Organ accompaniment to silent films, part 3 – the activity of Robert Hope-Jones and its importance

The idea to write music for silent films, both in a form of written-down scores and composed live has experienced its renaissance for more than ten years. Thanks to a quite decent number of preserved theatre instruments and also due to the globalisation and wide data flow options connected with it, the knowledge and interest in Anglo-Saxon tradition of organ accompaniment in cinema were able to spread away from its place of origin. The article is the third part of four attempts to present the phenomenon of combination of the art of organ improvisation with cinematography and it was based on the fragments of the doctoral thesis entitled “Current methods of organ improvisation as performance means in the accompaniment for silent films based on the selected musical and visual work”. The dissertation was written under the supervision of prof. dr hab. Elżbieta Karolak and was defended at the Ignacy Jan Paderewski Academy of Music in Poznań in 2020. The article focuses on the profile of Robert Hope-Jones, an eccentric creator of cinema organ. It describes the period preceding the time when typical theatre instruments called “Mighty Wurlitzer” acquired their final shape, i.e., from the introduction of first electromagnetic tracture innovations in England, to the establishment of Hope Jones’s collaboration with the Wurlitzer company in the United States of America and the creation of instruments of the Unit Organ type.

Organ accompaniment to silent films, part 2

The idea to write music for silent films, both in a form of written-down scores and composed live has experienced its renaissance for more than ten years. Thanks to a quite decent number of preserved theatre instruments and also due to the globalisation and wide data flow options connected with it, the knowledge and interest in Anglo-Saxon tradition of organ accompaniment in cinema were able to spread away from its place of origin. The article is the second part of four attempts to present the phenomenon of combination of the art of organ improvisation with cinematography and it was based on the fragments of the doctoral thesis entitled “Current methods of organ improvisation as performance means in the accompaniment for silent films based on the selected musical and visual work”. The dissertation was written under the supervision of prof. dr hab. Elżbieta Karolak and was defended at the Ignacy Jan Paderewski Academy of Music in Poznań in 2020. The article touches on the process of adding sound to silent films, creating publications containing the so-called genre music (i.e., music for specific tyles of scenes), as well as cue-sheets which appeared since 1909 and which were particularly useful for improvising pianists and organists. It also describes the practice of orchestra accompaniment and different sizes of lineups connected with it.

Framing early cinema : the Davide Turconi nitrate frame collection at George Eastman House

This thesis examines the history, use, and value of the Davide Turconi Nitrate Frame Collection of film fragments, housed at George Eastman House. An Italian film historian, Turconi (1911-2005) compiled the collection in the 1960s. Over the past decade, GEH and its partner institutions digitized the collection's 23,5000 fragments, which mostly date from the 1900s and 1910s. The thesis's case study analyzes two films represented by fragments in the collection: Les Tulipes (Pathé, 1907) and Maid of Niagara (American Kenema-Pathé, 1910). This case study employs a small section of the collection to speak to its importance as a whole and is particularly focused on the collection's early applied colour effects. It compares the fragments to multiple preserved versions of the films, arguing that the Turconi Collection, as well as other frame collections housed at various institutions, are primary documents, unlike most modern restorations of early silent films.

Framing early cinema : the Davide Turconi nitrate frame collection at George Eastman House

This thesis examines the history, use, and value of the Davide Turconi Nitrate Frame Collection of film fragments, housed at George Eastman House. An Italian film historian, Turconi (1911-2005) compiled the collection in the 1960s. Over the past decade, GEH and its partner institutions digitized the collection's 23,5000 fragments, which mostly date from the 1900s and 1910s. The thesis's case study analyzes two films represented by fragments in the collection: Les Tulipes (Pathé, 1907) and Maid of Niagara (American Kenema-Pathé, 1910). This case study employs a small section of the collection to speak to its importance as a whole and is particularly focused on the collection's early applied colour effects. It compares the fragments to multiple preserved versions of the films, arguing that the Turconi Collection, as well as other frame collections housed at various institutions, are primary documents, unlike most modern restorations of early silent films.

The Birth of a Hollywood Spectacle: Visual Expression and Narrative Functions of Costumes in Cecil B. DeMille’s Silent Films

The article explores the functions of film costumes in the works of Cecil B. DeMille, the American film director, whose pictures of the late 1910s and early 1920s are notable for their artistic achievements in the field of set and costume design. On the material of certain films from his “matrimonial cycle”, the author analyses the narrative and spectacular functions of costumes, while making an emphasis on the director’s role in the development of the artistic uniqueness and visual extravagance of Hollywood films of this period. The films of this cycle display some key strategies in film costume function- ing and design methods that would be adopted by the Hollywood film industry to become the new production standard in this field.

Electroacoustic Experiments of the Art Zoyd and Their Implementation in Soundtracks for Silent Films

The article is devoted to the work of Art Zoyd, a French group whose experimental style is often defined by modern researchers as “la musique nouvelle” (from the French — “new music”) and is viewed through the prism of the genre-style dialogue between rock and contemporary academic music. The idea of “metamusic”, expressed in the co-creation of several composers, as well as in the unity of visual, plastic, and musical components, is also important for understanding the style of the group. This trend is especially closely related to the personality of one of the founders of the group, Gerard Hourbette, who combines the gift of a composer with the talent of a programmer. The obvious reliance on the achievements of electroacoustic music, the desire to combine the scientific understanding of the phenomenon of sound with the implementation of practical musical projects (expressed in the creation of the research and creative center Art Zoyd Studios), make him related to the figure of the pioneer of musique concrète and the founding father of Groupe de Recherches Musicales, Pierre Schaeffer. The idea of the synthesis of the arts is reflected in the innovative multimedia performances of the group, as well as in the soundtracks to silent films. The article analyzes the sound scores for the films Nosferatu by Friedrich Murnau, Häxan by Benjamin Christensen, The Fall of the House of Usher by Jean Epstein.

Nikolai Gogol in silent films

The article is devoted to the problem of Nikolai Gogol's interpretation on Russian screen. The problem of interaction between literature and cinematography is considered in a concrete historical plan, that is connected with the features of the time in which Gogol`s film adaptations were created. At the same time, the level of technical equipment of cinematography and other inherent qualities of it, that are largely determined the approach of the first directors to specific Gogol material, were taken into account. Cinema interpretations like «Dead Souls» by Pyotr Chardynin, «Taras Bulba» by Alexander Drankov, «Christmas Eve» and «The Portrait» by Ladislas Starevich, «The Overcoat» by Georgi Kozintsev and Leonid Trauberg are in the centre of the article. Each of the listed film adaptations has its own specifics determined by close connection with other types of art, fragmentariness, melodramatic, an abundance of phantasmagorias, etc. «The Overcoat» stands out in the list of silent interpretations, since presents a new look at the process of Gogol's translation from the language of literature into the cinema language. Compared to previous films, the creators of the 1926 cinematic version of «The Overcoat» took into account Gogol's style, the mood of his work, recreated through the picture of the ghostly expressionist Petersburg.

Voiceless Screams: Pictorialism as Narrative Strategy in Horror Silent Cinema

As a complementary condition to narrative, the notion of pictorialism in film is rooted in the first decades of the medium. In their quest to demonstrate the capturing and restoring of images with various devices, early filmmakers selected views with pictorial qualities in the long-standing tradition of painting, transferring them on film in the form of non-narrative shots. The evolution of fictional narratives in silent cinema displaced the source of inspiration in theatre, assimilating its nineteenth-century tradition of pictorialism. Thus, the film audiences’ appeal for visual pleasure was elevated with balanced elements of composition, framing and acting that resulted in pictorially represented moments actively engaged in the narrative system. The paper explores the notion of “pictorial spirit” (Valkola 2016) in relation to that of “monstration” (Gaudreault 2009) aiming to describe the narrative mechanism of provoking fear by means of pictorially constructed cinematic images in a selection of short-length horror silent films belonging to the transitional era, consisting in The Haunted House/The Witch House (La Maison ensorcelée/La casa encantada, Segundo de Chomón, 1908), Frankenstein (J. Searle Dawley, 1910) and the surviving fragments of The Portrait (Портрет, Vladislav Starevich, 1915).1

Inclusão e Acessibilidade no Cinema para Surdos: proposta de Festival de Cinema Surdo Português

The realization of human aptitude for linguistics construction was a decisive step for the legitimization of sign language. The possibility of registration of this visio-spacial language - provided by cinema - was a huge contribution to the dissemination of deaf culture. The early years of the cinematographic industry, marked by silent films, provided total inclusion to these minorities. The setback happens with the introduction of sound and since then deaf culture is poorly represented in cinematography. Portugal has a very limited number of productions (only four) with characteristics of accessibility: descriptive subtitling for the deaf and deafened, and/or translated into sign language. Portuguese law only regulates the television operators not covering film production companies. The low volume of deaf cinema production and the poor circulation of these films lead to the proposal of a Portuguese Film Festival of Deaf Cinema.