

• I have an interesting challenge this Sunday, July 17 in doing music for 'A Throw of Dice' (1929), a rare epic silent film from India that we're showing at the Wilton (N.H.) Town Hall Theatre at 4:30 p.m. (If you're in the area, please come!) It's interesting because the main characters (two princes competing for the woman) look very much alike to me, so much so that I had trouble following the plot when I first watched it. Not sure what that says about my cultural sensitivity, but I have to assume others will have the same problem. The solution? Music! I plan to use completely different textures for each of the two guys, which I hope will eliminate any potential confusion, as long as I can keep the characters straight myself.

Will it work? Come by and see for yourself. Should be a fun screening of a rarely seen film that looks fantastic in the restoration we have. The story of the film's making, and how it contributed to the foundation for today's massive Bollywood industry, is equally interesting, and my colleague Dan Szczesny will be on hand to talk a bit about that.

And finally, as an added treat for the screening on Sunday, July 17, we have an unannounced film that's a good example of Hollywood's depiction of the Indian subcontinent in the 1920s. Guess I shouldn't worry too much about my own cultural sensitivity, but you'll see. All I can say is thank God it's a comedy and you're supposed to laugh.

• Finally, a review of our screening of 'Seven Chances' (1925) at the Somerville (Mass.) Theatre on Sunday, July 10 has been posted online. Writer Jay Seaver covered it in two gulps. His blog has a write-up of the shorts, while the Web site www.efilmcritic.com has a longer analysis of 'Seven Chances' with some insights I hadn't seen before. Thanks, Jay!

This month: 'Tol'able David' and 'Hell's Hinges'

2011-07-11T18:54:00.005-04:00

Next up is a pair of silent dramas that I think make a good double feature: 'Tol'able David' (1921) starring Richard Barthelmess and 'Hell's Hinges' (1916) starring William S. Hart. They're both films that can generate a surprising amount of dramatic intensity, and because they're both rural dramas filmed largely on location, they have the added dimension of showing today's audiences what ordinary life looked like a century ago or more.

The 'or more' part is especially relevant in the case of 'Tol'able David,' which was filmed in a remote and rural Virginia valley not far from where director Henry King grew up. In the film, the place looks like life hadn't changed much since colonial days. It's a landscape full of split rail fences, horse-drawn hacks and buggies, subsistence and tenant farming, and brush-like fans (or fan-like brushes) used at dinner time to keep flies off the food. All of it adds a layer of interest that probably wasn't there in 1921, and is one reason silent film is worth watching today, I think.

'Hell's Hinges,' though a little creakier, is like a well-made mousetrap. Once it lures you in, there's no escaping, and you're carried along to the climax of this film, which can be so intense as to be unbelieveable. I first saw this film at the Kansas Silent Film Festival some years ago, and was surprised to find such power in a movie from 1916, which is still relatively early.

I'm looking forward to doing music for both of these. The challenge will be to create two different scores in one evening, without borrowing from each other. I think I'll try to do a "strings only" texture for 'Tol'able David,' which will fit nicely with the open country old-timey rural feel of the movie. And then we'll amp things up to the full orchestral palette for 'Hell's Hinges,' and maybe uncork some snarling brass for the big ending.

I'll do the program on Thursday, July 14 at the Flying Monkey Moviehouse in Plymouth, N.H., then on Saturday, July 23 at Brandon (Vt.) Town Hall, then on Sunday, July 24 at the Leavitt Theatre in Ogunquit, Maine. For details, check out the "Upcoming Silent Film Screenings" page at right.

I'm also working up music for 'A Throw of Dice' (1929), a fascinating silent feature from India that's a distant ancestor of today's vibrant Bollywood film industry. We're screening it on Sunday, July 17 at 4:30 p.m. at the Wilton (N.H.) Town Hall Theatre. More on that in a bit. For now, here's the press release about this month's touring program. Hope to see you at a screening!

TUESDAY, JULY 5, 2011 / FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Jeff Rapsis • (603) 236-9237 • jeffrapsis@gmail.com

Silent film double feature, live music at Flying Monkey on Thursday, July 14

Backwoods drama 'Tol'able David' paired with gritty Western 'Hell's Hinges'

PLYMOUTH, N.H. — The countryside of rural America a century ago will return to life when the silent film 'Tol'able David' (1921), one of the top movies of its era, is revived the big screen on Thursday, July 14 at 6:30 p.m. at the Flying Monkey Moviehouse and Performance Center in Plymouth, N.H. Admission is $10 per person.

The movie, part of silent film double feature, will be paired with a gritty early Western, 'Hell's Hinges' (1916), starring William S. Hart. Hart was credited with popularizing Westerns in Hollywood's early days; his stoic 'tough guy' persona was a forerunner of characters played later by John Wayne and other actors.

Both films will be screened with live music played by Jeff Rapsis, a New Hampshire-based silent film accompanist who performs at venues across New England. Rapsis provides music for the Flying Monkey's monthly silent film series, which aims to honor the recently renovated venue's historic roots as a local moviehouse.

"These films were created to be shown on the big screen to large audiences as a sort of communal experience," Rapsis said. "With an audience and live music, they come to life in the way their makers intended them to. The Flying Monkey screenings are a great chance for people to experience films that first caused people to first fall in love with the movies."

In 'Tol'able David,' actor Richard Barthelmess plays the title role, an adolescent eager for a chance to prove to his town that he's an adult and a man. His big chance arrives when three shady escapees from jail set up shop in the community and menace the local residents. When push comes to shove, who will emerge on top?

Barthelmess, one of the silent era's superstars, won praise for his realistic portrayal of a 15-year-old, although he was 25 at the time the film was made. The cast also features actor Ernest Torrence, playing what some critics have called the most sinister villian in all of cinema.

For 'Tol'able David,' director Henry King insisted the film be shot on location in rural Virginia, where the story was set and where he grew up in the 1890s. Much of 'Tol'able David' was filmed in the countryside within a few miles of the director's boyhood home in Staunton, Virginia, and the movie infused with the spirit and details of a vanishing way of life that King knew well.

Accompanist Jeff Rapsis has written new musical material to help capture the film's rural atmosphere and also bring out the dramatic power of the story.

"This picture was a big hit when it was released, and it still holds up well today," Rapsis said. "But there's an additional level of interest now because the film captured a way of life that's long since disappeared. With the passage of time, it's now almost like a historical photograph come to life. Plus, it's a great film with a powerful climax."

'Hell's Hinges,' set in a lawless frontier town, stars Hart as a loner with a bad reputation who falls for the sister of a new and untested preacher. Will Hart's tender feelings be enough for him to renounce his past and take on the town's injustices? What price will be paid to rid the town of lawlessness and immorality?

The film, shot almost entirely on location, caused a sensation when it was first released, and is now widely regarded as Hart's masterpiece. Viewers today are still mesmerized by the intensity of the film's climactic scenes.

'Tol'able David' and 'Hell's Hinges' will be shown on Thursday, July 14 at 6:30 p.m. at the Flying Monkey Moviehouse and Performing Arts Center, 39 Main St., Plymouth, N.H. Admission is $10 per person. For more info, call (603) 536-2551 or visit www.flyingmonkeynh.com. For more info on the music, visit www.jeffrapsis.com.

• Review of 'Tol'able David':

"Beautifully crafted...the finale is a rip-roaring piece of movie story-telling."
—Leonard Maltin

In 2007, 'Tol'able David' was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

• Review of 'Hell's Hinges':

"...perhaps the finest movie Western made before John Ford's 1939 'Stagecoach' ...as emotionally powerful as any American film of the teens, except for the masterpieces of D.W. Griffith and Erich Von Stroheim."
—Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribute, 1994

In 1994, 'Hell's Hinges' was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

One of the best screenings ever!

2011-07-11T16:29:00.009-04:00

Well, I can say this about too much of a good thing—it doesn't seem to be doing me any harm.

That's what I thought last night (Sunday, July 10), while doing music for a Buster Keaton program in 35mm at the Somerville (Mass.) Theater, in Davis Square just outside downtown Boston. It was really that good.

The Somerville stages these monthly events in their main venue, a vintage 1914 theater with a balcony, real curtains, and a huge screen. It's a great place to watch a movie, especially an older movie, because they're dedicated to the 35mm format, and they take incredible pains to do it right.

Consider this excerpt from an e-mail prior to the show from David Kornfeld, the theater's head projectionist and an absolute fanatic about his craft:

"KEATON MOVIES. Continuing our silent series with live accompaniment by Jeff Rapsis, we'll be running two shorts & a feature. Just got through inspecting these, and, great news, they are all 1.33 prints. Wow.
NEIGHBORS. This is a gob-smacking print: just gorgeous. Terrific density, sharp as a pin. Best print of this I've ever seen, and I've run many.
THE GOAT. Not quite as good. This is a more recently struck print, and has more contrast & less tonal range than the other. In excellent shape, though, and should look good on screen.
SEVEN CHANCES. Even more recently struck, with the problems inherent in B&W processing these days. The density varies: at times good, & at times okay; but it is thinner than it should be overall. There are abrasion scratches on the emulsion side, which might show (maybe not). There are also a fair number of splices; surprising on a mylar print.

How's that for attention to detail? David does other things like amp up the brightness of his bulbs to mirror the kind of light produced by carbon arc projectors back in the early days. And the results really show on screen: after two 35mm Keaton programs at the Somerville, I can say I've never seen these films look like this. They're absolutely luminescent, a delight to look at. And they probably come closer to what our great-grandparents actually saw than anything we're likely to encounter elsewhere.

Really, the more I think about it, the more I realize how the passing of time has made so much of the silent film experience difficult or impossible to recreate. The films themselves are either lost or decomposed. But even if you have a blindingly beautiful original tinted 35mm print, there are issues of aspect ratios, lighting, live music, and so on. For silent film it's a real puzzle to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

But it's possible, and when it happens, there's nothing like it. And that's what happened last night. All three films looked great (despite David's misgivings), and audience reaction was huge—gales of laughter for the two shorts and throughout the feature, and audible astonishment as 'Seven Chances' built toward the rockslide climax. I later found we had under 100 people, but from the sound of the crowd it might have been 1,000. What a complete rush to be helping this piece of pop art from another time rise from the past and do what it was designed to do, more than 85 years after it was made!

As for the music, I did something unusual. For these kinds of programs, I like to use organ accompaniment for the short films and then switch to full orchestra for the feature, if nothing else to signal the shift in the program and give the feature a little oomph to get things started.

Last night, I did organ for 'Neighbors,' and had fun with it. But then, for some reason, as 'Neighbors' ended and 'The Goat' started almost immediately, I switched to full orchestra. I still don't know why, but at the time it felt really necessary. And yes, within a minute or so I already regretted it, because I felt it was too much for this comedy, to the point of sounding too overdone, etc., no matter how light a touch I tried for.

still, I stuck with it, and the reaction was as strong as you could want, so perhaps my fears were unfounded. But still, at the beginning of the feature, I did miss that moment when the "new" full-orchestra sound landscape gets introduced, which I think helps weave the magic spell that the best silent films can still cast over us.

In 'Seven Chances,' the sequence that's most fun to score is when Buster wakes to find a church full of would-be brides, and shortly afterwards, when he marches down a Los Angeles street with an increasingly sizeable army of of women in wedding dresses behind him. I actually made a lot of use of the old 'Here Comes the Bride' melody, or at least the opening of it, with a descending scale underneath to make it kind of an inexorable march, and shifting keys and modes (lots of minor key variations) to build up tension as the brides spill from the side streets.

There's also that wonderful scene where Keaton's business partner sees Keaton coming from the left (but the audience doesn't), and so starts running (and the camera stays on him) to be up to speed when Keaton catches up to him. A traveling camera is used, and the whole thing is wonderfully cinematic and kinetic.

It's hard to believe that Keaton himself disliked 'Seven Chances,' but that really was the case. All I can think is that he remained torqued that the story was foisted on him by producer Joe Schenk without consultation, and that colored his whole view of the project, even though it turned out splendidly. And if Keaton felt so strongly about that, you can only imagine what he must have felt when, only a few years later, the folks at MGM really started to screw with his creative independence.

Many great comments afterwards. Thanks to everyone who attended and hope to see you at our next Somerville Theatre screening: on Sunday, Aug. 7 at 7 p.m., when the featured attraction is Keaton's 'Steamboat Bill, Jr.' (1928)

Keaton's 'Seven Chances' July 10 in Somerville

2011-07-05T10:46:00.007-04:00

Oh my God, it's finally happened. I've stooped so low as to put out a press release about...myself. But I felt it was time to do something to try to stir up some excitement for our 35mm screenings of Keaton features this summer at the Somerville Theatre in Somerville, Mass. They're terrific chances to see Keaton's films in the best 35mm prints available, and in a theater where they really know how to handle 35mm black-and-white on the big screen. I'd probably be going down even if I weren't doing the music. But for now, despite this self-serving release, let me assure everyone that it's still all about supporting great films, not about me. Really. Really!

Here's the press release...

TUESDAY, JULY 5, 2011 / FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Jeff Rapsis • (603) 236-9237 • jeffrapsis@gmail.com

New England silent film musician improvises whole movie scores on the spot

Somerville Theatre's silent film series spotlights energy, excitement of lost art of improvisational scoring

Next screenings: Buster Keaton's 'Seven Chances' (1925) in 35mm on Sunday, July 10 at 7 p.m. and 'Steamboat Bill, Jr.' (1928) in 35mm on Sunday, Aug. 7 at 7 p.m.

SOMERVILLE, Mass. — Taking his place to play the score for a classic silent film, there's a reason accompanist Jeff Rapsis has no sheet music on his keyboard. It's because he's making up the music right there on the spot.

And it's not rinky-tink piano accompaniment, either. Rapsis, a New Hampshire-based musician and composer, uses a digital synthesizer to recreate the texture of the full orchestra, complete with pounding drums and clashing cymbals, all produced in real time by a traditional keyboard with 88 keys.

The goal is to create a movie score that brings to life classics from Hollywood's silent era—the films that caused audiences to first fall in love with the movies.

"These films retain a lot of their magic over audiences if you show them under the right conditions," said Rapsis, 47, of Bedford, N.H. "Good restored prints projected on the big screen, with a large audience and with live music—all those elements contribute to making silent film a unique experience, and different from anything you're likely to see in a multiplex today."

Rapsis currently provides the music for the monthly silent film series at the Somerville Theatre in Davis Square, which this summer is showcasings the timeless work of comedian Buster Keaton. All films are shown in the best available 35mm prints, increasingly a rarity as many theaters convert to digital projection. The next screening in the series is Keaton's feature 'Seven Chances' (1925), to be shown on Sunday, July 10 at 7 p.m. Admission to the show, which includes two Keaton comedy shorts, is $12 adults / $8 students/seniors.

Based on a Broadway play, 'Seven Chances' finds Keaton with just seven hours to get married or lose an inherited fortune. For the music, Rapsis will draw from material he's developed for prior screenings of the film—a main melody and several chord sequences useful in telling the story, plus familiar wedding music to underscore the comedy. But the score itself will come only at showtime, when the lights go down and the opening titles appear.

"It's kind of a high wire act to do the music this way. But it provides an energy and excitement that contributes to the experience," said Rapsis, who prepares minimally for each screening. "For a film I don't know, I'll run through it once or twice on DVD prior to the public screening, to make sure I understand the story's arc and any big moments. Any more than that, and I find a movie begins to get too familiar, and I find I start to overthink the film or anticipate things during the screening, and that gets in the way of things flowing in the theater."

Once a film is underway, Rapsis plays continuously, providing music that underscores what's onscreen—not just the action, but emotional shifts and plot twists that can often build to powerful climaxes. He provides full orchestral scores for dramas, westerns, action/adventure films, and horror flicks, all of which first became popular as the silent film era peaked in the 1920s.

"Comedies are often the hardest to do well because timing is so important, and often less is more," Rapsis said. "It's important not to overpower what's on the screen, which can keep audience members from hearing each other react. These films were built for audience reaction, and being swept along by the crowd is one of the great things about silent film. And I find I can best go with that flow if I'm with them and responding to the film, and not buried in sheet music."

Silent film programs can last anywhere from one to three hours in length. Rapsis finds that after the first 10 or 20 minutes, he sinks into a state of mind where he is completely absorbed by the process of scoring the movie, and the music sometimes seems to weave itself as he responds to the film in real time.

"At it's best, creating music in real time is a grand journey into the subconscious," he said. "Once I get 'in the zone,' I'm not aware of time passing, though part of me is always conscious of what's on screen, what's likely to happen next, and what the audience reaction may be. And I adjust as I go—to help a film 'grab' a restless audience at a big moment, sometimes it helps to stop playing for a bit, which really punctuates the drama."

Rapsis, a newspaper publisher by day, is a lifelong silent film fan who studied classical piano separately. He began to accompany silent film screenings only in 2005, after composing the score for an independent feature film, 'Dangerous Crosswinds,' directed by New Hampshire filmmaker Bill Millios.

"It's kind of a lost art, but once I tried doing it, I found I could naturally come up with music that helped silent films come to life," Rapsis said. "And I really enjoyed the process because it combined two things I really loved: silent film and music. For me, it was like putting chocolate and peanut butter together. And I never had time to prepare anything elaborate in advance, so that led me down the improv path."

Improvisation was once a key element of music, not just in silent film scores but also in many other eras. Composers such as Beethoven and Mozart would often improvise cadenzas to their piano concertos, and would sometimes pit their keyboard virtuosity against other performers in concerts. Today, improvisation is being reintroduced to classical music as a way to bring new life to the field.

Although he uses a modern digital synthesizer, Rapsis creates music that maintains a traditional "movie score" orchestral sound. His music, however, differs from what audiences might have heard in the 1920s.

"You have to remember that audiences today have several generations of film music in their head," Rapsis said. "There's that shower scene in Hitchcock's 'Psycho,' for example, with composer Bernard Herrmann's dissonant high strings squealing away to create a sense of terror. So while I maintain a traditional sound, I try to use that wide-ranging musical vocabulary to help make silent films work for modern audiences."

In recent years, Rapsis has pursued his silent film music passion at screenings throughout New England and beyond. In addition to his work at the Somerville Theatre, he's currently supplying music for monthly screenings at theaters in Wilton and Plymouth, N.H.; Brandon, Vt., and Ogunquit, Maine. He has accompanied silent films at the New York Public Library and the Kansas Silent Film Festival; in 2012, he's been invited to play music at Cinefest in Syracuse, N.Y., one of the nation's most prestigious vintage film festivals.

At each performance, he actively solicits audience input, both for feedback on his work and for ideas of what films people would like to see.

"I have comment cards and they're very useful in evaluating how I'm doing," he said. "The comments range from very supportive to curt remarks such as 'Music Too Loud,' which is actually important for me to know because during a performance, I'm never quite sure how it's coming across."

After a screening of Keaton's feature 'Our Hospitality' at the Somerville Theatre in June, critic Jay Seaver of efilmcritic.com wrote of Rapsis: "He was really impressive tonight—his music for the prologue to 'Our Hospitality' was especially terrific, and I'm sure my musical brothers will tell me that playing to fast-paced movies for two hours straight (no break between films), at least partly improvising, is difficult, and he did an excellent job."

Though silent film music isn't exactly a growth business, Rapsis takes a great deal of satisfaction in helping audiences connect with great films from Hollywood's early days.

"I joke that I've finally found my artistic niche—collaborating with dead people," he says.

Following 'Seven Chances' on Sunday, July 10, the Somerville's next silent screening will be Keaton's classic feature comedy 'Steamboat Bill, Jr.' (1928) on Sunday, Aug. 7 at 7 p.m.

Admission for all silent film screenings in the series is $12 adults, $8 students/seniors. The Somervillle Theater is located at 55 Davis Square, Somerville, Mass. For more information, call (617) 625-5700 or visit http://www.somervilletheatreonline.com.

For more information on Rapsis and a current list of upcoming screenings, visit www.jeffrapsis.com.

Coming Sunday, July 10: Buster Keaton in 35mm

2011-06-28T15:47:00.006-04:00

I've been watching and rewatching Buster Keaton's films since the days of mail ordering 8mm prints of 'Cops' (1922), 'One Week' (1920), and other shorts from Blackhawk Films in the 1970s. But I now realize that I've never really seen Keaton until just this very month.

What opened my eyes was our first 35mm show of Keaton films earlier this month, on Sunday, June 5 at the Somerville (Mass.) Theatre. The head projectionist there, David, is a fanatic for authentic 35mm presentation (which is rapidly becoming a lost art) and I was very impressed with what I saw at a science fiction marathon there last February.

So in programming the Somerville's Keaton series for this summer, I didn't start with any specific titles in mind. Instead, I asked around to find the very best 35mm prints, and went from there. Tim Lanza of Douris Corp. was kind enough to send an inventory of what he has in 35mm, and from there we selected three features ('Our Hospitality,' 'Seven Chances,' and 'Steamboat Bill, Jr.') and six shorts.

I wasn't sure what to expect. But what I saw at our June 5 screening just blew me away. The print of 'One Week' looked terrific, and 'The Scarecrow' was even better: razor sharp clarity, great constrast and tonal range, and an extremely bright image flooding the theater's giant screen. The print of 'Our Hospitality,' with Rohauer titles from the 1970s (which differ somewhat from the originals) was a little murkier, but still top-notch. The whole program was a pleasure to take in, and a chance to really see Keaton as I never had before, even while doing the music live.

And in that sense, it really was like seeing these films for the first time. I can't describe to you how delightful it is to witness Buster's work really as it was intended to be seen, or as close to that as possible in an age where carbon arc projection is virtually non-existent and so many other variables get in the way of recreating the experience. Projected larger than life but crystal clear, and seen with an audience, Buster's work takes on outsized dimensions that must have been part of the silent era's myth-making, something that we don't get on our home entertainment centers.

But enough from me. The message here is, whether you're a lifelong Keaton buff or a complete newbie, get thee to the Somerville Theater on Sunday, July 10 (and again on Sunday, Aug. 7), where Buster will once again fill the screen in a way that will knock your socks off, even if you've seen the films a hundred times before. Here's the press release:

TUESDAY, JUNE 28, 2011 / FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Buster Keaton silent comedies to be shown with live music at Somerville Theatre

All-35mm program on Sunday, July 10 includes feature ‘Seven Chances’ (1925) plus short films

SOMERVILLE, Mass.—Silent film returns to the big screen at the Somerville Theatre in July with a program of classic Buster Keaton comedies accompanied by live music.

The screening, set for Sunday, July 10 at 7 p.m. at the Somerville Theatre, 55 Davis Square, Somerville, Mass., will include Keaton’s classic feature film ‘Seven Chances’ (1925) as well as two short comedies, ‘Neighbors’ (1920) and ‘The Goat’ (1921). General admission is $12 per person, $8 for students/seniors.

All films will be shown in the best available 35mm prints and accompanied by live music performed by silent film composer Jeff Rapsis.

‘Seven Chances’ gives Keaton just seven hours to get married and inherit a fortune. Can he find the right woman and make it to the church on time? This classic comedy is highlighted by an extended chase finale in which Keaton, forced to flee from downtown Los Angeles into the open countryside, finds himself at the center of one of the most uproarious climaxes of the entire silent era.

‘Neighbors’ (1920) and ‘The Goat’ (1921) rank among Keaton’s best short films, made shortly before he made the leap into full-length feature film production. ‘Neighbors’ is highlighted by extensive physical stunt work (all done by Keaton himself without using a double), while ‘The Goat’ is a hilarious comedy of mistaken identity that spirals out of control.

Keaton, who grew up performing with the family vaudeville act, was known for never smiling on camera, an important element of his comic identity. A trained acrobat who learned at an early age how to take a fall, Keaton was also famous for doing all his own stunts on camera in the era before post-production special effects became common.

Critics continue to hail Keaton’s timeless comedy as well as his intuitive filmmaking genius. In 2002, Roger Ebert wrote of Keaton that “in an extraordinary period from 1920 to 1929, he worked without interruption on a series of films that make him, arguably, the greatest actor-director in the history of the movies.” Keaton, who never attended school, did not think of himself as an artist but as an entertainer using the new medium of motion pictures to tell stories and create laughter.

The Somerville Theatre’s commitment to 35mm film presentation in both contemporary and classic movies means a rare chance to see Keaton’s work in its original format, in the best available prints.

“This show is a great opportunity to experience the magic of silent film as it was intended to be shown -- on the big screen, in high-quality prints, with live music and with an audience,” said Ian Judge, the Somerville Theatre’s general manager. “With so many theaters converting to digital, we’re pleased to continue to present films in 35mm, the standard format for more than a century. There’s nothing like it, and that’s especially true for films of the silent era.”

Music for the Keaton screenings will be performed by Jeff Rapsis, a New Hampshire-based musician who accompanies silent film screenings at venues across New England. Rapsis works without sheet music, instead creating an improvised score on the spot. He uses a digital synthesizer that reproduces the texture of the full orchestra, creating a traditional "movie score" sound and helping link today’s audiences to films of the silent era.

In creating an improvised score, Rapsis tries to use music to amplify audience reaction, a key element of the silent film experience.

“These films were not meant to be seen by people alone or at home,” Rapsis said. “They were created to be experienced by large crowds in a theater like the Somerville, and getting swept up in the audience reaction is one of the great things about silent film. When it happens, either in a comedy or drama or any kind of film, it can be almost cathartic.”

‘Seven Chances’ and Keaton short comedies will be shown on Sunday, July 10 at 7 p.m. the Somerville Theatre, 55 Davis Square, Somerville, Mass. (617) 625-5700. Admission is $12 adults, $8 students/seniors, general admission seating. For more information, call (617) 625-5700 or visit http://www.somervilletheatreonline.com. For more info on the music, visit www.jeffrapsis.com.

Upcoming silent film screenings at the Somerville Theatre include an additional all-Keaton program in August:

• Sunday, Aug. 7 at 7 p.m.: ‘Steamboat Bill, Jr.’ (1928). Buster’s last independent silent feature finds him as the bumbling son of a rundown riverboat’s rough captain. When a rival brings a newer boat to town, the family is forced to face competition, just as Buster is forced to face down a cyclone that blows through town. One of Buster’s best. Shown with Keaton comedy shorts: ‘The High Sign’ (1921) and ‘Cops’ (1922). All films in 35mm; live music by Jeff Rapsis.

Constance Talmadge: Va va va voom and all that

2011-06-27T08:51:00.009-04:00

Two shockers from yesterday's screening of 'Her Sister From Paris' (1925) at the Wilton (N.H.) Town Hall Theatre. 1: We had a sizable audience! (Attendance tends to atrophy on summer weekends.) And 2: They really reacted!

Not that they shouldn't react, but I'm always tickled when a silent film with a totally forgotten performer can connect with an audience, as happened yesterday. In this case, it was Constance Talmadge, a popular star of light comedies in the 1920s, but an all-but-unknown today.

Connie, in a dual performance as an insecure wife and her worldly twin sister (yes, from Paris), had our audience in the palm of her hand right from the start. Good reaction all the way through, especially in scenes where Connie played both sisters at the same time. (Just roll with it, folks.) Incredible acting chops on display, and wonderful interplay with co-star Ronald Colman, who's one that folks do still remember.

Was Connie's celebrity merely a '20s fad? Well, any star's popularity is based somewhat on familiarity at the time, I think -- people enjoy her, recognize her, and keep going to her films to see her next adventure. So a particular film, taken out of this context, can often seem utterly baffling to a modern audience. This is the case with Harry Langdon, I think, whose comic style was in part a reaction to other comedies at the time, and so depends on a familiarity that today's audiences don't have.

But not so with Connie. 'Her Sister From Paris' shows a performer with a remarkable acting range, a lively sense of humor, and an ability to win an audience over all in one shot, which is what she did. The film produced gales of laughter at all the right moments, and was a pleasure to score.

On that, I must say the film's Vienna local creates a great milieu for music. The temptation is to go heavy on waltzes and 3/4 time, and indeed, the 'Blue Danube' specifically plays a key part, to the point of the sheet music being shown on screen.

But given the now 'old world' feel of the film (1920s Vienna), I went with a harpsichord setting and maintained it throughout the film. Though not historically accurate, I think it created the right mood overall for our audience. And for waltzes, yes, I worked in 'Blue Danube' and other tunes in 3/4, but put them in a blender depending on the flow of the scene. In some cases, it wound up sounding more like Ravel's 'La Valse' than anything else.

But a key to helping this film come to life, at least in terms of music, was to use a steady 4/4 rhythm and a minor 6th chord whenever the influence of the 'worldly' sister from Paris was in evidence. Not just when she was on the screen, but when her other sister was pretending to be her during the many plot convolutions. We got laughs just from that music showing up when you knew it was what the characters were thinking on the screen. Still, this was definitely a film where less was more -- once the action starts, it needs very little music to get across, and I tried to stay out of the way so audience reaction could flow unimpeded.

Back to Connie: Her performance of two siblings with different personalities reminded me, of all things, of the way Nicholas Cage played the dual roles of Charlie and Donald Kaufmann in the much-later film 'Adaptation.' In the later film, I remember being impressed at how Cage could play both roles, but always make it clear which brother was which.

Likewise in 'Her Sister From Paris' -- although Connie doesn't share nearly as much onscreen time with herself as Cage did in 'Adaptation,' it's never less than completely, instantly clear which sibling we're looking at on screen, just by the way she carries herself and, I'm sure, other details way too subtle for me to notice.

And kudos to the filmmakers for doing the split screen scenes (with two Connies) so seamlessly in 1925. It was pretty much flawless. There were a few moments where both characters are onscreen, but one is sobbing with her head away from the camera, and you think it's gotta be a double, but then she raises her head, and it's also Connie!

And I have to say, though what's considered attractive in women (and clothes and hairstyles and all that) can go in and out of style, Connie had a timeless, lively beauty that still comes through loud and clear, nearly nine decades later. In stills (such as this one), she often looks a little dowdy, I think. But in her films, at least in 'Her Sister from Paris,' she really comes to life in a way that photos don't seem to capture. Those eyes, that face. As they used to say on the machine shop floor, va va va voom!

As evidence at how beguiling 'Her Sister from Paris' is, after the screening I was talking to a newspaper colleague of mine who pointed out an inanity that I was totally oblivious to: that a single mole on the cheek could utterly confuse everyone about a person's identity, including a woman's husband and her trusted maid. Right! But my critical faculties were do disarmed by it all, I didn't even think of it.

He also pointed out that if the stage show that Connie stars in is any indication, the people of Vienna were producing entertainment that pre-dated Bollywood extravaganzas by at least half a century.

Sunday: June 26: Summer Romance!

2011-06-22T15:37:00.010-04:00

Our three-show "summer romance" silent film series at the Wilton (N.H.) Town Hall Theatre is pretty neat, I think. First, we're showing rarely seen features starring the Talmadge sisters, Constance and Norma, two of the biggest stars of the 1920s, but who are all but forgotten today. Also, we're showing their sister Natalie's one big role, as the female lead in her husband Buster Keaton's family feud film, 'Our Hospitality' (1923). And finally, the series gives today's audiences a chance to see how diverse silent film was: not just slapstick, but all flavors of comedy.

I've been curious about Constance and Norma for years, and especially since encountering Joe Yranski of New York City, who invited me to the Donnell Library in 2008 to accompany 'Lessons in Love' (1921), one of Connie's features that had then just been restored. Joe is an ardent admirer of the Talmadge sisters, and his enthusiasm (as well as the surprisingly light touch of 'Lessons') whetted my appetite for more.

I got another dose of Connie in 2009 at the Kansas Silent Film Festival, where I saw 'Her Sister From Paris' (1925), a surprisingly sophisticated comedy that holds up wonderfully, and also met Melissa Talmadge Cox, Buster Keaton's granddaughter and grand-niece of Connie (whom she remembered as "Aunt Dutch") and Norma.

So in looking for something special for this summer in Wilton, I decided to take the plunge myself and do music for films starring all three Talmadge sisters, all under the heading 'Summer Romance.' It's been fun putting the music together for these and I hope you'll attend all three. First up, on Sunday, June 26 at 4:30 p.m., is 'Her Sister From Paris' (1925), with Connie playing against Ronald Coleman; it's paired with 'The Matrimaniac' (1916), costarring Constance and Douglas Fairbanks Sr. at the very start of his film career. Both nice pictures with new music by me.

Later: On Sunday, July 31 at 4:30 p.m., it's Keaton's 'Out Hospitality' (1923), co-starring Natalie Talmadge, and a couple of Keaton shorts just for laughs. I've recently rediscovered 'The Playhouse' (1921) so we'll probably show that. And then, on Sunday, Aug. 28, it's Norma Talmadge in 'Kiki' (1926), paired with another early Douglas Fairbanks, 'Flirting with Fate' (1916). Admission is free to all these screenings, though donations are encouraged to defray costs. Pray for rain on those weekends so attendance gets a bad weather boost. :)

Last week saw four screenings in five days, with several hundred miles of road time included. Notes on the long strange trip:

Wednesday, June 15: Screened a program for the residents of RiverMead, an upscale retirement community in Peterborough, N.H. with screening facilities to die for. A very appreciative audience of about 35 people enjoyed Buster Keaton's 'One Week' and other silent comedies, and a few residents recalled seeing silent films as children.

Thursday, June 16: Trekked up to the Flying Monkey Moviehouse and Performance Center in Plymouth, N.H. to play for a screening of this month's roadshow picture, Keaton's 'The General' (1926). Nice spring weather = disappointingly low turnout, about 25 people, but I was happy with how the score came out. Lots of good questions afterwards.

Saturday, June 18: Brandon. Vt. (about 150 miles away!) for 'The General' (1926), this time as part of the town's annual 'Civil War Days' celebration. Word is getting around in Brandon, where I'm doing a second season of silents with live music, as we had 115 people turn up for this, filling the Brandon Town Hall, where we stage the screenings. Extremely enthusiastic response from start to finish; 'The Playhouse' (1921) and 'The General' were met with gales of laughter as well as cheering and other strong reactions. Audience ranged from tiny tots to octogenarians. What a pleasure to do music for a film under these conditions; the score fell together effortlessly, it seemed. Nice ovation at the end, all owed to Buster's brave filmmaking from nearly a century ago now.

Sunday, June 19: Ogunquit, Maine (about 70 miles away) for another 'General,' this time in the Leavitt Theatre, a vintage 1920s summer-only seaside moviehouse that still operates today. Owner Peter Clayton and his family have embraced silent film screenings during tourist season; unfortunately, a lovely Sunday afternoon cut attendance down to about a dozen paid admissions. Still, a nice screening and again I hope for some luck (bad) with the weather.

P.S.: Prior to this spate of screenings, Vermont Public Radio's Nina Keck was nice enough to put together a piece on silent film music featuring comments and illustrations by me. It must have taken a herculean effort to edit me into intelligence, but it came out very nice, and I'm sure it helped contribute to the large turnout on Saturday night in Brandon, Vt. Thanks, Nina! To listen to it (or to read a transcript), go to the VPR Web site.

News of screenings near and far

2011-06-08T14:52:00.003-04:00

• Cinefest 2012: I've just been on the phone with Joe Yranski of New York City, a vintage film expert and fellow Fordham graduate, who invited me to be an accompanist at the next Cinefest, to be held in March 2012 in Syracuse, N.Y. This is a great honor and I'm really looking forward to joining my colleagues Andrew Simpson and Phil Carli at the keyboard next year.

• Me on Twitter?: My dormant Twitter account is being reactivated as of today, partly to promote silent film but also to get some hands-on experience for a communications course I'm teaching this fall at the University of New Hampshire. Now I'll be able to say for sure just exactly how much of a waste of time it is, or not. We'll see. Anyway, you can follow my every Twitter move at: @jeffrapsis

• Next in rotation: 'The General' (1927). With three separate series running this summer in widely separated markets (Plymouth, N.H.; Ogunquit, Maine; and Brandon, Vt.), I'm running the same programs in each so as not to go crazy. This will also make show prep such as press releases a little easier. So coming up next week be Keaton's 'General,' partly because it's public domain and partly because the folks of Brandon, Vt. are staging their annual "Civil War Days" event on Saturday, June 18. So I'm doing 'General' three times in three states over four days. Check the details on the "upcoming screenings" page.

• Moving to the library: We have a new series of monthly screenings for 2011-12 in Manchester, N.H. to succeed our Palace Theatre series. The 880-seat Palace was a great home for the past three years, but going forward they just don't have room in their schedule. So we're switching to a smaller venue, the 200-seat auditorium of the Carpenter Public Library, 405 Pine St., Manchester, just a few blocks away. I've selected films already but would love to hear suggestions...

• From the subcontinent: Finally, look for our end-of-month screenings at the Wilton Town Hall Theatre in Wilton, N.H. to be augmented by the screening of an unusual silent feature from India, 'Throw of Dice' (1929) on Sunday, July 17 at 4:30 p.m. It's an outgrowth of a local Bollywood tribute held last April, and I'm very much looking forward to doing music for my first Indian flick.

Rin Tin Tin vs. Buster Keaton

2011-06-06T21:21:00.006-04:00

In terms of silent film accompaniment, I'm living the dream.

Yesterday (Sunday, June 5) I played a Rin Tin Tin double feature matinee at the Leavitt Theatre in Ogunquit, Maine, a moviehouse that opened in 1923 and remains virtually unchanged. And then I rushed down to Boston for an all-Buster Keaton program presented in 35mm at the Somerville Theatre, a wonderful century-old showplace in Davis Square.

Both screenings went well, as did the frantic ride between them, which was a serious concern. Ogunquit and Boston are separated by about 75 miles, but on a Sunday afternoon in tourist season (which started last week), southbound highway traffic can slow to a crawl. Thankfully, no big delays at all until the I-93 weekend bridge replacement project that greeted me within sight of the Beantown skyline.

About the films: In Ogunquit, showed 'Clash of the Wolves' (1925) and 'Lighthouse by the Sea' (1924), two Rinty adventure flicks that went over well with the audience of about 40 people, all of whom sat way in the back of the 600-seat theater. (What is this, church?) Amused at one woman who asked for the air conditioning to be turned down; got to explain how the Leavitt's well-preserved state extended to the complete lack of any kind of heating or cooling system. With the weather, in 1923 you took what you got.

The Rin Tin Tin scores came together nicely, despite a relative paucity of material to work with these two, even after multiple screenings. I have a trusty old fanfare for 'Clash' that I used a lot, and for the bad guy did a lot of "minor chord, then down four steps" moves. 'Lighthouse,' which is set on the Maine coast, used a lot of 'Over the Ocean Waves' to lend things a nautical feel, and a minor-chord syncopated thing for the bad guys in this one.

One thing I try to do, even for a double feature starring the same actor (person or dog), is to come up with completely new music for each film. I avoid carrying over anything, as I feel each film should stand as its own cinematic world, and the music can help establish that. (Or not.) On Sunday, a couple of times during 'Lighthouse,' I caught myself heading toward material from the earlier film. One of my major techniques is to recycle and reinvent and repeat material during each film, so for another film immediately following, it can take a real effort to avoid reverting back to similar moves. But I think it's important to come up with different stuff—in the Rin Tin Tin flicks, especially to acknowledge the completely separate settings, one out West and the other on the rockbound coast of Maine.

The Leavitt features a wooden floor (great acoustics!) with a fairly steep pitch right down to the base of the stage. I've played here before and never had any problem with what you might call "keyboard slippage." So, in the first big key-pounding chase sequence in 'Clash,' I wasn't expecting the whole unit (stand and keyboard) to begin sliding downhill right from under my fingers. I've done some interesting things accompanying films, but until now I had not had to deal with a moving keyboard. Thankfully, the thing stopped sliding when it hit a stud supporting the stage extension, but I was never quite sure it wouldn't totally tip over in mid-show. So things got a little sedate, I guess, though people afterwards said they didn't notice any difference.

I want to thank the Ogunquit police department for putting up with me. Not only did an acquaintance end up talking an officer out of giving me a ticket for leaving my Forester too long in a nearby lot (while I was busy playing), but another officer had to "guard" me from behind after I pulled up in front of the theater to load out, which is a no-no because it's apparently a travel lane on busy Route 1. Ah, the glamour of show biz!

In Boston, it was a delight to return to the Somerville Theater, where they continue to fight the battle against an all-digital cinematic future. Manager Ian and Projectionist David were a pleasure to deal with, and the 35mm prints supplied by Tim Lanza of Douris Corp. were superb. Screened two shorts: 'One Week' and 'Scarecrow,' and then 'Our Hospitality' (1923). The 'Scarecrow' print in particular was a stunner: clear and sharp and great tonal range, and projected on a massive scale by the theater's Norelco machines, complete with amped-up bulb courtesy David. The immensely bright image that resulted was a revelation to me, and I've known these films for most of my life. Here's hoping the rest of the 35mm material will be equally good!

One unexpected hazard at the Somerville was...mosquitos! Or actually, one pesky little one who somehow found his way into the theater (with the weather so nice, the front doors were wide open) and then, once the show started, was drawn to my piano light. It took most of Buster's train ride to finally swat him away.

The score for 'Our Hospitality' came together very satisfyingly. As the house was new to me, I used mostly older material to stitch together a score that had music for Buster, the feud, Buster/Natalie, the train ride, and so on. It all flowed quite naturally. I even had a nice little signature for the kindly old parson. I think it was mostly a function of having played two films already that same day; this makes it easier to get "into the zone" where I'm just going with the film and lose track of my surroundings, though there's always a little part of me that listens for the audience and works with the reactions. It's an interesting state of mind and I'm sure it's not long before someone wants to hook up electrodes to me during a screening and collect some data.

Back to 'Our Hospitality': One scene that music can really punch up is the walk through town that Buster takes when he arrives. Buster doesn't know that a polite man accompanying him would like to kill him, even as they stroll down the street together, chatting amiably. The man keeps dashing off to frantically (and unsuccessfully) borrow a pistol, then returning to resume the facade with Buster. Switching back and forth, from Buster's serene melody to the agitated feud music, with appropriately timed silences, produced surprisingly big laughs.

All films had their "the crowd goes wild" moments. The biggest reactions I heard was when Rin Tin Tin leaps a wide canyon in 'Clash of the Wolves,' and then when Buster performs his waterfall rescue in 'Our Hospitality.' Such times, with everyone hooting and hollering, make it all worthwhile.

I get the next weekend off (from film screenings, anyway) but then it's a busy summer. And the fall/winter is starting to shape up, too, with continuing series in Wilton and Plymouth, N.H., and a new monthly series in the Manchester (N.H.) Public Library. An updated schedule (with screenings out as far as May 2012, ouch!) is posted on the 'Upcoming Screenings' page on this blog.

One Sunday, two states, three films

2011-06-06T08:46:00.002-04:00

Just a brief 'placeholder' note here about Sunday, June 5. Did music for a Rin Tin Tin double feature matinee at the wonderful Leavitt Theatre in Ogunquit, Maine, and hauled ass down to the equally wonderful Somerville Theatre in Davis Square in Somerville, Mass. (right outside Boston) to do music for an all-35mm Keaton program that included 'Our Hospitality' (1923). Phew! Way to kill a Sunday. But nice turnout for both programs, especially considering it was one of those beautiful late spring weekends, of which we seem to get so few here in New England. More later, but just now wanted to post a note to say thank you to the management and the audiences of both venues for giving an opportunity for silent film to return to the big screen!

Notes on scoring 'Speedway,' plus June preview

2011-05-29T23:02:00.003-04:00

Played for a fun 'auto racing' screening this afternoon (Sunday, May 29) at the Wilton (N.H.) Town Hall Theatre. Films in honor of the 100th running of the Indy 500: Chaplin's 'Kid Auto Races at Venice' (1914), the hyperkinetic Sennett comedy 'Lizzies of the Field' (1924) starring Billy Bevan, and 'Speedway' (1929), the late MGM drama starring William Haines and Anita Page.

Not a huge crowd, but what can you expect in the middle of a beautiful Memorial Day weekend in this part of the world? Better than I thought we'd get. "Greetings, racing fans!" I shouted after the opening fanfare. Why not? by virtue of some press in the local papers, we actually did get a few motorheads who wanted to check out the cars. I was told afterwards that the 'Speedway' scenes filmed at the Indy 500 track are a "priceless record" to those in the know.

I don't know about racecars, but I think 'Speedway' is a good film for music, not only because of all the racetrack (and airplane!) action, but also because I think it can help an audience today read the characters a little more clearly. Music can help convey a sense of the existing relationships in this run-of-the-mill film, which aren't very clear at the start.

For instance, at first you're not quite sure of the William Haines/Ernest Torrance thing -- it is boss/employee or father/son or something else? Warm music underscoring helps this relationship make sense right from the start.

I love the greasy spoon scene where Haines first meets Anita Page, and they end up outside in a frenzied hat exchange. Haines really sells the "conceited ass" character here, and at the same time is engaging enough for Page (and us) to find him likeable despite his antics. For music, I used an innocuous-sounding soft-shoe melody that I hope helped the scene flow, and punctuated the reactions to each other and to the harried waitress, Polly Moran.

The final extended race is a challenge because of the emotional line that's carried through from the start -- the Haines character gets bumped right before the flag, and spends much of the race going through a transformation that eventually puts him in a position to save the day. So you have to alternate from intense track scenes to intense emotional scenes, and do it in a way that keeps it all stoked.

What helped was I had a signature for the Haines character that could take many forms depending on how it's played, and it happened to fit well in the texture of the "exciting race" music, so during the race scenes I was able to weave the Haines theme into it whenever it cut back to him.

One thing I really liked is how they showed the warm-up lap of the race, prior to the official start, with the cars gradually revving up to higher and higher speeds before the flag is waved. What a great chance to start majestically and work gradually up to a faster and faster tempo. Corny, but simple and effective.

In the "I didn't know that!" department, while reading up on 'Speedway,' I learned that Anita Page received several marriage proposals in the mail from Benito Mussolini, and that very late in life (when she was in her 90s!) she returned to the screen in a series of roles in low-budget horror films. Gotta get me some of that!

Looking ahead: June sees a lot of Buster Keaton coming up. Sunday, June 5 at 7 p.m. is 'Our Hospitality' (1923), the first in our summer Keaton series at the Somerville (Mass.) Theatre in Davis Square. We're showing it in 35mm, along with the shorts 'One Week' and 'The Scarecrow,' all courtesy Tim Lanza and the Douris Corp. Really looking forward to this! And later, we're screening 'The General' (1926) in Plymouth N.H.; Ogunquit, Maine; and in Brandon, Vermont, where it's part of a day honoring the town's Civil War connection. (It was a big stop on the Underground Railroad, among other things.)

For a full schedule and all the details, check out the "Upcoming Screenings" page on this blog. Thanks!