A University of Huddersfield researcher is putting the sound back into silent movies.
Musician Jonathan Best – established as a pianist and festival organiser – is playing a key role in rediscovering the art of improvised accompaniment for the masterpieces of early cinema, and his latest epic challenge has been to play for a screening of the renowned 1925 version of Ben Hur.
This was one of the events during the second Yorkshire Silent Film Festival. Organised by Jonathan, it featured screenings at 15 venues throughout the county and the final event is on Wednesday (May 31) at the University of Huddersfield when one of the best-known contemporary exponents of movie accompaniment, Neil Brand, will play for a screening of Marlene Dietrich’s first film as a leading lady.
Jonathan is a postgraduate researcher at the university where he also teaches improvisation to music students.
Neil is at the University’s St Paul’s Hall tonight at 8pm for a screening of The Woman Men Desire, a rarely seen classic shot in Berlin in 1928 and featuring Marlene Dietrich’s first starring role as a femme fatale.
Jonathan’s activities at the festival included his accompaniment to a screening of “the most epic silent film of them all” – 1925’s Ben Hur.
He said: “Providing accompaniment for silent movies is an art that has had to be “reimagined” by musicians. It is about providing film music, but generating it as an improviser rather than as a composer and you need to create a sound world that makes sense for the film. The point is to be the bridge between the audience and these very old films.
“The absence of sound isn’t a deficiency,” he said. “Silent film became an extremely sophisticated means of telling a story – very different from sound film. It is a very distinct approach to telling a story through moving images and with live music and it has things in common with opera and music theatre.
Tickets for tonight’s concluding event at the University of Huddersfield can be reserved online.
