rec.arts.movies.past-films

> From: David Oberman
> Organization: Road Runner High Speed Online
> Newsgroups:
> Date: Thu, 06 Sep 2007 14:39:15 -0700
> Subject: Re: Adding Music to Silent Films
>
> "steve" wrote:
>
>> My point is that adding a musical score is an artistic reworking of the film
>> itself. Music may enhance a films watchability for some (my wife flatly
>> refuses to watch in silence), and may arguably improve the film, but it is a
>> significant alteration of the viewing experience and, in that sense, of the
>> entire film product.
>
> I agree. Not only do I find the contemporary scores added to silents
> noisy & intrusive, but most of those I've heard (on TCM or on discs
> from companies like Kino) sound totally amateurish, too. Why do so
> many of them sound low-tech? They're the equivalent of garage bands of
> weekend warriors. They have that MIDI-like artificiality sound. Give
> me the great scores (like Walton's scoring for "Richard III") any day.

A few years ago I had the misfortune of attending a screening of one of the
Soviet pre-sound classics-- I've mercifully forgotten which one, but it may
have been something by Pudovkin. The film was presented with live musical
accompaniment by a well-known local musical collective of art-school wankers
who at the time were making something of a specialty of providing music for
silent film presentations. This was the first time I'd heard the group. They
incorporated everything from a small synth and various other electronics to
a violin to a clarinet to assorted pots and pans into their musical
soundscape.

The result was, perhaps predictably, dreadful. I initially tried to force
myself to perceive an actual relationship between the images on the screen
and the music being played, and finally had to concede defeat. The three
musicians actually paid little or no attention to the film itself. I
periodically would glance, annoyed, in their direction as they meandered off
into another thicket of quasi-"avant-garde" musical mumblings, and I was
stunned to note that often none of them would even be looking at the screen
as they played. I don't mean to suggest that the music they generated that
night-- improvised, apparently-- was completely devoid musical interest in
and of itself, but I found it infuriating that their idea of "accompaniment"
seemed to consist of constantly trying to steal the show from the film, as
it were. It was a gross insult to a great work of film art and to its
creators.

Not surprisingly, the rest of the audience seemed to love this clumsy
shotgun marriage. I think the musicians could have done nothing but sing
off-key renditions of songs from "Snow White" during the film while
accompanying themselves on nose flutes and there would have still been
audience members in ecstacy at the utter *coolness* of it all. I'm all for
multimedia experimentation, but not when it means subordinating a great work
of art to the purposes of lesser artists who aren't fit to figuratively
shine the shoes of the original creator (see: Branagh, Kenneth: Career
Overview). I've heard similarly "modern" musical tracks imposed on silent
classics by TCM, Kino and others and it's clear that those involved haven't
the dook of an idea what the phrase "accompaniment" means. Sorry, guys; it
doesn't mean "inspired by", and it certainly doen't mean "Hey, forget about
those scratchy images up on the screen and listen to this funky-ass outside
shit *I'm* laying on you here". Many years ago I was fortunate enough to
catch Gaylord Carter, one of the last surviving actual silent-film
accompanists, as he provided live piano accompaniment in the grand old style
for a screening of Sjostrom's "The Wind"-- the film itself was introduced by
Lillian Gish, also in person, but that's another story. The difference
between that experience and the one I suffered at the hands of the
art-school boys could not possibly be more profound.
GMW