This weekend: 'Sunrise' in Newport on Saturday, then 'Algol' at 50th annual Boston Sci-Fi Marathon

Emil Jannings as would-be world ruler Robert Herne in 'Algol' (1920).

It's a rare chance to see 'Sunrise' (1927) in the late afternoon.

That's because I'll accompany the Academy Award-winning silent drama on Saturday, Feb. 15 at 4:30 p.m. at the Jane Pickens Theatre in downtown Newport, R.I. 

More info about the film and the screening is in the press release pasted in below.

And the next day brings one of my most unusual gigs: the annual Boston Sci Fi Marathon, which starts on Sunday, Feb. 16 at noon and runs straight through to Monday, Feb. 17 at noon.

I'll be there to accompany 'Algol: Tragedy of Power' (1920), a bizarre German film thought lost for decades until it was rediscovered in recent years and is now available for viewing.

'Algol' is being shown late Sunday afternoon: not sure of the exact time as that depends on how far behind (or ahead) the marathon is running. 

It's the 50th year of this event, which I've appeared at several times before and it's always a hoot. There's no better audience for silent film that a theater fill of insomniac sci-fi fans.

Alas, tickets aren't available for individual films during the marathon, which is a $100 all-or-nothing proposition. But the line-up includes LOTS of great titles, and there's nothing like seeing them in this kind of communal environment.

Interested? Below are links, although I notice the online ticket portal incorrectly says the marathon starts at Sunday, Feb. 16 at 7 p.m. It really starts at noon—and there's also a pre-show scene of people lining up in front of the Somerville before doors open to get first dibs on favorite seats.

Boston Sci-Fi Marathon line-up

Tickets for Boston Sci-Fi Marathon

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An original poster for 'Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans' (1927).
 

MONDAY, JAN. 20, 2025 / FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Jeff Rapsis • (603) 236-9237 • jeffrapsis@gmail.com

Academy Award-winning drama 'Sunrise' to screen on Saturday, Feb. 15 at Newport's Jane Pickens Theatre

Silent film won three honors at first-ever Academy Awards, including 'Best Actress' for Janet Gaynor; show features live musical accompaniment

NEWPORT, R.I.—Silent film on the big screen with live music returns to the Jane Pickens Theatre with the Academy Award-winning romantic drama 'Sunrise' (1927) on Saturday, Feb. 15 at 4:30 p.m.

The screening of 'Sunrise,' starring Janet Gaynor and George O'Brien, will take place at the Jane Pickens Film and Event Center, 49 Touro St. in historic downtown Newport.

Admission is $17 per person. Tickets available online at https://janepickens.com or at the door.

The screening will feature live music by Jeff Rapsis, the Jane Pickens Theatre's silent film accompanist.

Gaynor, a popular female star of the silent film era, won the first-ever Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in 'Sunrise.' The movie took top honors in cinematography and was also recognized for "Unique and Artistic Production" at the inaugural awards.

'Sunrise' tells the story of a young country couple (played by Gaynor and O'Brien) whose marriage is threatened by the presence of a woman from the city (Margaret Livingston) who convinces the man to abandon his wife. Will the young husband go through with a plan to kill his wife? Will true love overcome the obstacles of temptation and the promise of short-term pleasure?

George O'Brien and Margaret Livingston in a scene from 'Sunrise' (1927).

'Sunrise' was directed by F. W. Murnau, a German filmmaker and one of the leading figures in German Expressionism, a style that uses distorted art design for symbolic effect. 'Sunrise' was made when Murnau was invited by studio chief William Fox to make a film in Hollywood.

The resulting movie features enormous stylized sets that create an exaggerated, fairy-tale world. The city street set alone reportedly cost over $200,000 to build, a huge sum at the time. Much of the exterior shooting was done at Lake Arrowhead, Calif.

Full of cinematic innovations, the groundbreaking cinematography (by Charles Rosher and Karl Struss) featured moving cameras and impressive tracking shots. Titles appear sparingly, with long sequences of pure action and most of the story told in Murnau's signature visual style. The extensive use of forced perspective is striking, particularly in a shot of the city with normal-sized people and sets in the foreground and smaller figures in the background by much smaller sets.

The story of 'Sunrise' is told as a visual allegory with few specific details. The characters have no names, and the setting is not named in order to make the tale more universal and symbolic.

Janet Gaynor and George O'Brien in a scene from 'Sunrise' (1927).

With a full title of 'Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans,' the film is regarded as one of the high points of the silent cinema. In 1988, it was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry of the U.S. Library of Congress for films that are "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." The Sight and Sound poll of 2012 for the British Film Institute named 'Sunrise' the fifth-best film in the history of motion pictures by critics, and 22nd by directors.

Critics continue to hail 'Sunrise' as one of the best films of all time.

"F.W. Murnau's 'Sunrise' conquered time and gravity with a freedom that was startling to its first audiences," wrote Roger Ebert in 2004. "To see it today is to be astonished by the boldness of its visual experimentation.

Rapsis, who uses original themes to improvise silent film scores, said great silent film dramas such as 'Sunrise' used their lack of dialogue to create stories that concentrated on the "big" emotions such as Love, Despair, Anger, and Joy. Because of this, audiences continue to respond to them in the 21st century, especially if they're presented as intended — with a live audience and live music.

"Dramas such as 'Sunrise' were created to be shown on the big screen as a communal experience," Rapsis said. "With an audience and live music, they come to life as their creators intended them to. So the screenings at Newport's Jane Pickens Theatre are a great chance to experience films that first caused people to fall in love with the movies," he said.

'Sunrise' will be shown with live music on Saturday, Feb. 15 at 4:30 p.m. at the Jane Pickens Film and Event Center, 49 Touro St. in historic downtown Newport.

Admission is $17 per person. Tickets available online at https://janepickens.com or at the door. 

 Janet Gaynor and George O'Brien in 'Sunrise' (1927).

How playing tuba in a youth orchestra led to some unconventional sci-fi music

Prof. Georg Manfeldt: what music goes with this guy?

So there I was, in the middle of creating live music to the nearly three-hour-long silent sci-fi epic 'Woman in the Moon' (1929), when I became inspired by a tuba part I'd played several weeks ago.

Which tuba part? That of the 'Academic Festival Overture' by Johannes Brahms, which was on the program of a Feb. 2 concert at the Manchester (N.H.) Community Music School, where I sometimes help out when competent tuba players aren't available.

How did this aid me in scoring a 90-year-old German movie about mankind's first voyage to the moon? Let me explain, as I think it's a good example of how improv-based music can surprise even the person doing it.

Here's the deal: one of the first characters we meet in 'Woman in the Moon' is an impoverished old professor, bounced out of the academic fraternity long ago for his outrageous ideas about mountains of gold on the lunar surface and the space travel required to retrieve it.

For this character, Prof. Georg Manfeldt, I've developed a skittering chromatic theme that I feel captures his prolonged isolation, and also his roots in science and pedantry. It serves as his "leitmotif" for the entire picture.

However, an accompanist for 'Woman in the Moon' is challenged early on by a flashback to 30 years earlier, when Prof. Manfredt was a respected academic, so much so that he's seen sharing his controversial ideas to a lecture room filled with distinguished colleagues.

Manfeldt as a much younger man. Actor Klaus Pohl was actually only in his 40s, but was made up to look much older as Prof. Manfeldt for most of 'Woman in the Moon.'

Music can and should (I think) help reinforce the idea that in this flashback, we're suddenly in a different time and place in this character's life. In past 'Woman in the Moon' screenings, I would try and transform the skittering chromatic melody into something bolder and more confident, and it was okay, but it never seemed to feel quite right.

So last Sunday evening, at the annual Boston Sci-Fi Marathon, I decided to take another route. And Brahms came to mind.

You may know the composer's aforementioned 'Academic Festival Overture' is built with student and university tunes popular in the 19th century. One of the most prominent is 'Gaudeamus Igitur,' the still-popular commencement and drinking song that goes like this. Pretty catchy, right?

To me, this music sounds like college in a classic, abstract kind of way. Whether you partied all four years or spent them all in the library or never set foot on a campus, 'Gaudeamus Igitur' conjures up "university" in the same manner as Elgar's 'Pomp and Circumstance.'

An excerpt of the exciting tuba part for the 'Academic Festival Overture.'

And I had just played it, or at least the tuba part, as orchestrated by Brahms for his overture's big finale. So it was kind of in my head.

Thus, when director Fritz Lang made the flashback leap from the "present" (meaning 1926) back to 1896, I made the snap decision to make Prof. Manfredt's music change to something completely different as well.

And out came 'Gaudeamus Igitur,' played as underscoring to the professor addressing his colleagues. To my mind, it instantly captured both the change in time and situation, but also conveyed an atmosphere of stuffy academia—the milieu that was about to reject the upstart professor and his outlandish notions of spaceships and lunar gold.

Lang's orderly lecture hall quickly gives way to a chaotic (and visual) uproar, with close-ups of a proctor ringing a bell and another blowing a whistle, sound effects both recreated live by me.

So 'Gaudeamus Igitur' gets swallowed up by me ringing my grandmother's school bell and also blowing a referee's whistle, my left hand still working the keyboard, all making a tremendous racket until Lang fades us back into the present, with the professor's original melody just drifting along high and unaccompanied.

And that's the end of the Brahms, right? It served its purpose, but then the film shifted back to the present, and so did I. No more musty 19th century academic anthems, right?

Well, more than two hours later, 'Woman in the Moon' is in the process of reaching its multi-stage climax. Against all odds, Prof. Manfeldt has actually made his long-dreamed-about journey to the lunar surface. (Spoiler alert!) There, while using a diving rod (!) to find water, he stumbles across a huge deposit of gold, proving his theory correct after so much personal suffering and sacrifice.

For the now-joyous and awestruck professor, it's a moment of supreme vindication, even though he's all alone. How to communicate that musically? Without thinking, I found myself shifting back into 'Gaudeamus Igitur,' but now more like Brahms treated it: with a dash of triumph in its simple structure and chords.

And it also felt right, I think because it brought it all back to his original lecture hall humiliation. It's something that Lang didn't depict visually at that point (no flashbacks), but which the music could bring out all on its own.

Alas, the professor's triumph is short-lived, and so is the reprise of 'Gaudeamus Igitur.' But to me, this turned out to be one of the dramatic highlights of the screening. I was delighted how it fell into place: a reprise more than two hours later that effectively book-ended the film, or at least one of the story's major threads.

Afterwards, several people commented about how effective it was—and I hadn't even planned it!

And that's how playing tuba in a youth orchestra can lead to unexpected and wonderful things. So when offered the chance to do so, never turn it down.

As for the screening itself: my long-awaited chance to do music for 'Woman in the Moon' for the Marathon audience earned me a very gratifying standing ovation from the discerning attendees. (These are serious film-goers, folks. Some even carry rayguns!)

And it was a all the more satisfying because the two days leading up to this long-awaited show was a time of close calls and compromises.

A blurry selfie taken while setting up my keyboard prior to 'Woman in the Moon' at this past weekend's annual 24-hour Boston Science Fiction Marathon.

Due to a mix-up, the digital restoration was never sent from Germany. So a last-minute substitute had to be made by way of a standard DVD edition, which looked reasonably okay on the Somerville's giant screen.

And then, in hooking up my digital keyboard to the Somerville's terrific house sound system, a crucial component for one of the lines was discovered missing. So we had to go with a mono output, and although it worked, the whole character of the sound was very different from what I'm used to in that house.

But you know what? Once the lights went down, none of it mattered. The audience was into it: all 169 minutes, which is a long flick by marathon standards.

Funny: one of the reasons 'Woman in the Moon' had never played the 'Thon before was because it was thought of as "too long." I could never understand that, as we're talking about a 24-hour-long-marathon, folks.

But we did it. Thanks to Garen Daly and everyone with the marathon, and Ian Judge and David Kornfeld of the Somerville Theatre, and all those in my entourage, especially Ariana Cohen-Halberstam, for all the help and support.

The ovation was for all of us—and for Fritz Lang and Johannes Brahms, too!

The countdown to 'Frau im Mond,' the movie that introduced the pre-launch countdown

The backwards 3-2-1 countdown to a rocket launch is a common practice. But where did it start?

Look no further than the world of silent film, where German director Fritz Lang chose to use it to increase the drama of mankind's first-ever lunar voyage.

That voyage was depicted in 'Frau im Mond,' or 'Woman in the Moon' (1929), Lang's final silent, a bizarre film that imagines a Weimar-era German space program that was never meant to be.

In the film, the countdown looks pretty much as we've always known it: 10, 9, 8, and so forth. The only difference is that at zero, instead of saying "Blast off!" or something like that, in 'Frau im Mond' it's "Jetzt!", the German word for "Now!"

On the lunar surface: a hiking expedition in search of—what else?—gold!

And NOW a different sort of countdown is underway: as of noon today (Wednesday, Feb. 13, 2019), we've passed the four-day mark in terms of the time remaining before the launch of this year's Boston 24-Hour Sci-Fi Marathon.

The annual marathon, which includes a screening of 'Frau im Mond' this year, begins on Sunday, Feb. 17 at noon at its long-time home, the Somerville (Mass.) Theatre in Davis Square.

As tradition demands, the marathon starts with a 35mm print of the 1952 Warner Bros. cartoon 'Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century.'

And it then runs for 24 hours, all through the night and straight through to noon on Monday, Feb. 18. And a countdown is appropriate because the marathon constitutes an epic voyage all its own: about 500 fanatics join together for 24 hours filled with cinematic visions of other worlds gone by or yet to come. Strap yourself in!

On this year's program are a dozen feature films, with most shown via 35mm vault prints: titles such as 'Dr. Cyclops' (1940); 'Andromeda Strain' (1991); Escape from New York (1987); 'Roller Ball' (1975), and a clutch of others, highlighted by a 70mm print of 'Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country' (1991).

And then there's 'Frau,' countdown and all. Ever since I discovered it, I've thought of it as the forgotten companion to Lang's 'Metropolis' (1927), its famous predecessor.

And for a long time I've wanted to accompany it at the 'Thon, as it's called by long-time devotees. And sometime early on Sunday evening (when it's slotted to run), I'll get my wish.

Why the 'Thon? Because I think it's the perfect audience for this flick, in which Lang merged his appetite for pulp sci-fi stories of the era with what was then cutting-edge scientific know-how.

In the 1920s, German scientists were in the forefront of rocket propulsion. In making 'Frau im Mond,' Lang tapped noted rocketry experts such as Hermann Oberth, who received equal billing to the film's stars in the credits.

After World War II, many German rocket experts contributed to the U.S. space program, most notably Werner von Braun (a big fan of 'Frau im Mond') but scores and scores of others.

So what we see in 'Frau im Mond' isn't total fantasy, but a draft of NASA's Apollo moon program 40 years before it became reality.

The Eagle has landed, about 40 years early.

And in this year of the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11's moon landing, it's only fitting that the 'Thon include 'Frau im Mond' on the program.

Tickets for the Sci-Fi Marathon are $90 and cover admission to the whole event; you can buy online at www.bostonscifi.com.

Alas, it's not possible to get tickets for each individual film. But if you'd like to catch 'Frau im Mond' another time, I'm accompanying it at several other venues later this year.

For more info, check out the "Upcoming Screenings" page on this site.

But if you can make it to the 'Thon, I can promise you it will be a 'Frau im Mond' like none other.

Plus you get 'Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century' in 35mm!

Tubas and pot luck and movies, oh my! Plus thoughts on scoring 'Woman in the Moon' at this year's Boston Sci-Fi Marathon

First, if you're wondering what a concert looks like from the perspective of a tuba player, here you go:

On the podium is Dani Rimoni, director of the Dino Anagnost Youth Symphony Orchestra of New Hampshire. We're just finishing the first movement of Beethoven's 5th Symphony, which has no tuba part, which allowed me to take the picture.

This is at a concert on Saturday, Feb. 2 at the Manchester (N.H.) Community Music School in which my Yamaha concert bass tuba and I sat in with the low brass during the group's winter performance.

I'm technically not qualified to be in the youth orchestra, as I'm not a youth. (Also, I don't play nearly at the level as these kids do!) But there's apparently a something of a shortage of low brass players, and it must be truly severe if they called me to sit in.

And although there's no tuba in Beethoven's 5th, there IS in the Academic Festival Overture by Brahms, which was also on the program. And so I got to bomp along with the trombones when Brahms got frisky with his orchestration.

Also on the program was a medley of music from 'West Side Story,' but somehow no tuba part was printed. So I played off a string bass part, coming in judiciously to avoid making it sound like an oompah band during "I Feel Pretty."

Maestro Rimoni, conducting from a piano score, seemed to like what I was doing: at rehearsal, at one point during a soft transition, I hit it just right doubling the double bass, and he mentioned later that it sounded really powerful.

But I had no time to bask in the glow of the only compliment I've ever received for my tuba playing, as I had to dash an hour north to make it in time for the Campton Historical Society's annual Pot Luck and Silent Film event!

Yes, this is what winter in New Hampshire looks like, both scenically and culturally.

I was there to accompany the silent film, which was Buster Keaton's 'Our Hospitality' (1923).

But the pot luck supper is a highlight, and there's always a few surprises. This time it was a shepherd's pie in which taco sauce was used. It worked!

Buster killed, as usual. As the years go by, I've found that of all the Keaton features, 'Our Hospitality' seems to get perhaps the strongest overall response from audiences.

Yes, 'The General' and 'Steamboat Bill Jr.' are popular and always get a reaction. 'The Navigator' is among my personal favorites, but only once have I seen it produce a sustained laugh-out-loud response. And whatever else happens, 'Seven Chances' always springs to life when the brides start marching down the streets.

But 'Our Hospitality' has emerged as the most all-around sure-fire Keaton opus. Why? Well, it's a great balance of story and comedy, and a great introduction to Buster's unique visual humor, and perhaps its historic setting (in the 1820s) helps it seem somehow universal and accessible to our modern eyes. ('The General,' set in the 1860s, has this going for it as well.)

Well, for whatever reason, it happened again last Saturday night. 'Our Hospitality' was greeted with constant outbursts of astonished laughter (to use Walter Kerr's phrase), and a foot-stomping ovation at the waterfall rescue. I mean, it just really works.

This weekend brings a pre-Valentines Day screening of Rudolph Valentino is 'The Eagle' (1925), and then the weekend after that brings a screening that represents the culmination of eight years of badgering.

Ever since I discovered Fritz Lang's 'Woman in the Moon' (1929) and the Boston Sci-Fi Marathon (held every Presidents Day weekend, now in its 44th year), I've wanted to bring them together.

And now, after eight years of badgering, and wheedling, and imploring, and other words I'm too lazy to look up in a thesaurus, my dream is finally happening.

On Sunday, Feb. 17, I will enter the Somerville Theatre sometime after 6 p.m to accompany 'Woman in the Moon' before an audience of 700 hard core sci-fi fanatics.

It's not your usual silent film crowd. But that's the point!

Some people dream of getting the Congressional Medal of Honor. Some people just want their kids to respect them. For me, this is it — for years now, accompanying 'Woman in the Moon' at the Boston Sci-Fi Marathon is all I've ever aspired to do.

And now it's about to happen. And if you'd like to be on hand to witness this transit, I'm pasting in a press release below that has all the info.

For me, I'm elated. I'm ecstatic. I'm, I'm...hey, get me that thesaurus!

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A promotional poster for 'Frau im Mond' (1929).

TUESDAY, FEB. 5, 2019 / FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Jeff Rapsis • (603) 236-9237 • jeffrapsis@gmail.com

Boston Sci-Fi Marathon highlighted by early silent German space travel epic that predicted Apollo program

'Woman in the Moon,' Fritz Lang's pioneer fantasy about mankind's first lunar voyage, to be shown with live music during 44th annual Presidents Day weekend event

SOMERVILLE, Mass.—A sci-fi adventure hailed as the first feature film to depict realistic space travel will be screened this month as part of the annual Boston Sci-Fi Marathon over Presidents Day weekend.

'Woman in the Moon' (1929), directed by German filmmaker Fritz Lang ('Metropolis,' 1927), will be shown with live music during the 24-hour event, which starts at noon on Sunday, Feb. 17 at the Somerville Theatre, 55 Davis Square, Somerville.

The screening is a highlight of the 44th year of the Science Fiction Marathon, which bills itself as the nation's longest-running genre film event. This year's marathon includes a total of 11 feature films, many presented using 35mm or 70mm prints from studio vaults.

In addition to 'Woman in the Moon,' titles include 'Rollerball' (1975), 'Andromeda Strain' (1991), and 'Inner Space' (1987), and Dr. Cyclops (1940).

'Woman in the Moon' holds a special place in this year's line-up, in part because of the 50th anniversary of the actual Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969, which it anticipated in many remarkable ways.

On the lunar surface: 'Woman in the Moon.'

" 'Woman in the Moon' is a great and at-times bizarre film, one that must be seen to be believed," said Jeff Rapsis, a New Hampshire-based silent film accompanist who will create live music for the screening.

Director Fritz Lang, responsible for the groundbreaking sci-fi epic 'Metropolis' (1927), planned 'Woman in the Moon' as another step in his quest to stretch cinema's visual, story-telling, and imaginative capabilities.

The rarely seen full-length version of 'Woman in the Moon' follows an intrepid band of German space pioneers as they attempt mankind's first voyage to the lunar surface, where they hope to find large deposits of gold.

The film, made with German rocket experts as technical advisers, anticipated many of the techniques used by NASA for the Apollo moon launch program 40 years later. For example, a multi-stage rocket is employed to escape Earth's gravity, and a separate capsule is used to reach the lunar surface.

Willy Fritsch prepares to pull the lever.

The film is also noted for introducing the idea of a dramatic "countdown" prior to launch, which later became standard procedure in actual space flight. Critics regard the film's extended launch sequence as a masterpiece of editing and dramatic tension.

But 'Woman in the Moon,' with its melodramatic plot, also stands as the forerunner of many sci-fi soap opera elements that quickly became clichés: the brilliant but misunderstood professor; a love triangle involving a female scientist and her two male colleagues; a plucky young boy who yearns to join the expedition; fistfights and gunfire and treachery on the lunar surface.

Added to the mix is a vision of the moon (created entirely on a massive studio set in Berlin, Germany) that features a breathable atmosphere, giant sand dunes, distant mountain peaks, and bubbling mud pits.

The moon as imagined by Fritz Lang.

"Including 'Woman in the Moon' in this year's Sci-Fi Marathon, with its foreshadowing of the Apollo program, is a great way to acknowledge this year's 50th anniversary of mankind's actual landing on the moon," Rapsis said.

"And as a past vision of a future that didn't quite come to be, it really gets you thinking of time and how we perceive it."

Rapsis, a resident of Bedford, N.H., will improvise live musical accompaniment during the screening, using a digital synthesizer to recreate the sound of a full orchestra and other more exotic textures.

'Woman in the Moon,' a full-length feature than runs more than 2½ hours, should not be confused with the much earlier film 'A Trip to Moon,' a primitive "trick" short movie made by French filmmaker George Méliès in 1902 and famous for the image of a space capsule hitting the eye of an imaginary moon man.

"Unlike the Méliès film, there's nothing primitive about 'Woman in the Moon,' " Rapsis said. "It's silent film story-telling at the peak of its eloquence, with lively performances, imaginative camera angles, and superb photography."

Bad timing is one reason that 'Woman in the Moon' (titled 'Frau im Mond' in German) is not as well known today as 'Metropolis,' its legendary predecessor. Lang completed 'Woman in the Moon' just as the silent film era was coming to a close.

As one of the last silent films of German cinema, 'Woman in the Moon' was unable to compete with new talking pictures then in theaters, making it a box office flop at its premiere in October, 1929.

However, German rocket scientist Hermann Oberth worked as an adviser on the movie, and it developed cult status among the rocket scientists in Wernher von Braun's circle starting in the 1930s. During World War II, the first successfully launched V-2 rocket at the German rocket facility in Peenemünde had the "Woman in the Moon" logo painted on its base.

During the war, the Nazis tried to recall and destroy all prints of 'Woman in the Moon' due to its detailed depiction of state-of-the-art rocket propulsion technology; in later years, this served to make the film even more hard to find. For many years, the film was available only in cut-down 16mm versions that ran as short as one hour.

But pristine and complete 35mm copies of 'Woman in the Moon' did survive in several European archives. Today, restored prints are amazingly clear and sharp, Rapsis said.

" 'Woman in the Moon' is technically one of the best-looking silent films I've ever seen," he said. "If you think all silent films are grainy and scratchy-looking, 'Woman in the Moon' will change your mind. It's like an Ansel Adams photograph come to life."

"Although 'Woman in the Moon' is available for home viewing, this is a motion picture that should be experienced as intended: on the big screen, with live music, and with an audience," Rapsis said. "There's nothing like it."

'Woman in the Moon' will be shown as part of the 44th Annual Boston Science Fiction Marathon, which begins on Sunday, Feb. 17 at noon at the Somerville Theatre, 55 Davis Square, Somerville, Mass.

Tickets to the 24-hour marathon are $90 per person and available at www.bostonscifi.com. Tickets for individual movies shown during the Sci-Fi Marathon are not available.

Swanson and Keaton and Jerry Herman, and 'Metropolis' Thurs., 2/15 at Merrimack College

An iconic scene from 'Metropolis' (1927), which I'm accompanying on Thursday, Feb. 15.

In 'Mack & Mabel,' Jerry Herman's 1974 musical comedy about film pioneer Mack Sennett, there's a lyric that goes like this:

And Swanson and Keaton and Dressler and William S. Hart
No one pretended that what we were doing was art

One of these days, I'll put a "Mack & Mabel" silent film program together that includes all four of those names.

For now, I'll have to be satisfied with this past weekend, when a pair of pre-Valentine's Day screenings brought together the first two stars on Herman's list; Swanson on Saturday, Feb. 10, and Keaton on Sunday, Feb. 11.

Gloria Swanson was the featured star in a program at the Campton (N.H.) Historical Society, which for a few years now has doing its part to fight off cabin fever by running a pot-luck-and-silent-movie-night in the dead of winter.

This year I accompanied 'Zaza' (1923), Gloria's recently re-released drama that I scored last year for Kino-Lorber, preceded by Gloria's early Mack Sennett short 'Teddy at the Throttle' (1916).

With the Sennett comedies, I never know what to expect. They're sometimes so random, and if the mood isn't right, all the frantic goings-on generate nothing more than dead silence.

In this case, however, the reaction was explosive—right from the start, everything on screen was greeted by raucous laughter.

Never mind Jerry Herman—this would have given old Mack something to really sing about. Wonder if it was something they served at the pot luck supper?

More likely it's because some uninhibited soul began laughing early, and it caught on, soon spreading throughout the room. Nice!

Gloria Swanson in 'Zaza.'

Reaction to 'Zaza' was more muted but no less intense. You could tell people bought into Gloria's character and were along for the ride. Really generous ovation at the end!

For the recorded score, I used an acoustic grand piano. But for this screening, I used a piano sound with strings that could be sustained depending on how you struck and held the notes. It added a warmth that I think helped the film seem less over-the-top and allowed people to more naturally buy into Gloria's state of mind.

Sunday actually brought two showings: Keaton's 'The Cameraman' (1928) at the Aeronaut Brewing Co. down in Somerville, Mass., but also a matinee screening of Greta Garbo in 'Wild Orchids' (1929) at the Wilton (N.H.) Town Hall Theatre.

The Garbo film is a stunner. It's one of those late MGMs in which the technique of telling a story visually is so smooth and fluid and second-nature to all involved.

But it's also a tightly coiled drama about a love triangle that spans the globe, but stays focused on the three main characters, and it topped by a climax that's genuinely surprising and thrilling.

Perhaps not the ideal choice for a pre-Valentine's Day program, but what the heck?

Original promotional art for 'Wild Orchids' (1929).

The music came together very well, I felt. Using only a small cell-like signature of three notes, I was able to stitch together a score that I thought kept up with the film's ever-rising temperature.

Highlights included faux Javanese dance music (thanks to the synthesizer's library of "World Music" patches) and, for some reason, part of the melody of Bach's "Little Fugue" in G minor for organ, which for some reason seemed to perfectly capture the squareness of Garbo's much-older businessman-husband.

Later that same day, it was immensely satisfying to do music for Keaton's 'Cameraman' before a modest turnout (school night, anyone?) at the Aeronaut, where the commitment to the performing arts extends to silent film with live accompaniment.

(And where my race from rural New Hampshire to downtown Boston was something out of the Keystone Cops playbook.)

It being the big city, the Aeronaut can draw quite an eclectic turnout. Last night's attendees included familiar faces, curious newbies, and a tourist from Spain.

We all joined Buster for his onscreen adventures behind the newsreel camera, and in front of Marceline Day.

Poster for 'The Cameraman' (1928).

Having done three screenings in the past three days (including the Garbo one that afternoon), the music came fluently and effortlessly. After a big crashing start during the opening titles and then brief montage depicting adventures of newsreel cameramen, I quickly dialed it down to nursery rhyme texture for Keaton and his antics.

It all seemed to fall together, as things sometimes do. Keaton's film was greeted by generous laughter throughout, and sober silence in the moments when things don't go quite his way.

So Swanson and Keaton, but not Dressler nor William S. Hart.

But as usual, I did my very best to live up the follow-up lyric: "No one pretended that what we were doing was art."

Looking ahead: it's an interesting week.

Tomorrow (Tuesday, Feb. 13), I take a break from setting up a wholesale food distribution business (that's currently my day job as our newspaper publishing company expands in new direction) to visit with students at Kingswood Regional High School in Wolfeboro, N.H.

They're rehearsing a home-grown theater production about the silent film era. It goes up in March, and as part of the process of learning about the era, I've been invited to present a program of silent film with live music. My choice: Keaton's 'Seven Chances' (1925), which in my experience seems to go over particularly well with teens and the high school crowd.

Thursday, Feb. 15 brings the big gulp of 'Metropolis' (1927) at the Rogers Center for the Performing Arts in North Andover, Mass. More info is in the press release tacked on at the end of this post; start time is 7 p.m. and admission is free.

On Saturday, Feb. 17, I have the honor of doing music for Buster Keaton's 'The General' (1927), which is being shown as part of a surprise anniversary party for a silent-film-loving couple. As it's a surprise, I can't get into too many details, but will report how it went afterwards.

And then, on Sunday, Feb. 18, I get to make the long strange trip to the annual Boston Sci-Fi Marathon, a 24-hour binge-watching nerd/geek fest held every President's Day weekend at the Somerville (Mass.) Theatre.

Every other year or so, organizer Garen Daly throws a vintage silent sci-fi flick into the line-up, and since 2011 it's been my privilege to be bought in to do live music.

It's always a hoot because the audience of 500 to 700 people do not attend to just sit there passively. They really get into it. And they react.

Prior years have seen the original 1916 '20,000 Leagues Under the Sea'; the Danish trip-to-Mars allegory "Himmelskibit' (1918); and even 'The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari' (1919).

Emil Jannings plots to take over a cardboard world in 'Algol' (1920).

This year it's 'Algol: Tragedy of Power' (1920), a recently rediscovered German sci-fi melodrama starring Emil Jannings, of all people.

'Algol' is slated to screen around dinner time on Sunday night, about six hours into the 24-hour event. Cross your fingers!

For a dose of celebrated silent sci-fi, check out 'Metropolis' (1927) on Thursday, Feb. 15 at the Rogers Center in North Andover, Mass.

Here's the press release:

* * *

Original poster for Fritz Lang's 'Metropolis.'

THURSDAY, FEB. 1, 2018 / FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For more info, contact: Jeff Rapsis • (603) 236-9237 • jeffrapsis@gmail.com

Restored classic film 'Metropolis' to screen at Rogers Center on Thursday, Feb. 15

Landmark early sci-fi fantasy epic, with half-hour of rediscovered footage, to be shown with live music

NORTH ANDOVER, Mass.—A silent film hailed as the grandfather of all science fiction fantasy movies will be screened with live music this month at the Rogers Center for the Performing Arts.

'Metropolis' (1927), an epic adventure set in a futuristic world, will be shown on Thursday, Feb. 15 at 7 p.m. as part of the Rogers Center's Tambakos Film Series.

The screening is open to the public and admission is free.

Original music for 'Metropolis' will be performed live by Jeff Rapsis, a New Hampshire-based composer and silent film accompanist who performs at venues around the nation.

The Rogers Center is located on Walsh Way on the campus of Merrimack College, 315 Turnpike St., North Andover, Mass.

'Metropolis' (1927), regarded as German director Fritz Lang's masterpiece, is set in a society where a privileged elite pursue lives of leisure while the masses toil on vast machines and live in poverty.

The film, with its visions of futuristic factories and underground cities, set new standards for visual design and inspired generations of dystopian fantasies from Ridley Scott's 'Blade Runner' to Terry Gilliam's 'Brazil.'

In reviving 'Metropolis' and other great films of cinema's early years, the Rogers Center aims to show silent movies as they were meant to be seen—in high quality prints, on a large screen, with live music, and with an audience.

"All those elements are important parts of the silent film experience," said Rapsis, who will improvise an original live score for 'Metropolis' on the spot. "Recreate those conditions, and the classics of early cinema leap back to life."

In 'Metropolis,' the story centers on an upper class young man who falls in love with a woman who works with the poor. The tale encompasses mad scientists, human-like robots, underground spiritual movements, and industrial espionage, all set in a society divided between haves and have-nots.

Inventor Rotwang shows off his machine man to industrialist Frederson in 'Metropolis.'

The version of 'Metropolis' to be screened at the Rogers Center is a newly restored edition that includes nearly a half-hour of missing footage cut following the film's premiere in 1927. The lost footage, discovered in 2008 in an archive in Argentina, has since been added to the existing 'Metropolis,' allowing plot threads and characters to be developed more fully.

When first screened in Berlin, Germany on Jan. 10, 1927, the sci-fi epic ran an estimated 153 minutes. After its premiere, the film's distributors (including Paramount in the U.S.) drastically shortened 'Metropolis' to maximize the film's commercial potential. By the time it debuted in the U.S. later that year, the film was only about 90 minutes long.

Even in its shortened form, 'Metropolis' became a cornerstone of science fiction cinema. Due to its enduring popularity, the film has undergone numerous restorations in the intervening decades in attempts to recover Lang's original vision.

In 1984, the film was reissued with additional footage, color tints, and a pop rock score (but with many of its intertitles removed) by music producer Giorgio Moroder. A more archival restoration was completed in 1987, under the direction of Enno Patalas of the Munich Film Archive, in which missing scenes were represented with title cards and still photographs. More recently, a 2001 restoration combined footage from four archives and ran 124 minutes.

It was widely believed that this would be the most complete version of Lang's film that contemporary audiences could ever hope to see. But, in the summer of 2008, the curator of the Buenos Aires Museo del Cine discovered a 16mm dupe negative of 'Metropolis' that was considerably longer than any existing print.

It included not merely a few additional snippets, but 25 minutes of "lost" footage, about a fifth of the film, that had not been seen since its Berlin debut.

The discovery of such a significant amount of material called for yet another restoration, a 2½-hour version that debuted in 2010 to widespread acclaim. It's this fully restored edition that will be screened at the Rogers Center.

" 'Metropolis' stands as an stunning example of the power of silent film to tell a compelling story without words, and reach across the generations to touch movie-goers from the real future, which means us," said accompanist Jeff Rapsis, who provides live music for silent film screenings throughout New England.

To accompany a silent film, Rapsis uses a digital synthesizer to recreate the texture of the full orchestra. The score is created live in real time as the movie is screened. Rather than focus exclusively on authentic music of the period, Rapsis creates new music for silent films that draws from movie scoring techniques that today's audiences expect from the cinema.

The restored 'Metropolis' will be shown on Thursday, Feb. 15 at 7 p.m. at the Rogers Center for the Performing Arts. The Rogers Center is located on Walsh Way on the campus of Merrimack College, 315 Turnpike St., North Andover, Mass. Admission to the program is free. For more information, call the Rogers box office at (978) 837-5355.

For more information on the music, visit www.jeffrapsis.com.

CRITIC'S COMMENTS on ‘METROPOLIS’

“'Metropolis' does what many great films do, creating a time, place and characters so striking that they become part of our arsenal of images for imagining the world.”
—Roger Ebert, 2010, The Chicago Sun-Times

“If it comes anywhere near your town, go see it and thank the movie Gods that it even exists. There’s no star rating high enough.”
—Brian Tallerico, Movieretriever.com

Celebrate Valentine's Day w/Clara Bow's 'It'— but first, 'A Trip to Mars' at the Sci-Fi 'Thon

Promotional artwork for the Danish sci-fi epic 'Himmelskibit,' or 'A Trip to Mars.'

It's shaping up to be kind of a schizophrenic Valentine's Day this year.

This evening, I get to do music for Clara Bow's Jazz Age romantic comedy 'It' (1927) at the Aeronaut Brewery in Somerville, Mass.

But before that happens, there's 'A Trip to Mars' (1918), a full-length space travel epic from Denmark that's part of this year's annual 24-hour Boston Sci-Fi Marathon.

So Mars first, then Clara Bow later. There must be some kind of "Men are from Mars" wisecrack to make here, but I just can't think of it.

Actually, the sci-fi "Thon" (as it's called) is one of my favorite gigs of the year. This is mostly due to the audience, which consists of something like 600 hard-core sci-fi fans who gather each year at the Somerville Theatre in Brigadoon-like fashion for a kind of mass binge watch.

Held each year on Presidents Day weekend, the "Thon" (now in its 41st year) is a kind of tribal gathering complete with rituals such as contests for the best tinfoil hat and best alien mating call. So it's very different from the usual silent film crowd.

But that's why I like it. It's a special pleasure (and also a challenge) to create live music that helps vintage sci-fi material from the silent era connect with this crowd. Bore them, and they'll let you know. But get it right, and you won't find a more engaged audience.

I first did it in 2011 for the 1916 version of '20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.' And last year, it was 'The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari' (1920).

This time around, it's for 'A Trip to Mars' (Danish title: 'Himmelskibit') a 1918 film that was beautifully restored in 2006 by the Danish Film Institute, and which is being shown via DCP as part of this year's marathon.

I keep saying this, and I'll say it again: even after scoring literally hundreds of silent features, I continue to be surprised by amazing films I've never heard of before. And 'A Trip to Mars' is yet another.

The inhabitants of Mars welcome visitors from Earth.

I don't want to spoil anything about the movie for those who may see it, other than to say who knew the inhabitants of Mars would turn out to be vegetarian?

But I will say that I'm sensing that this will be a terrific film for the Marathon crowd. So I'm very much looking forward to this afternoon's screening, which is targeted to start at about 4:05 p.m. (As it's a 24-hour marathon, the program always runs a little loose.)

Alas, if you'd like to see it, you'll need to buy a ticket to the entire 24-hour event, which costs $64.50. But for that you'll get an amazing and memorable experience like none other, and a terrific line-up of films too numerous to list here.

For more info, visit www.bostonscifi.com and it's all there.

And now, for something completely different...

Later this evening, it's music for the Jazz Age romantic comedy 'It' (1927) starring Clara Bow in what would be her breakout performance.

'It' is playing at the Aeronaut Brewery (also in Somerville) as part of a Valentine's Day celebration. Showtime is 8 p.m. It's a ticketed event and I'm pleased to say it's almost sold out, according to the Aeronaut's Facebook and Eventbrite posts.

So if you haven't got tickets, go the Aeronaut's EventBrite site and snag yours right away.

Alas, the Aeronaut cannot exceed its occupancy permit and so the seating does have a cap. However, if you're a fan coming into town specifically for this show, please give me a call at (603) 236-9237 and we'll see what we can do.

It should be a fun evening, as the Aeronaut screenings draw many non-traditional silent film fans who seem to have a ball discovering pop culture from another era. And I certainly enjoy helping bring it to life!

If you're unfamiliar with the Aeronaut or 'It,' the text of the press release is pasted in below.

One thing I like to point out about this movie is that it's one of the more prominent early examples of product placement. The whole film is built on Elinor Glyn's writing in Cosmopolitan, and the magazine itself is featured prominently on screen.

And how interesting that Cosmo is still with us, and still concerned about roughly the same issues.

Talk about timeless!

* * *

Clara Bow flirts in unsubtle fashion with business tycoon and dreamboat Antonio Moreno.

MONDAY, JAN. 18, 2016 / FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Jeff Rapsis • (603) 236-9237 • jeffrapsis@gmail.com

Come and get 'It' with Clara Bow
at Aeronaut Brewery on Sunday, Feb. 14

Special Valentine's Day screening will feature 1920s Jazz Age silent romantic comedy with live music

SOMERVILLE, Mass.—A film that helped define an era returns to the big screen in February at the Aeronaut Brewery.

'It' (1927), a romantic comedy that came to epitomize the Jazz Age of the 1920s, will be screened with live music on Sunday, Feb. 14 at 8 p.m. at the Aeronaut Brewery, 14 Tyler St. (near Union Square), Somerville, Mass.

The special Valentine's Day screening is open to the public and is part of the Aeronaut's commitment to showcase local music, art, and performance.

Admission is $10 per person. Tickets are available online at www.eventbrite.com; search on "Aeronaut Brewery."

"We thought a silent film about love and romance would be the perfect way for people to celebrate Valentine's Day in a fun and memorable way," said Aeronaut spokesperson Christine Holmes.

'It' tells the story of a sassy shop girl who sets her sights on the handsome and wealthy boss of the department store where she works. The two are from completely different circles of society, but will attraction be strong enough to bridge the gap in their backgrounds?

The film made actress Clara Bow a major star, earning her the nickname of the 'It' girl. Released at the height of the Jazz Age, the movie was a hit with audiences, breaking box office records.

'It' is based on a novella written by Elinor Glyn and originally serialized in Cosmopolitan magazine. Glyn, whose writings popularized the concept of 'It' as a quality of attractiveness, has a cameo role as herself in the film.

'It' is also an early example of product placement, as Cosmopolitan magazine is featured prominently in a scene where a character reads Glyn's story and introduces it to the audience.

The picture was considered lost for many years, but a copy was found in Prague in the 1960s. In 2001, 'It' was selected for preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

The special Valentine's Day screening will feature live music by Jeff Rapsis, a New Hampshire-based silent film accompanist and composer.

"Among silent films, 'It' remains an audience favorite," said Rapsis, who accompanies silent film programs at the Somerville Theatre, the Harvard Film Archive, and at venues around the country.

"People continue to be surprised at how engrossing and exhilarating silent films can be when shown as they were intended—in a theater, and with live music," Rapsis said.

To accompany 'It,' Rapsis will use a digital synthesizer to recreate the texture of the full orchestra. The score is created live in real time as the movie is screened.

Rather than focus on authentic music of the period, Rapsis creates new music for silent films that draws from movie scoring techniques that today's audiences expect from the cinema.

A special Valentine's Day screening of 'It’ (1927), a romantic comedy starring Clara Bow, will take place on Sunday, Feb. 14 at 8 p.m. at the Aeronaut Brewery, 14 Tyler St. (near Union Square), Somerville, Mass.

Admission is $10 per person and are available online at www.eventbrite.com (search on "Aeronaut Brewery") or via Facebook at www.facebook.com/events/961744873899654.

For more info, visit www.aeronautbrewing.com or call (617) 987-4236; for more info on the music, visit www.jeffrapsis.com.

A little snow can't slow down the silent film juggernaut of romance

Not even snowpiles like these in the Boston area could stop silent film!

Pleased to report that we went three for three this weekend.

Despite the latest in a series of snowstorms that are collectively burying New England, all three silent film screenings went on as scheduled.

The Aeronaut on a crowded night. We staged the silent film in the area way in the back.

• A Valentine's Day program at the Aeronaut Brewery in Somerville, Mass. attracted a hardy band of the curious (average age maybe half that of mine) who reacted explosively to Buster Keaton in 'Seven Chances' (1925).

We were set up in an unimproved industrial space off to one side of the brewery/bar, and the choice for screen was a large bedsheet or a blank white wall. (I went with the wall.)

Alas, the Saturday night brewery crowd was noticeably thinner compared to my first visit. Blizzard conditions had taken their toll.

But still, there was a good vibe in the place, which features an eclectic line-up of live entertainment. When I arrived, a small combo (I think it included a sousaphone) was playing an arrangement of one of the Gershwin piano preludes while a young woman did interpretive dance on the brewery floor.

And this was followed by some silent film thing!

But come showtime, people began moving over to where I'd set up the keyboard, speakers, and projector, packing in around it in chairs and tables.

By the time we started, it was a good-sized audience. And, as I soon found out, a very responsive one!

You know it's going to be a fun ride when even the opening sequence (in which Keaton repeatedly fails to propose to his beloved) produces gales of laughter.

And after that, it just never let up. People were really into it. And I didn't ask, but I have to think that most people there had never experienced a silent film that way: with live music, and as part of an audience.

So, as we all discovered, what's old can be new again. And it was very gratifying to see it all come together so successfully.

I have to say, it ranked as one of the best silent film experiences I've had in all the years I've been doing this.

My thanks to Christine Platzek, Ben Holmes, and everyone at the Aeronaut Brewery for taking a chance on silent film. Even in the midst of a blizzard, it worked out great!

• Alas, only about a dozen people showed up for a matinee screening of MGM's 'Love' (1927) on Sunday, Feb. 15 at the Wilton Town Hall Theatre.

And that wasn't surprising, as the region was still digging out from another foot of snow, plus contending with Arctic temperatures and winds of 50 mph.

Theatre owner Dennis Markaverich didn't run his usual Sunday shows at 2 p.m., as no one showed up and he was too busy unburying the theater.

But we went ahead with 'Love' at 4:30 p.m., and it seemed especially fitting that the film starts in a howling blizzard!

This isn't one of the immortal silent classics, which I confided in the small group on hand.

MGM basically took a steamroller to Tolstoy's sprawling novel 'Anna Karenina,' boiling it down to a series of scenes that would give maximum face time to Greta Garbo and John Gilbert.

The fact that they threw out just about all of the novel, and then also changed the conclusion to a happy ending, wasn't a concern to the studio. It was designed with one aim: to sell tickets, which it did.

However, 'Love' was produced at the very height of the silent film era. Also, it was made by MGM, at the time the most technically slick studio in Hollywood.

So despite some shortcomings, it contains a lot of interest—sequences that show silent film at the peak of its eloquence.

In previewing the film, I was struck how several intense "dialogue" scenes (where Garbo and Gilbert speak passionately to each other, at some length) are presented utterly without any intertitles.

It's not like 'Love' avoids intertitles. They're used frequently elsewhere.

But in some places, we're left to just watch the faces and the expressions, even as quite a lot is being said, sometimes quite passionately.

I think this is one key to the unique power of silent film. By not getting the details, we're left to imagine what's being said. And that leaves us free to imagine something more intense and personal, perhaps, than could be concocted by any title writer.

By letting us do the work, if we care to, the film absorbs us and draws us in more closely to the characters and the story.

That this is done in a fairly routine (if high profile) release such as 'Love; shows how pervasive this method of presenting a story had become. As the motion picture matured, filmmakers were pushing the technique of visual story-telling in surprisingly abstract directions.

We followed 'Love' with this. Seems fitting, somehow.

• After 'Love,' I raced down snow-covered highways to the Somerville Theatre (just outside Boston, Mass.) to do live music for 'The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari' (1920).

This screening was part of the annual Boston Sci-Fi Marathon, held every President's Day weekend and now in its 40th year. For 24 hours (yes, straight without a break), about 500 hard-core fans take in a continuous diet of big screen sci-fi flicks of all types—the good, the bad, the very bad, with sometimes even a silent thrown in.

I'd been here before, in 2011, when I did live music for the 1916 version of '20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.' Not sure how 'Caligari' qualifies as sci-fi, but I was thrilled at a chance to do live music for it at the "'Thon," as attendees call it.

One reason is that it's a chance to bring a silent film to life for a large audience that's quite separate from the usual silent film crowd.

Somerville was absolutely buried in snow. But despite a parking ban and no public transit, the "Thon" went on as planned, although the start was pushed back from noon to 4 p.m.

Attendance was strong: I arrived just as the main theater's doors burst open at the intermission of '2001: A Space Odyssey,' and was surprised that the place was packed!

Set-up required me to gingerly step around people who'd camped out (sleeping bags and all) in the area below the stage, but everyone was really nice about it.

'Caligari' was preceded by a Thon tradition: the alien tinfoil hat contest.

And after that, we went right into Caligari, shown in DCP. Projectionist David Kornfeld thought the transfer was too slow, but it seems to flow all right in terms of the music.

By this time, I had been sitting at a keyboard so much in the past couple of days that I carried over a certain fluency I had accumulated. So things went well, even though I had nothing specific prepared for 'Caligari.'

The only special effect was that I brought my grandmother's old brass school bell to ring during the three times that Caligari is seen ringing a bell to get attention for his carnival act.

Great ovation at the end! Hope to do it again in years to come.

And then I went out in the cold to start my car, and the Thon moved on without me.

• Last-minute addition to the schedule: I'm doing music for Abel Gance's 'J'Accuse' (1919) on Sunday, Feb. 22 at 7 p.m. at the Harvard Film Archive, 24 Quincy St., Cambridge, Mass. For more info, please click the link.

I just was asked to do this, so haven't had a chance to prepare much. And I'm leaving for London tonight, returning to Boston the afternoon of the screening.

Cutting it close, I suppose, but I'm game.

And then after that, it's off to the Kansas Silent Film Festival on Feb. 27 & 28 in Topeka, Kansas.

More to come on that!