>>PREVIEW
THE RETURN OF SILENT MOVIE MONDAYS
The Cameraman
Monday, February 19
The Crowd
Monday, February 26
Uptown Screen
For the last 35 years, Dennis James has devoted himself to the craft of preserving the silent film experience. Considered the unparalleled master of silent film accompaniment, James researches the original scores for classic silent films, filling in the literally 99 per cent of those whose scores are either partial or entirely lost. A teacher, scholar and organist whose ninth appearance at the Uptown Screen headlining the Cantos Music Foundation’s Silent Movie Mondays has already sold out all but one of its four shows, his standards are, to say the least, exacting.
Over the phone, as he readies himself for a screening of John Ford’s The Iron Horse at the Merrill Auditorium in Portland, Maine, his indignation is palpable as he discusses various other attempts to "update" classic silent films.
"I think that’s an abysmal lack of respect to all these people who created these (films)," he says. "It’s literally a travesty."
Examples of these flavours-of-the-week include an Austin rock band filling the entire running time of F.W. Murnau’s Sunrise with six songs repeated ad nauseum (proving, according to James, that "you cannot ruin a fine picture no matter what you do with it"), and upstart organists who use silent films as an opportunity to show off their improvisational skill. James believes these alternatives exist only because modern audiences have become inured to a world of constant sound. The same filtering that allows us to walk out of a Starbucks and instantly forget an hour of generic music, he notes, is exactly what allows audiences to ignore or accept a poorly chosen soundscape.
A historian whose decades of knowledge and ongoing research allow him to generate new scores, just as organists of the day were required to, James seeks out original prints, period instructional manuals, trade journals and first-hand accounts in the pursuit of authenticity. Citing other contemporary artists who he feels share his appreciation for the integrity of the silent film soundtrack, James lists American expatriate composer Carl Davis and the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, a five-piece orchestra based in Boulder, Colorado.
But while James’s interests lie in the past, his ability to entrance audiences in the present is what keeps him in demand. Beyond Cantos’s annual series, James draws thousands to outdoor screenings in San Diego’s Balboa Park and has developed devoted audiences across North America. Calgary’s enthusiasm, he says, is unparalleled, save perhaps for San Francisco’s historic Castro Theatre.
In fact, James is currently the only organist touring full-time as a silent film accompanist, negotiating the particular quirks of each venue’s unique organ while manning a system of controls whose complexity he likens to flying a plane. His unique combination of showmanship and historical fidelity has upheld his status as an international master, success he attributes to his devotion to the art form’s beginnings, even with audiences born decades after the last of the roaring silent films.
"If the question is that audiences don’t notice (authenticity), that’s a spurious claim at best because these films themselves aren’t what they used to be, (they’re) something else," says James. "(These films) were created with synchronized music so I can’t imagine why anyone would not want to screen them as the filmmaker intended."
Then there’s John Bailey.
The 23-year-old producer and DJ, who spins as "Metawon," was one of the DJs who took part in local theatre company Mob Hit’s first annual Old School Festival, a presentation of film and theatre that aimed to marry postmodern sensibilities to, variously, a play by the French dramatist Molière and silent films. As part of the Sweet Silence series, Bailey DJed a set for the classic vampire horror Nosferatu that included dark drum and bass, experimental jazz, and break beats.
He agrees that many artists use silent films as a kind of visual afterthought, even admitting that a friend once performed a set using entirely pre-recorded music – essentially hitting "play" on a CD player.
"In that case it’s less about considering what the movie would want and more doing it for your own agenda," he says.
After listening to Nosferatu’s original score, Bailey tracked the film frame by frame, trying to match its rising and falling tension. Far from being an over-glorified playlist, Bailey’s set included time-cued sound effects such as a creaking door, with some samples used for only 20 seconds at a time.
"I kind of had to sit back and think about the audience now and the audience then," he says. "I thought, ‘If someone was to write a score now, with the technology and the music, how would they approach it differently?’ I wanted the audience to see the movie in a way they never realized it could be seen or heard, make it more accessible or relatable."
"I generally overthink things," he adds.
Both James and Bailey began perfecting their crafts in their teens – James began touring at 16 and Bailey first experimented with a turntable at 15. The difference, of course, lies in the more than 30 year age gap between them and the equally considerable gulf between their respective styles. It’s a difference that Bailey sees as integral to their respective approaches, with the older James an established international commodity and the younger Bailey still spinning in the local scene. If the prospect of being a flavour-of-the-week bothers Bailey, it certainly doesn’t show.
"It could be a flash in the pan if your intention is to find something new and do more progressive works of art," concedes Bailey. "I always want to be making music, but I’m never particularly certain that this is the way I want to do it. So whereas he’s (James) found his niche and excels, I try not to define it in any one way yet." |
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