Preview
SILENT MOVIE MONDAYS
February 16 to March 8
Uptown Screen
It seems obvious to say that film is not solely a visual medium, but it is nevertheless true that we generally speak of "seeing" or "watching" a movie rather than hearing or listening to one. Even the word "movies" – originally derived from the term "moving pictures" – indicates a bias toward the image while sound remains, quite literally, the invisible art of film production.
Yet, is it possible to imagine the shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho without hearing the chilling staccato violins of Bernard Herrmann’s score? Or Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now without its unsettlingly intimate voiceover narration, recorded with actor Martin Sheen whispering into a microphone as though he was speaking tenderly to a lover in bed? Or, for a more contemporary example, Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy minus the hissing and spluttering apoplexy of Gollum? Clearly, sound design – a complex discipline that incorporates music, voice and sound effects – is often as integral to a movie as its cinematography and visual effects.
THE SOUND OF SILENTS
While today’s audiences expect this basic level of sophistication with respect to film audio, it may be surprising to learn that the complementary relationship between sound and images stretches all the way back to the era of so-called silent movies in the earliest days of cinema. Filmmakers weren’t yet able to synchronize picture and dialogue, but French cinema pioneers the Lumière Brothers exhibited their very first films with live musical accompaniment performed by a pianist in the theatre. As the years went by, this practice evolved, and film music grew more and more elaborate with respect to both instrumentation and orchestration until the advent of "talkies" – movies with synchronized dialogue soundtracks – in 1927 with The Jazz Singer.
SILENT MOVIE MONDAYS
Now, each February in Calgary, Silent Movie Mondays revives this pre-talkie period in film history to show us that silent movies were never meant to be silent at all. San Diego-based musician and film historian Dennis James presides over each screening as emcee and performer, introducing the movies with a brief but engaging anecdotal history lesson before sitting down at the Chinook Theatre Organ to provide musical accompaniment to classics starring Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Lon Chaney, Sr. or Mary Pickford. James’s goal is always to play a score that is authentic to the period, and to play it better than anyone has ever done, but for the attentive listener his historically informed performances also offer a crash course in the various ways that melody, rhythm, harmony and orchestration affect our experience of the movies.
"I can take any piece of music and make it happy, sad, tense, released, melodic, harmonic, without melody," he says. "I can take any piece of music and distort it to any function I wish."
In this sense, James is a talented improviser with a huge amount of control over his audiences and their reactions to the movies he loves so dearly. He knows that he is partly responsible for the legacy of a certain era of film presentation, and he wants to entertain people but also to educate them about the history of film music.
"Most people think (I’m) filling the void – making music just because it’s missing," James says. "That’s what most people, if you were to ask them, think I’m doing."
SETTING THE TONE
To correct that perception, James employs the original scores whenever possible or uses cue sheets, standardized forms that suggested familiar musical excerpts for each scene in a given film. But his abilities are put to the test when none of these materials are available and he is forced to improvise a score based on his knowledge of the music and performance styles of the period. This happened unexpectedly in Calgary a couple of years ago when the scheduled print of La Boheme, starring Lillian Gish, didn’t show up.
"I had to make my own score for another movie, and (the audience) knew it. It was exhilarating…. We all had the option to just cancel the show, but I said ‘No, no, we can do this.’
"And then when I actually began playing… you were hearing melodies that I was making up, you were hearing all the tonalities and things that all film music people do, but in real time.
"I was even able to remember most of the themes to play them later, which is really hard to do on the fly – ‘What did I play an hour ago?’ I knew I had to do that, so while I was playing I was memorizing what I was coming up with to be able to distort and use it and manoeuvre it later."
THE SUM IS GREATER…
In the end, Dennis James’s music is crucial to our understanding of classic cinema. Whether considering the role of sound in the pre-talkie era or in films with synchronized dialogue, one thing is certain – the gestalt of sound and image is considerably more effective than either stimulus on its own. By gaining an appreciation for film sound, we begin to be more sensitive to the complexities of the entire cinematic experience. |
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