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Movies Forum Index » Silent Movies Forum » Saginaw, MI: THE GENERAL (1927)...
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| Bruce Calvert... |
 Posted: Sat May 24, 2008 10:13 pm |
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http://www.mlive.com/movies/index.ssf/2008/05/riverside_saginaw_film_festiva_1.html
Riverside Saginaw Film Festival books a silent movie with a live band, star
of "Mystery Science Theater 3000" and a film noir titled "Yesterday Was a
Lie"
by Janet Martineau | The Saginaw News
Friday May 23, 2008, 1:29 PM
A 1927 silent movie classic set to contemporary live music and a star from
the popular Comedy Central/Sci-Fi Channel "Mystery Science Theater 3000"
series are on the schedule of Riverside Saginaw Film Festival.
In its second year, the festival is slated for a Wednesday, June 25, through
Sunday, June 29, run at the Temple Theatre, Pit and Balcony Community
Theatre, Court Theater, Castle Museum of Saginaw County History, Hoyt
Library and Old Saginaw City Lawn Chair Film Festival venues.
Added this year is a free mini-film festival for youngsters, during which
they'll get a chance to make their own claymation-style characters, and a
short subject film contest in the categories of narrative, documentary and
animation/experimental.
Riverside Saginaw committees are still selecting the 10 to 14 feature films
which will show, many of them independent and foreign films.
But among the special events already booked are:
* "The General" silent movie starring Buster Keaton with live musical
accompaniment by Blue Dahlia of Kalamazoo.
The 1927 classic is a comedy set against the true Civil War story of a
stolen train and Union spies. Film critic Leonard Maltin, in his movie and
video guide, gives the movie four stars.
The Blue Dahlia quartet specializes in composing world-style music scores
for early Hollywood films and are veterans of both film festivals and the
independent music circuit.
Wrote the Detroit Free Press, "They are more adventurous than anyone else
dares to be."
Following the showing of the movie the band also will play a concert of its
other music and will answer audience questions about its unusual
instruments.
(snipped)
NOTE: The schedule is not posted on their website, so the screening date and
time have not been announced yet.
--
Bruce Calvert
--
Visit the Silent Film Still Archive
http://www.silentfilmstillarchive.com |
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| Darren... |
| Posted: Sun May 25, 2008 12:50 am |
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A silent film shown in Saginaw?!???!
Color me there! :)
Darren |
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| Bruce Calvert... |
| Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2008 4:42 pm |
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http://www.mlive.com/entertainment/saginawnews/index.ssf?/base/entertainment-1/121402562598450.xml&coll=9
Band spices up silent film classic with modern score
Saturday, June 21, 2008
JANET I. MARTINEAU
THE SAGINAW NEWS
With 10 or 11 silent films on its roster, the world/fusion band Blue Dahlia
considers Buster Keaton's ''The General'' the most complex it has scored.
''There are more than 20 independent pieces interwoven -- some stand alones
and some recurring motifs,'' says Carolyn Koebel, the percussionist with the
five-member group. ''That's a lot of music.
''And it has an Americana, bluegrass, folk feel -- it's more acoustic. But
then there is this war funk tune, which will challenge the audience. A
little tango, traditional Irish with a twist.''
Mid-Michigan will get a chance to check all that out when the group and the
movie link up at the Riverside Saginaw Film Festival at 7 p.m. Saturday,
June 28, at Pit and Balcony Community Theatre, 805 N. Hamilton.
The Kalamazoo-based Blue Dahlia will first perform a 50-minute concert of
its original non-movie world/fusion music, followed by the 80-minute Keaton
movie and ending with a question and answer period.
In ''The General,'' filmed in 1927, Confederate railroad engineer Keaton
becomes a one-man Army when both his girl and his engine are stolen by the
Union. The action culminates in the most expensive and elaborate special
effects scene of the entire silent film era.
Koebel says much of the music that accompanied silent films in their heyday
had a sameness to it, both in texture and emotion, because much of the time
only a pianist accompanied those early films.
''By contrast, today's movie soundtracks are more diverse with all kinds of
music, more variation. So when we got into this, composing new soundtracks
for silent movies, we took that approach.
''Our scores are more like the modern soundtrack sounds. They're jazzy,
rock/pop, Americana, experimental, all mixed in. And we toss in vocals as
well -- which really challenges the silent movie music notion as well.
''In 'The General' there is quite a lot of vocal work -- mostly as
commentary on the characters and some of their inner emotional dialogue.
Sometimes, too, we do vocalize or sing in different languages just to add
unusual texture.''
Collectively Blue Dahlia plays a variety of instruments -- guitar, mandolin,
percussion, vibraphone, hammered dulcimer, flute and penny whistle, ''and a
whole table of special effects.''
Blue Dahlia formed in 1995, says Koebel, and was playing clubs and writing
music when a friend bought a movie theater in Three Oaks and started a Sound
of Silence Festival showing old silent movies with new scores.
The friend heard the group and wondered if members would like to write a
score for one of the movies.
''We were going through lineup changes then, so I ended up doing it alone --
writing a percussion score for 'Nosferatu.' He invited us back next year; we
had a new guitarist who got excited because he was a film studies major who
loved the silent era and owned a Keaton/Chaplin catalog of movies ....''
And they were off and running, with Keaton's ''Seven Chances'' their first
full score in 2000.
Since then they've played a variety of music and film festivals around the
state -- although now they are limiting the film festival appearances in
favor of playing strictly music concerts.
Koebel says ''The General'' score ended up one of the group's most complex
because they had two new members at the time, ''very fired up folks who
liked films and liked collaborating, and we wrote the score together more
than normal.''
In most cases, she says, a band member will take ownership of a section of a
movie, saying he or she has an idea for it and then going home to craft it.
--
Bruce Calvert
--
Visit the Silent Film Still Archive
http://www.silentfilmstillarchive.com |
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