Flicker Alley

[Gregory]

The junk percussion and most of the rest of it is totally fine, in my opinion, but what spoils it is the synthesizer. I'd been a pretty big fan of Mission of Burma before I ever heard Alloy and I would never have guessed this is what Miller would end up doing. But I've heard far worse, I'm a tough sell on silent film music in general, especially with synths. Alloy seems quite popular, and if it helps people get out and enjoy silents, I'm all for it.

[andyli]

So is any review of INFERNO floating around? It's out for a while and the price is high forever.

[MichaelB]

The Chaplin Keystone Project won Best Archive Restoration Project at last night's Focal International Awards, an honour shared by Lobster Films, the Cineteca di Bologna, the BFI, the Library of Congress and UCLA.

[oldsheperd]

So is any review of INFERNO floating around? It's out for a while and the price is high forever.

I've got it and watched it this past weekend. It's overall pretty solid. The transfer is nice and it's just overall a documentary on a film that never was. I didn't watch the extras however. It's a good film if you're a fan of things like Lost in La Mancha.

[Finch]

Anyone else getting a "the page could not be found" error when trying to load Flicker Alley's website? I'd prefer to preorder Laila from them rather than Amazon US.

[triodelover]

Anyone else getting a "the page could not be found" error when trying to load Flicker Alley's website? I'd prefer to preorder Laila from them rather than Amazon US.

Just tried and got the same result.

[John Edmond]

DVD Talk review of Inferno.

[Finch]

Beaver on Laila & Inferno Blu-Ray

[Alloyorchestra]

Perhaps I can shed some light on our new project - Wild and Weird.

The films were chosen to represent my favorite edgy and odd short films of the silent era. It is my hope to help dispel the myth that silent films are all sentimental or melodramatic, and to show the astounding breadth of styles and subject matter that was explored during the first decades of filmmaking.

We chose to mix some well known films (Trip to the Moon, Play House) with some that have never been seen on DVD at least in the US (Artheme Swallows His Clarinet, Windser McKay's Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend - The Pet (different from the Porter/Vitagraph film of the same name), The Acrobatic Fly.

All are films from the collections of David Shepard and Lobster Films (and have the typically excellent production that Mr. Shepard is known for).

Shepard and I spent a good bit of time on the selection of films. Shepard made sure to include some new titles that hadn't been seen before.

Alloy Orchestra will be touring with the films from this DVD, starting this summer. They will be divided into two live shows: Wild and Weird, and Not Just for Kids (with will include Keaton's One Week and Arbuckle's Back Stage). Tomorrow, a certain well regarded festival will be announcing the premiere screening of Wild and Weird - stay tuned.

Re: Alloy's "pot's and pans" style of music -- I would venture to say that Jonathan 5 isn't very well informed about Alloy's scores which run the gamut from highly percussive to very melodic, avant guard to jazz to classical to tin pan alley. In particular I would point to our two recent Criterion releases - Underworld and Last Command which are both very melodic and contain virtually no junk metal percussion. I would also point to Blackmail and one of our first scores, The Wind (never released on DVD).

Re: Roger Miller's participation in Alloy. I first saw Roger perform with Mission of Burma (an energetic post punk guitar/bass/drums trio) in Boston in 1979. The next day I encountered Roger performing Bach Toccata and Fugues on a portable pump organ in the subway at Harvard Square. I was pretty impressed by his diverse tastes and musical capabilities. I gave him a quarter.

I have enjoyed Mr. Miller's wildly original musical musings through 3 decades of explorations into virtually every style of music, and have had the pleasure of performing with him in quite a number of ensembles and on a variety of sountracks (in addition to Alloy).

I can say that Roger is not a giant fan of the synth either, but it is a practical way of providing a diverse number of instrumental sounds in a portable package. Alloy does make sure that the synth doesn't dominate the music too much - at any time there are always 2 of the 3 musicians playing acoustic instruments (percussion, clarinet, accordion, musical saw, glockenspiel, banjo, penny whistle etc.).

Of course I can't argue with the fact that a couple of the respondents here don't enjoy Alloy's music. But frankly, the old adage - "You can't please all the people all the time" perfectly describes my attitude to our detractors. And really, If I couldn't rile up a few stuffed shirts with our intentionally innovative music - I would feel like I failed to explore any new terrain

Best,

Ken Winokur
Director/Clarinet/Perussion
Alloy Orchestra
alloyorchestra.com

[whaleallright]

Of course I can't argue with the fact that a couple of the respondents here don't enjoy Alloy's music. But frankly, the old adage - "You can't please all the people all the time" perfectly describes my attitude to our detractors. And really, If I couldn't rile up a few stuffed shirts with our intentionally innovative music - I would feel like I failed to explore any new terrain

If you assume that those who don't like your music are "stuffed shirts," then you don't really seem to be taking criticism in stride as you suggest. I think there are as many people who find Alloy's accompaniments corny as people who find it "innovative."

[Alloyorchestra]

If you assume that those who don't like your music are "stuffed shirts," then you don't really seem to be taking criticism in stride as you suggest. I think there are as many people who find Alloy's accompaniments corny as people who find it "innovative."

Hi Johan,

I don't think that I suggested that I take criticism in stride. It's always difficult. But since the people who criticize are always on the web, and are almost always anonymous, I can't really learn much from them. How do you know what their perspective is? Where do they live? How many silent films have they seen? What type of accompaniment do they like? What other music do they listen to? Would they like the composers and groups that I like (Harry Partch, Danny Elfman, Schoenberg, The Rachaels, Traditional Cuban percussion, Edgar Varese, Yousou N'Dour, ragtime in general, King Oliver, Tom Waits, The Gang of Four, Billy Holliday.....).

Nobody every comes up to us at shows and tells us they didn't like our shows (on the contrary, at shows it seems like everybody is having a wonderful time!).

There a lot of people who don't like us because we're not traditional. There's some who simply don't like percussion music, or synths (as we've is the case here). Others apparently think we're corny (that's a new one for me). That's all reasonable. I have my own likes and dislikes.

But my experience is that the vast numbers of people enjoy our shows. And that ranges from first timers to critics, programmers of the major festivals, cultural centers and independent cinemas, and my mother.

You have to just accept that people are always going to disagree with you or any artistic endeavor. You accept there are people in the audience that appreciate your music, and you just have to accept that there will be others who don't.

Even I don't love everything we do. That's the nature of working collaboratively with other musicians.

Ken

[Gregory]

To preface this, I don't know if this is a result of Google Alerts or something, but having an artist register to reply to comments reminds me of something I still think was unfortunate: the thread about Manufacturing Consent, in which I wrote up what was overall a raving gush, but noted that the subject of the documentary had some misgivings about the project on principle (a result of his misgivings about being an individual in the spotlight in general). Codirector Mark Achbar then joined and posted a reply to only that point in a way that seemed to me a little defensive. By the time I replied, hoping to clarify soon after, he'd left the "discussion" for good. This was a filmmaker I really admire, and I think the only time an established filmmaker has joined our forum.

Now, my comment above seems to be part of what Ken is replying to, but it was mixed and said several different things. When I said this is not what I imagined Miller doing after having been a fan of Mission of Burma, I didn't mean to imply it was a step down in any way--just very different.
I should probably admit that I haven't listened to most of what Alloy Orchestra has recorded for DVD. I could rattle off about three or four I've heard in their entirety and was not won over. But the general reason is that I usually do not find that the music posthumously added to silents enhances my enjoyment of the films. With comedies they're usually neutral, give or take. With other genres, I find that the music tends to grate, sounding like it's meant to directly arouse my feelings, sometimes using stock tactics, techniques, and musical quotations to create exaggerated moods. If a score doesn't strike me as something special, I usually shut it off after about five minutes (as I did with the Criterion Sternbergs, though that was probably the default option: Robert Israel?). And I'm generally not a fan of synths, as I said, especially when they're used in an idiomatic way. I much prefer the way they were used by Sun Ra, krautrock, kosmische musik, and other early analog synths and unusual recent stuff.
So I'm unusual. Please don't take it personally. And of course I, nor anyone else I'd hope, would never come up to you after a gig and tell you this in person--?? But I thought the KTL take on the Phantom Carriage was an impressive and fascinating score for a silent. So I'm hardly one of the stuffed shirts who's riled up by Alloy Orch's music.
I also love Partch and everything else you mentioned (assuming you mean Rachel's) with the excetion of most of Elfman. Therein may be the area where our tastes in film music differ. I thought his work for the Pee-Wee Herman films was an inspired homage to Rota, but most of the rest of what he's composed doesn't hold its interest over multiple listens.

Welcome, Ken, and I hope you will stick around for discussion now and then.

[Jonathan S]

It is my hope to help dispel the myth that silent films are all sentimental or melodramatic.

Most people are introduced to silent films through slapstick comedy (or they see it at some point), so I doubt this alleged myth is prevalent - though personally I don't have a problem with sentiment or melodrama. It's how the film-maker handles them which counts with me.

some that have never been seen on DVD at least in the US (Artheme Swallows His Clarinet, Windser McKay's Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend - The Pet(different from the Porter/Vitagraph film of the same name), The Acrobatic Fly.

Wasn't Artheme on Flicker Alley's Saved from the Flames and The Pet on Milestone's McKay DVD? I have other editions but they are included on listings for these releases. I would have liked a decent copy of The Red Spectre but I can't justify buying the release just for that and the one or two other shorts I don't already own.

If I couldn't rile up a few stuffed shirts with our intentionally innovative music - I would feel like I failed to explore any new terrain

If preferring music in a style that would typically or ideally have been heard at the time of a film's release makes me a "stuffed shirt" then I'm happy with that moniker. I dislike seeing Shakespeare or nineteenth-century opera in Nazi uniforms or space-suits for the same reason I dislike hearing obviously anachronistic music for silent films. It distracts me from the original "text" and calls attention to itself. I'm not directing this criticism particularly at the Alloy - some of the worst silent film scores I've heard are on the European Arte channels, so abrasively avant-garde I had to turn them off. Even some of Neil Brand's scores, such as Piccadilly, seem to me unsuccessful because they are infused with what sound like later - 1940s or 50s - musical styles and it's particularly jarring when, as in Piccadilly, musical performances are shown within the film (countdown to Neil Brand's registration here....) I also find synthesizers, even when playing music from the film's period, inappropriate because of their artificial modern sound. I understand they might be used for cost reasons, but what's wrong with a piano?

...since the people who criticize are always on the web, and are almost always anonymous, I can't really learn much from them. How do you know what their perspective is? Where do they live? How many silent films have they seen? What type of accompaniment do they like? What other music do they listen to? Would they like the composers and groups that I like (Harry Partch, Danny Elfman, Schoenberg, The Rachaels, Traditional Cuban percussion, Edgar Varese, Yousou N'Dour, ragtime in general, King Oliver, Tom Waits, The Gang of Four, Billy Holliday.....)

I really don't understand what most of this has to do with the issue. My general musical preferences have little bearing on how I like silent films accompanied. For instance, I admire and enjoy Billie Holiday too, but her professional career had barely started by the end of the American silent era. Or is "Billy Holliday" somebody else who was active earlier?

But, as I wrote in my original post, I wish the project well if it introduces new and younger people to silent films. Based on my reaction (including headaches) to previous Alloy scores, and the duplication of so many films I already own, it just isn't for me - or several of my friends who normally buy just about every silent film release.

[Alloyorchestra]

It is my hope to help dispel the myth that silent films are all sentimental or melodramatic.

Let me take another stab at this... Why did we pick these films? Because I liked them. It's as simple as that. They are all unusual and some are really surprising. They are definitely outside of the mainstream of silent films and express a dark or quirky sensibility.

I do see that there is an attitude that many silent films are sentimental or melodramatic. I believe that this is true myself. But I know that there are other types of films out there, and those are the ones that usually attract me.

Wasn't Artheme on Flicker Alley's Saved from the Flames and The Pet on Milestone's McKay DVD? I have other editions but they are included on listings for these releases. I would have liked a decent copy of The Red Spectre but I can't justify buying the release just for that and the one or two other shorts I don't already own.

Artheme wasn't in the Flicker Alley - Saved from the Flames, but I think it was on a Lobster European release probably of the same name. The Red Spectre on this edition is from a vintage hand colored print, and is unbelievably gorgeous. If you own virtually every silent film release, then perhaps this collection isn't for you. There is some new material, and some really nice versions of some more familiar material.

If I couldn't rile up a few stuffed shirts with our intentionally innovative music - I would feel like I failed to explore any new terrain

If preferring music in a style that would typically or ideally have been heard at the time of a film's release makes me a "stuffed shirt" then I'm happy with that moniker. I dislike seeing Shakespeare or nineteenth-century opera in Nazi uniforms or space-suits for the same reason I dislike hearing obviously anachronistic music for silent films. It distracts me from the original "text" and calls attention to itself. I'm not directing this criticism particularly at the Alloy - some of the worst silent film scores I've heard are on the European Arte channels, so abrasively avant-garde I had to turn them off. Even some of Neil Brand's scores, such as Piccadilly, seem to me unsuccessful because they are infused with what sound like later - 1940s or 50s - musical styles and it's particularly jarring when, as in Piccadilly, musical performances are shown within the film (countdown to Neil Brand's registration here....) I also find synthesizers, even when playing music from the film's period, inappropriate because of their artificial modern sound. I understand they might be used for cost reasons, but what's wrong with a piano?

Piano is great (and one of the instruments that the sampling synthesizer reproduces best), but it is very limited. I prefer a wider pallet - orchestral instruments, modern instruments (like theater organs or saxaphones), and of course a very generous selection of percussion instruments.

I'm not looking to get insulting here, and definitely wasn't pointing the "stuffed shirt" comment at anyone in particular (as I said, you are all unknown to me, I wouldn't presume to claim that I know you or your personalities).

I looked up the definition of "stuffed shirt" -

"a stuffed shirt - someone, especially a man, who behaves in a formal, old-fashioned way and thinks they are very important"

That does sound pretty much like your own description of yourself, and the fact that you are publishing your opinions for the world to see does sound like you have a strong sense of self importance. Which is fine as far as I'm concerned.

it just isn't for me - or several of my friends who normally buy just about every silent film release.

This is interesting to me. I don't know anybody who buys most silent film releases. I can't afford that many myself. In fact, among my friends, I don't know anybody who buys very many. Typical silent film releases sell very few copies, often as few as a thousand or two. And that number seems to be dropping. Most people won't have many or even any of these films.

This collection of films was chosen first as a live show, and then later we decided to put out a DVD. We will start touring with it (in a somewhat shorter form) at the SF Silent Film Festival this July, and then will immediately take it to the Animator Fesitval in Poznan Poland. We will tour extensively with the films in the coming years.

[Alloyorchestra]

One of the primary reasons for replacing intertitles is to meet the Library of Congress requirements for the issuance of a "restoration copyright". New music and new intertitles usually are enough to justify a new copyright. So there are lots of prints floating around with non original titles, or no titles at all.

If a publisher wants to work with a public domain film, but only has a copyrighted restored version to start with, you can usually get away using the print by stripping away the titles and recreating them. If nothing else, it makes it very difficult to trace the origin of the elements used.

Also, there is some historical justification of putting out foreign editions of silent films with different titles in the language of the country that is showing that print.

That said, I have no idea what the reason for Flicker Alley's new titles.

[Jonathan S]

Artheme wasn't in the Flicker Alley - Saved from the Flames

Then Flicker Alley should change the listing on their website where it is the fourth item on Program (presumably Disc) 2.

I looked up the definition of "stuffed shirt" -
"a stuffed shirt - someone, especially a man, who behaves in a formal, old-fashioned way and thinks they are very important"
That does sound pretty much like your own description of yourself, and the fact that you are publishing your opinions for the world to see does sound like you have a strong sense of self importance. Which is fine as far as I'm concerned.

I'm certainly old-fashioned when it comes to "old" art or entertainment. Formal, no - I don't even own a suit or a tie, let alone a stuffed shirt! And if publishing opinions on the web makes me self-important then so are we all on this and other forums. But it has far more to do with the importance I attach to silent films.

[Gregory]

Yes, Artheme is in there, disc 2.
I'm not sure what the relevance is of talking about "most people." Most people have no interest in silents at all, and probably only a small number of those could even potentially become fans of films of that era even if they saw the right silents presented the right way. We're a relatively tiny fan community, but judging from this any other silent-focused message boards, there are a decent number among us who buy most silent releases, at least most of those available in R1, or at least quite a lot of them. I don't think anyone was every saying this new Flicker Alley release was aimed at us though; it's for Alloy Orchestra fans and those who don't already have lots of silents on DVD.

[Gregory]

"a stuffed shirt - someone, especially a man, who behaves in a formal, old-fashioned way and thinks they are very important"

[To Jonathan S] That does sound pretty much like your own description of yourself, and the fact that you are publishing your opinions for the world to see does sound like you have a strong sense of self importance. Which is fine as far as I'm concerned.

What? That's preposterous. I won't even say anything more about it for any number of reasons, one being that you already completely ignored my attempt to respectfully broach a discussion about tastes in silent film music in light of my own preferences and tastes. I guess I shouldn't have bothered.

[Sloper]

Piano is great (and one of the instruments that the sampling synthesizer reproduces best), but it is very limited. I prefer a wider pallet - orchestral instruments, modern instruments (like theater organs or saxaphones), and of course a very generous selection of percussion instruments.

I don't want to make this seem like a pile-on, but just wanted to take issue with this a little bit. I often get the feeling that composers go through such a line of reasoning, but can never fathom why they would try to attain this 'wider palette' with a synthesiser. Joseph Turrin's score for Intolerance is a good example: any of those melodies would have sounded a hundred times less naff on a piano, and he might have been able to put a bit more variety and fluidity into the score. And it's incredibly frustrating, at least to me, that Neil Brand chose to do an electronic orchestral version of his (by all accounts wonderful and popular) piano score for The Life Story of David Lloyd George. I can understand why you might ideally want an orchestra, to create a sense of grandeur for instance, but grandeur tends to be exactly what the electronic approach negates - a synthesiser gives you all the pomposity and none of the magnificence, if that makes sense.

And surely you can't really mean that the piano is 'very limited'?

[Alloyorchestra]

What? That's preposterous. I won't even say anything more about it for any number of reasons, one being that you already completely ignored my attempt to respectfully broach a discussion about tastes in silent film music in light of my own preferences and tastes. I guess I shouldn't have bothered.

Look, I'm really not trying to pick a fight here. And I really wasn't thinking of anybody in particular when I said "stuffed shirts". It's obvious that many traditionalists don't like Alloy. And Alloy isn't particularly concerned with trying to do traditional accompaniments. Sorry, if I offended you. I was, oddly. agreeing with your own description.

I've been thinking on the description above of Alloy's music being "corny" which struck me as odd. Most people talk about our modern sound, the junk metal, the harshness of some of our music. But I guess some of our music is corny - parts of Steamboat Bill, Masters of Slapstick, possibly even Manslaughter. A lot of silent films are corny as is a lot of music from the era.

But on Nitrateville a while ago our score for The General was called "depressing". I would label our score for Nosferatu as harsh or even brutal. Strike - Powerful. South - Subtle. Blackmail - serious and understated. Every film is different and Alloy performs in many different styles. We do try to match the music to the film. It was the point I was originally trying to make. Even if you haven't liked some of our music, that doesn't mean that you won't like something else (unless you discount it simply for being non traditional).

And, needless to say, although I am not a stuffed shirt (more of a torn t-shirt kind of guy), I also have a strong sense of self worth. As far as I'm concerned there a good bit of ego behind anyone who puts his opinions in print for the world to see. No criticism intended.

I guess that ultimately, I find discussions of tastes to be frustrating. We've all got them, and talking about them doesn't get very far. I guess I'll check out here.

And yes, I was clearly mistaken about the inclusion of Artheme on Saved from the Flames.

[MichaelB]

This has nothing to do with Flicker Alley, so apologies for going off-topic, but a few days ago the BFI published a short documentary on Simon Fisher Turner's new score for The Great White Silence (1924), during which he explains why he thinks that a generically piano-based "silent film accompaniment" wouldn't have worked.

[What A Disgrace]

So how 'bout that box of Soviet silents I heard about, eh?

[Finch]

Congratulations to Flicker Alley for another fine release: Laila was one of the discoveries of this year for me and the DVD looks very strong. The only nitpick I have is that the subtitles went by very fast in a few instances, literally for a second, before disappearing again. I can't commend on the score since I can't abide by silent film music most of the time (the Murnau Nosferatu a rare exception) but the film is a treat and should hopefully get a few votes in the end of year polls.

[Ann Harding]

An announcement made by David Shepard on Nitrateville:

Assuming the contract now with the Cinematheque's legal department goes through, next year Film Preservation Associates will be releasing through Flicker Alley an Albatros DVD box set with KEAN, LE BRASIER ARDENT, FEU MATHIAS PASCAL, GRIBICHE and LES NOUVEAUX MESSIEURS; also the complete serial LA MAISON DE MYSTERE as a separate release.

Great news. All the best Albatros titles are going to be on DVD.

[Ashirg]

So how 'bout that box of Soviet silents I heard about, eh?

LANDMARKS OF EARLY SOVIET FILM
A 4-Disc DVD Collection of 8 Groundbreaking Films

Release Date: September 20, 2011

This groundbreaking collection features eight seminal films from the Soviet silent era - all are new to DVD:

Sergei M. Eisenstein's last silent and seldom seen Old and New (1929)

Dziga Vertov's Stride, Soviet (1926)

Victor Turin's Turksib (1930)

Esther Shub's The Fall of the Romanov Dynasty (1927)

Boris Barnet's The House on Trubnaya (1928)

Lev Kuleshov's The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks (1924) and By the Law (1926)

Mikhail Kalatozov's Salt for Svanetia (1930)

These films are presented with original Russian intertitles with English subtitles (optional on 4 of the films) except Turksib and The Fall of the Romanov Dynasty which have full-screen English intertitles; all have musical scores new for these editions by Robert Israel, Eric Beheim, Alexander Rannie and Zoran Borisavljevic.