Ben Model is probably the best-known silent film accompanist in the Northeast. He has undertaken many projects to get obscure films out to the public. His recent release of Roland West’s The Bat is a striking example.

The visual quality is excellent for a nearly-lost 1926 movie. The UCLA Film & Television Archive scanned a 35 mm nitrate print, and Model’s Undercrank Productions converted it to a 2K digital version. He added his accompaniment to the film, capturing the moods and adding to the suspense.
(more…)

On Wednesday, October 9, at 8 PM Eastern US time, I’ll livestream the 1920 silent film, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, with my live accompaniment. This early horror film deals with a showman who controls a sleepwalker, making him commit murders. Or at least it seems that way. Nothing is quite real in this movie, which is as famous for its bizarre landscapes and buildings as for its story. Conrad Veidt, who plays the sleepwalker, is probably best known to modern audiences as Major Strasser in Casablanca.

As usual, I’ll improvise most of the music. However, there’s one classical piece which suits the movie so well that I’ll incorporate an excerpt from it.
(more…)

On September 28 I saw a presentation of Abel Gance’s 1923 silent film, La Roue, in its newly restored version, nearly seven hours long. Jeff Rapsis provided live accompaniment for the whole thing at the Brattle Cinema, and he made it to the end in fine form. Not a lot of people have seen the movie, especially in its full-length form, so I should say a few words on it even though I don’t often write movie reviews.

Gance is best known for Napoleon, another silent film of astonishing length. La Roue is divided into four parts or “epoques,” so perhaps the original idea was to present it in four sessions. It was presented in Cambridge with short intermissions after the first and third parts, and a longer break to eat after the second part. The focus is mainly on three characters, yet the movie doesn’t drag. It’s just depressing as hell. It starts with a train wreck, spectacularly presented for the time, and things just get worse from there. There is a certain amount of consolation at the end.
(more…)