With LIVE Musical
Accompaniment!
Halloween Treats
Saturday, October 29 through Monday, October 31
AFI Silver screens two silent horror classics with a modern twist, with contemporary ensembles performing new scores. These Expressionist films assume the tone and mood of interpretations by a dynamic duo--the Silent Orchestra and the Baltimore-based trio Yeveto. Tickets for these programs are $20.
WAMU's James White in person!
NOSFERATU with Silent Orchestra
NOSFERATU, EINE SYMPHONIE DES GRAUENS, is F.W. Murnau's legendary plagiarism of Dracula. A lawsuit suppressed its US screenings for decades. Compared with Max Schreck's rat-like "Drac," all other screen bloodsuckers are mosquito-biters. This is the color-tinted version restored by the Munich Filmmuseum. The Silent Orchestra (keyboardist Carlos Garza and percussionist Rich O'Meara) employs sounds both natural and dreamlike-scraping gongs and mutant rooster calls-aurally mimicking the film's dichotomy between naturalism and the fantastic.
DIR F.W. Murnau; SCR Henrik Galeen; PROD Enrico Dieckmann and Albin Grau. Germany, 1922, b&w, 84 min.
Hosted by James White, local WAMU host of NPR's All Things Considered.
DER GOLEM with Yeveto
DER GOLEM's five chapters center around the Jewish people of Prague and a rabbi's solution to possible exile. The score comprises sinister sounds during the title credits, the haunting chaos of a kabbalistic ceremony, the mechanical fury of the Golem first coming to life, and the klezmer-inspired sounds of a Jewish celebration. Yeveto-Russell de Ocampo on piano, keyboards and melodica; Ben Hoffman on drums; and Gregory Rago on guitar, accordion and bass-create a soundtrack to complement the varying moods.
DIR Paul Wegener and Carl Boese; SCR Paul Wegener and Henrik Galeen, from the novel by Gustav Meyrink; PROD Paul Davidson. Germany, 1920, b&w, 75 min.
New 35mm print!
THE WICKER MAN
 One of the coolest cult classics from the 1970s, THE WICKER MAN is an occult thriller about sinister neo-pagan doings on a remote Scottish isle. Scripted by Anthony Shaffer (SLEUTH), the film stars Edward Woodward as an uptight constable from the mainland, flown out to investigate an anonymous tip about a missing girl. Once there, he's puzzled that the islanders seem unconcerned, flummoxed by the erotic advances of innkeeper's daughter Britt Ekland, and alarmed by naked nature worshipping. Assured by Christopher Lee's dandy Lord Summerisle that all is well--but warned to leave before May Day--Woodward presses on.
DIR Robin Hardy; SCR Anthony Shaffer; PROD Peter Snell. UK, 1973, 88 min. RATED R
|