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\n How did your passion for silent movies begin?<\/em><\/p>\n
The first time I saw a silent film I was nine years old and I saw a poster in my own town in Seattle where there was going to show silent films all day long with an organist playing the Wurlitzer organ. I didn\u2019t know anything about film at all, so I went because I heard there it was an organ, a great Wurlitzer organ, and that is why I went, because I heard about that magnificent instrument. So I went and I saw this man, who later in life I became friends with, called Andy Crow<\/b>, who played this silent films all day. He played Metropolis<\/i>, Nosferatu<\/i>, Buster Keaton<\/b>\u2019s Steamboat Bill Jr.<\/i> and Cops<\/i> all in one day and I just went crazy for it, I just thought it was fantastic. I listened to the organ which it was magnificent because it came up in this beautiful ground way. I was, you know, taken by that and then the film started with this gigantic screen and I was just three rows back and I was taken with it. And I went home to my mom and I said: \u201cI wanted to write music for old films\u201d and she said: \u201cWhat do you mean? I mean there\u2019s already music on it, why would you want to write music for these films? These films had no talking at all! There were just words [on screen].\u201d. She\u2019s been worried about my career ever since then and she still is! So, that\u2019s how it started for me, when I was a child, and I started renting films from the library and learned how to run a projector myself and started playing piano at my local church.<\/p>\n
How do you manage and change musical scores practically?<\/em><\/p>\n It\u2019s a much longer process than actually composing a new one because you are responsible for making sure that the music sounds precisely how the director had heard it at the time and being the musical associate – so to speak – for the Chaplin<\/b> family it\u2019s my job to make sure that the scores are being created in the way that came as close to how Charlie would have heard it in the time of its recording. Every film score that Charlie ever wrote he recorded [as well] so we\u2019ve got that kind of document already to help to do that. It\u2019s very painstaking mostly in the restoration of the players\u2019 parts more than the score because Charlie would write the score and then he\u2019d go into the studio and then he\u2019d make changes all the time, on the fly, as he did as a director he used the same way as a composer: he tried something he didn\u2019t like and he tried something different \u2018till he was just right. The closest document we have to restore a film score is the players\u2019 individual parts, that\u2019s why it takes so long, so, like in the case of Modern Times<\/i>, it took me a year and a half to do a ninety minutes film score. So I would have watched the piccolo part for ten seconds of music and see if I was correct in what I could hear and what the player would write in his hand and then I go to the flute and then I go to the oboe and then I go to the clarinet, etc. all the way down the line until I have more than ten seconds to restore so, those ten seconds would take me about a day to restore.<\/p>\n In which way do you link, as a composer, musical and comic moments and the movie editing?<\/em><\/p>\n As a composer it\u2019s your job to be able to watch the film in the proper way. In modern films\u2019 score you have a thing that is called spotting<\/i> when you sit down with the director and he says: \u201cWe need music here, for this long \u2026\u201d. Well, I only worked with directors that were dead! Therefore, I have to presume how I would think the music would work there, as a composer and as a director. It\u2019s a matter of watching the film several times, silently, and then starting from one scene to another, just taking a part and checking out the rhythm of the editing and trying to figure out the musical tempo of each scene and composing for that moment, but it is easier to come up with those ideas in your brain if you know how a silent director works.<\/p>\n Can you tell me about your musical work on Frank Borzage<\/b>‘s movie Seventh Heaven?<\/em><\/p>\n Seventh Heaven<\/i> was commissioned by the Orchestre Pylarmonique de Radio France and by Cineteca of Bologna. That\u2019s a film that I\u2019ve heard about from a good friend of mine, the historian Theodore Van Houten<\/b>. This is about fifteen years ago he told me this, so when I\u2019ve never seen it, he said: \u201cThis would be a perfect film for you.\u201d. And I said: \u201cOh, sure, sure, sure\u201d. And then I saw it and he was right because it had all the elements that I love, it was closely related to that period in Fox where he [Frank Borzage] was making that film alongside Sunrise<\/i>, next to Murnau<\/b>, and it has a very similar sort of dark quality, which I really like, pure american fantasy, which I rarely got to do american films, except for Keaton and it just had quite a bit of humor in it, quite a bit of drama and it was a really great experience for me. And when we did it here last year we had a wonderful turnout: unfortunately it rained that night so we had to do it in the Teatro Comunale, but it was a wonderful experience. When we did it in France, in Paris, it was also a great turnout as well I was just very pleased with it.<\/p>\n What are the differences in Buster Keaton\u2019s comicality and Charlie Chaplin\u2019s one the musical level?<\/em><\/p>\n Well, they are actually more similar than they are different, but they are uniquely similar in their own field because I think it all has to do with editing and the timing of the editing: there\u2019s a real rhythm to the way Chaplin\u2019s film are made and Keaton\u2019s film are made. Chaplin, of course, filmed a lot with a live little orchestrina on stage with him, I don\u2019t think Keaton did that but he certainly edited in a musical way. They are so easily identifiable in terms of rhythm and colour when you look at them silently. Some better than others: certainly Steamboat Bill Jr.<\/i>, The General<\/i>, those films that are very much edited and created in a great musical way and all of Chaplin\u2019s films are in that way and that\u2019s why he could write music for them. But [if] you look at Harold Lloyd<\/b> films as well, I can\u2019t figure those out at all, musically. I mean, it’s much more difficult to do Laurel<\/b> and Hardy<\/b> or Harry Langdon<\/b>, something like that, than other silent films comedians. The rhythm there is not merely as apparent as it is in Keaton and Chaplin.<\/p>\n What’s the film you preferred work for?<\/em><\/p>\n It\u2019s too difficult! I\u2019ll tell you, one of my favourite films that I\u2019ve wrote for – and I\u2019ve only done once – and it\u2019s probably my favourite, is Il Fu Mattia Pascal<\/i>, which I wrote for the Cineteca of Bologna and I just fell in love with that film and the music really shifts. Unfortunately it\u2019s three hours long and it\u2019s very difficult to get orchestras to tune scores for three hours long, it\u2019s hard to get that one programmed outside the film festivals, not like here, where they can do something like that – no problem. I think it\u2019s one of the best things I\u2019ve ever done for films in my opinion.<\/p>\n Carolina Caterina Minguzzi and Alessandro Criscitiello (Il Cinema Ritrovato’s editorial staff)<\/p>\n Click below to watch the videointerview made by Cinzia Baldi, Alice D’Isernia e Carolina Caterina Minguzzi (Il Cinema Ritrovato editorial staff)<\/p>\n
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