silent film thing
Feb. 13th, 2025 09:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
unbibiumLast night I attended a showing advertised as Buster Keaton's "Sherlock Jr" scored by rock music... or something. I didn't really pay attention to the description, if I'd known they were just going to play some album over the silent films then I would have not bothered
They showed two Buster Keaton films, "Balloonatics" with brain-melting dubstep played over it, and "Sherlock Jr" with an REM album played over it. Some song changes seemed to coincide with scene changes but by and large it did not resemble a movie score in any way.
In between the two films was a video clip where the "producer" of the whole thing gave a quick self-congratulatory monologue about how his Austin-based company is keeping these films alive...
The thing about silent films is that they depended on the theater to provide sound content, and I thought this meant a musical score. and indeed when I saw "Nosferatu" a few years ago, there was a band performing a score designed directly for the movie, complete with an eerie drone that played when the vampire was on screen. But I also saw "Hunchback of Notre Dame" in which it felt like they were just improvising, and when the on-screen gigantic bell rang nothing special happened.
one of these days I'd like to see a film like this played with its original score. I've heard they do this at the Orpheum Theater sometimes.
one of these days I'd like to see a Fotoplayer in person.
They showed two Buster Keaton films, "Balloonatics" with brain-melting dubstep played over it, and "Sherlock Jr" with an REM album played over it. Some song changes seemed to coincide with scene changes but by and large it did not resemble a movie score in any way.
In between the two films was a video clip where the "producer" of the whole thing gave a quick self-congratulatory monologue about how his Austin-based company is keeping these films alive...
The thing about silent films is that they depended on the theater to provide sound content, and I thought this meant a musical score. and indeed when I saw "Nosferatu" a few years ago, there was a band performing a score designed directly for the movie, complete with an eerie drone that played when the vampire was on screen. But I also saw "Hunchback of Notre Dame" in which it felt like they were just improvising, and when the on-screen gigantic bell rang nothing special happened.
one of these days I'd like to see a film like this played with its original score. I've heard they do this at the Orpheum Theater sometimes.
one of these days I'd like to see a Fotoplayer in person.
