Silent Films + Live Music Jan. 19-21 When it became clear ...
Live Music
Jan. 19-21
When it became clear back in November that Bush was about to retake the White House, it was with some difficulty that I refrained from drinking my way through to morning. Now, facing the little Shrub's inauguration on Thursday, I've planned a typically American escape from reality this week: I'm going to the movies.
As it turns out, the folks who handle programming for the Winter Garden at the World Financial Center have lined up three silent classics that should get me through. Poetically enough, they loosely relate to current events.
Legong (1935) will kick things off on Wednesday night. Shot on location in Bali in two-strip Technicolor and filed with all sorts of exotica to delight those back in the States, it was ripped to pieces by censors who objected to-heaven help us-bare breasts!
"We can't promise any clothing malfunctions," jokes Richard Marriott, the composer who penned all three of the fresh scores that will accompany the screenings. What he does promise sounds infinitely more interesting. After all, film in the early decades of the last century was cutting-edge art, but the music was usually drawn from standard rep. fake books. Marriott has taken his cues from the visual art on the screen and added his own creative touch. The Club Foot Orchestra will offer up live performances, augmented by a full gamelan contingent for Legong.
On Thursday we can flee tv coverage of the inaugural balls for a screening of Sergei Eisenstein's classic Battleship Potemkin (1925). Friday, with the reality of four more years really sinking in, Lon Chaney's immortal portrayal of the title character in The Phantom of the Opera will seduce and terrify-the monster behind the mask revealed!
"The silence [in these films] left a lot to the imagination," says Marriott. "They weren't trying to recreate reality. Because you don't hear them, they're not trying to immerse you in the same way that a modern action movie would. So you get to put a lot of yourself into it."
Though the Winter Garden has the acoustics of a mall food court, they still manage to stage a series of really great shows free to the public. John Schaefer of WNYC will host.
Winter Garden World Financial Center, 250 Vesey St. (betw. West & Liberty Sts.), 212-945-2600; 7, free.