Tonight Last night in Brandon, Vt.: the first of a quartet of 'Woman in the Moon' screenings

The journey to Brandon, Vt. is not quite as long as the lunar voyage in 'Woman in the Moon.' But sometimes...

This is a little late in posting, but it's been that kind of a month.

It was actually last night that I accompanied 'Woman in the Moon' in Brandon, Vt.

It was the first of four screenings of the Fritz Lang epic that I'm doing in honor of the upcoming 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing.

And I just realized: each of the screenings is in a different state!

Last night was Vermont; next Wednesday it's the Leavitt Theater in Ogunquit, Maine; then on Thursday it's Red River Theatres in Concord, N.H., then next week it's the Regent Theatre in Arlington, Mass.

Last night, the Brandon screening went really well. It was a milestone of sorts, too, as it marked the first performance of a new keyboard I recently acquired.

I say new, but it's actually another Korg Triton LE 88, the same model I've been using since I started accompanying silent films regularly about 15 years ago.

The Korg Triton LE 88. Random pic from online. Right now mine's at home in the garage.

It's actually now regarded as a vintage synthesizer, having not been sold new since the mid-2000s. I've tried others, but nothing matches the Korg's weighted action keyboard. (Or maybe it's just that I'm used to it.)

And they're very durable, but then I really beat on mine. I play it aggressively, and I also drag it all around creation without a case.

So I'm guilty of Korg abuse. After a while, the screws holding the thing together begin to vibrate loose. I try to keep track of this, and tighten them as I go, but occasionally one falls out and I don't notice it.

Just last night, when setting up for Brandon, I found one of the screws on the floor from an earlier performance!

And also, because I don't put it in a case (as I've never had one), the keyboard gradually accumulates a patina of road dirt and pollen and God-knows-what that doesn't help things. (Unless this accumulated grime acts as a protective coating.)

So under my inept and unforgiving stewardship, a Korg has a lifespan of about five years at most. That's about how long I've had my up-until-now current model, and sure enough, in the last month it's been making signs of giving up the ghost.

For one thing, the main panel LCD display is lighting up only intermittently. Also tones are getting "stuck" with increasing frequency. By "stuck," I mean they keep sounding even when the key isn't pressed. The only way to stop is to switch to another sound patch and then back, hopefully without the audience noticing.

But if the LCD panel isn't lit up, I can't see which setting I'm on, and so during a live performance it's hard to make this switcheroo. During a recent 'Safety Last' screening, I tried the "switch out and back" maneuver, and with the display panel not lit, I came back with some kind of bossa nova setting—not what I usually go for when Harold is climbing a skyscraper.

So time for a new Korg. And amazingly, I found a practically brand new example on Craigslist, and with a hard case as well. It was in the Albany, N.Y. area, so I trekked out there last week and it was the real deal, so I bought it.

Thus do I have a "new" vintage Korg Triton LE 88, and a case, that I took with me to Brandon for the first time last night.

All went well: the instrument plays like a dream, with all buttons and dials working. It even has a full-sized "ON/OFF" button, which has been missing from my now-ex road model since I bought it from a guy in Rhode Island, and so it felt weird not putting my finger into the hole and pressing the model prong in there.

So the old Korg will be set aside and be cannibalized for parts as needed.

With the new one, it's great to have a case, but the whole thing is so enormously big and heavy, I'm not sure I'll be using it very often, except for long road trips. We'll see.

'Woman in the Moon' got a big-time reaction from the crowd last night at Brandon Town Hall, and stayed with it despite the lack of air conditioning. It wasn't quite Bikram Yoga-style silent film, but it was pretty warm in there. Credit Fritz Lang's film for holding an audience in less-than-ideal conditions.

If you'd like to see 'Woman in the Moon' (1929), I'm doing it three more times in the next couple of weeks.

Here's the press release for the screening this Wednesday, July 17 at the Leavitt Theatre in Ogunquit, Maine. Hope to see you there, or at the others in Concord, N.H. and Arlington, Mass.

An original poster for 'Frau im Mond,' or 'Woman in the Moon.

* * *MONDAY, JULY 8, 2019 / FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Jeff Rapsis • (603) 236-9237 • jeffrapsis@gmail.com

Leavitt Theatre to mark Apollo 11 anniversary on 7/17 with vintage lunar voyage masterpiece

'Woman in the Moon,' early sci-fi adventure fantasy about mankind's first space mission, to be screened Wednesday, July 17 with live music

OGUNQUIT, Maine—A sci-fi adventure hailed as the first feature film to depict realistic space travel will be screened at the Leavitt Theatre in honor of the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11.

'Woman in the Moon' (1929), directed by German filmmaker Fritz Lang ('Metropolis,' 1927), will be shown with live music on Wednesday, July 17 at 7 p.m. at the Leavitt Fine Arts Theatre, 259 Main St., Route 1, Ogunquit, Maine.

The screening is open to the public. Tickets are $10 per person, general admission.

The screening, the latest in the Leavitt's silent film series, will feature live accompaniment by Jeff Rapsis, a New Hampshire-based composer who specializes in creating music for silent films.

"We felt it was worth marking this important milestone by sampling visions of space travel before the Apollo program put mankind on the moon," said Max Clayton of the Leavitt Theatre. "And what better way to do that than go back to the silent era and 'Woman in the Moon,' an epic fantasy about the German space program that never happened."

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

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.

Who needs mission control? Willy Fritsch gets ready to pull the lever.

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 crewmates; 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 film's showing at the Leavitt coincides with the 50th anniversary of the voyage that took Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins to the moon in advance of the landing, which occurred on July 20, 1969. It's also the 90th anniversary of the original theatrical release of 'Woman in the Moon.'

"This 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 Leavitt's screening. "It's as entertaining as any spy-thriller. 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."

Hey, why didn't NASA include picture windows for the Apollo astronauts?

Rapsis 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."

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.

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."

After 'Woman in the Moon,' other programs in this year's Leavitt silent film series include:

• Thursday, Aug. 15, 7 p.m.: 'Paths to Paradise' (1925). Two competing would-be jewel thieves reluctantly team up to pull off a major heist. Starring Raymond Griffith, a leading comedian for Paramount Pictures whose popularity rivaled Chaplin and Keaton in the 1920s,

• Wednesday, Aug. 28, 7 p.m.: 'The Beloved Rogue' (1926) starring John Barrymore. Epic costume adventure based on the life of the 15th century French poet, François Villon. Wrongly banished from the Royal Court and sentenced to death, can the patriotic poet save France from an evil plot?

• Saturday, Oct. 26, 7 p.m.: 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame' (1923) starring Lon Chaney. Just in time for Halloween, our annual "Chiller Theatre" presentation! Lon Chaney stars in the original screen adaptation of Victor Hugo's classic novel about a deformed bellringer in medieval Paris.

‘Woman in the Moon’ will be shown with live music on Wednesday, July 17 at 7 p.m. at the Leavitt Fine Arts Theatre, 259 Main St. Route 1, Ogunquit, Maine; (207) 646-3123; admission is $10 per person, general seating. For more information, visit www.leavittheatre.com.

Finishing 2014 with Charlie Chaplin comedyprogram in Wilton, N.H. on Sunday, Dec. 28

Pontificating prior to a show on Saturday, Dec. 13 at the Tuscan Opera House in Dixfield, Maine. Photo by Nick Waugh.

And so we finish off the 2014 year with a program of Charlie Chaplin comedy shorts on Sunday, Dec. 28 at the Wilton (N.H.) Town Hall Theatre.

But not before we finish some business here.

Info about the Chaplin program is below. But as 2014 winds down, I thought I'd take a moment to gather my thoughts about the past year of presenting silent film with live music, and explore what 2015 might bring.

• I feel in 2014, I reached a level where my accompaniment makes use of a definite musical vocabulary that's very much my own.

So now that I've gotten to this point, in 2015 I'd like to devote more time to writing down finished music: not just silent film scores, but other pieces, too. I think it's time.

My recent reconnection with the music of composer John Adams has pushed me into a place where I'm excited about the possibilities of new music.

Also, I'd like to seek out opportunities to collaborate with other musicians on projects involving silent film or perhaps other material. Plus, I'd like to finally use my big bass tuba in a score.

• In 2014, I ramped up the use of new social media channels to promote and discuss what I do. In 2015, I hope to continue this process and make more use of Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms to connect with audiences, supporters, and others in the vintage film community.

• Also in 2014, I surpassed my goal of creating music for screenings of 200 different feature films. The numbers added up especially fast when I did a half-dozen programs of "animal" films this past summer in Wilton, N.H.

Most of the animal shows were double features, and a couple were triple features, all of films I'd never done before. And many were quite good!

For 2015, I think it'll be less about scoring films that are new to me (although I'll always want to keep exploring) and more about solidifying the material I have for some of the great films that are often requested for programs.

• 2014 saw my first big "technology" acquisition in a long while. After years of lugging around a bulky old Korg Triton LE keyboard/workstation and two powerful compact Roland speakers, it was time to invest in something new. (For one reason, the synth and speakers were literally falling apart.)

After checking around, I found I wasn't satisfied with anything currently on the market. So instead, I found fairly new versions of my trusty (but worn out) equipment, and so renewed my gear that way. Thanks, eBay and Craigslist!

I suppose at some point I'll actually buy some genuinely new stuff and get out of the "vintage synthesizer" rut. But for now, I think I'm all set for at least a few more years.

For 2015, what I really need to do is work on getting more out of the Korg than I have been. The machine is cursed with a not-very-intuitive interface, so I never seem to get around to programming it to make the most of what it can do in live performance.

• Total number of shows in 2014: 107 performances. For 2015, I'd like to still hit 100 just to keep up the pace, but I'm not going to obsess about it.

Also, I've sometimes found I don't have enough prep or preview time prior to a film, and so don't have a chance to develop solid new material to work with when it's film scoring time.

Also, I need to find room in my schedule to work on my keyboard technique and ability. I've developed some exercises to help me get around a little more nimbly and fill out chords on the fly, but I haven't done them consistently enough for the moves to be second nature.

Okay, about the upcoming Chaplin program on Sunday, Dec. 28 in Wilton, N.H.

I thought it was a fitting way to end 2014, which is the centennial of the 'Tramp' character as well as Chaplin's entry into the film world.

For many in the silent film community, Chaplin was the "gateway drug" that got us started in exploring the field.

That was certainly true in my case. My first exposure to silent film was my 7th grade music teacher running Chaplin two-reelers in 16mm as a way to keep students occupied during study hall.

I remember the first one I saw: Chaplin's 'One A.M.' (1916), notable because Chaplin is the film's only performer, other than a brief scene right at the start with Albert Austin as a taxi driver.

In more recent times, I've encountered more than a few film buffs who look down on Chaplin for whatever reason. But the thing is, his name still draws a crowd (more than any other silent film performer, I've found), and his films cam still produce gales of laughter in an audience that is otherwise not into silent film.

So Chaplin is well worth reviving, especially due to the likelihood that someone new to this old art might become intrigued enough to explore it further.

I'm not exactly sure yet which titles we'll have on the Dec. 28 program. But I'm confident we'll all have a great time laughing.

For more info on the upcoming Chaplin program, please check out the press release below.

* * *

Chaplin causes roller-skating mayhem in 'The Rink' (1916).

FRIDAY, NOV. 28, 2014 / FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Jeff Rapsis • (603) 236-9237 • jeffrapsis@gmail.com

Chaplin's best short comedies in Wilton, N.H. on Sunday, Dec. 28

Family fun to cap off Christmas weekend: Classic silent comedy shown with live music

WILTON, N.H.—Charlie Chaplin's iconic "Little Tramp" character remains popular around the world more than a century after he first skidded onto the silver screen.

But Chaplin's popularity first began with a series short comedies he produced and starred in during the early years of his career.

See the films that first made Chaplin famous when the Wilton Town Hall Theatre presents a program of Chaplin's best short comedies on Sunday, Dec. 28 at 4:30 p.m.

Live music for the movies will be provided by silent film accompanist Jeff Rapsis. Admission is free; a donation of $5 per person is suggested to help defray expenses.

The program will include several comedies made during Chaplin's "Mutual" period of 1916 and 1917.

These two-reel films (each about 20 minutes long) are fast-paced, full of sight gags, and widely regarded as Chaplin's most popular short comedies.

They show Chaplin in full command of his character as well as the then-new movie medium. Many were reissued and re-released to theaters throughout the silent period, even when Chaplin had moved on to make feature films.

The program is family friendly and suitable for all ages. Newcomers to silent film with live music are especially encouraged to attend and rediscover this unique art form.

"Seeing Chaplin on the big screen, with live music, and with an audience, is one of the great treats of the cinema, and a great way to cap off the long Christmas holiday weekend," Rapsis said.

In reviving Chaplin's short comedies, organizers aim to show silent film as it was meant to be seen—in restored 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 accompany the movies. "Recreate those conditions, and classics of early Hollywood such as Chaplin's early comedies leap back to life in ways that audiences still find entertaining."

Rapsis performs on a digital synthesizer that reproduces the texture of the full orchestra, creating a traditional "movie score" sound. He improvises the complete score in real time during the screening of each film.

"Creating a movie score on the fly is kind of a high-wire act, but it can often make for more excitement than if everything is planned out in advance," Rapsis said.

Upcoming films in the Town Hall Theatre's silent film series include:

• Sunday, Jan. 25, 2015, 4:30 p.m.: Silent Sci-Fi: 'Woman in the Moon.' An early sci-fi adventure epic about the first rocket ship to the moon, as imagined in 1929. Made on a grand scale; the rarely-screened final silent feature from German filmmaker Fritz Lang, director 'Metropolis.'

• Sunday, Feb. 15, 2015, 4:30 p.m.: 'Love' (1927). Silent-era mega-stars (and off-screen lovers) Greta Garbo and John Gilbert heat up the theater in this 1927 adaptation of Tolstoy's novel 'Anna Karenina.' (Great if you forgot to do anything special on Valentine's Day.)

• Sunday, March 29, 2015, 4:30 p.m.: 'The Ten Commandments' (1923). Original silent film verson of the Biblical epic. Directed by Cecil B. Demille (who also helmed the 1950s remake starring Charleton Heston), this sweeping saga is a great way to mark Palm Sunday, one week before Easter.

A program of Charlie Chaplin's best short comedies will be screened on Sunday, Dec. 28 at 4:30 p.m. at the Wilton Town Hall Theatre, 40 Main St., Wilton, N.H. Live music will be provided by Jeff Rapsis. Admission is free, with a donation of $5 per person suggested to help defray expenses.

For more information, visit www.wiltontownhalltheatre.com or call 654-3456. For more info on the music, visit www.jeffrapsis.com.

Some good news, a little bad news, and then heading off to San Francisco

The good news: I survived my "three films in one day" marathon on Sunday, Nov. 2.

But the bad news is that I haven't had time to catch my breath since.

And then on Thursday, Nov. 6, I catch a plane to San Francisco, where I'll do music for a program highlighted by Mary Pickford's 'The Little American' (1917).

So here's a quick report on recent film screenings and a look at what's coming up.

Betty Bronson as Peter Pan, who landed at the Bedford (N.H.) Public Library on Sunday, Nov. 2.

• Sunday, Nov. 2: 'Peter Pan' (1924) at the Bedford (N.H.) Public Library. Fun to do a silent film screening right in your own hometown. I was introduced by Paul Bordeleau, a local legend who's performed for decades and taught generations of students.

I don't know how old Paul is, but I do know he's a D-Day veteran, so he must be at least in his mid-80s. But he's sharp as a tack and still spry enough to carry audio equipment out to my car. He drives everywhere. Age doesn't seem to have slowed him up at all.

It's only a guess, but Paul's involvement in music must be a factor in how active he continues to be. That's a good reason to keep doing silent film accompaniment—to forestall my own descent into decrepitude.

About the film: the audience for this "family friendly" screening was a little short on actual children. But those that attended did a stellar job in the audience participation part of the program, where Peter begs the audience to save Tinkerbell by clapping. Tinkerbell made it, so gold stars for everyone!

And I've often wondered: Did the filmmakers prepare an alternate version of this scene in which a lack of audience response causes our favorite fairy to bite the fairydust?

Tinkerbell doesn't have much to do after this scene, so it wouldn't have really hurt the film. Would have made things just a little more interesting.

A scene from Fritz Lang's 'The Wandering Image' (1920), which for this screening might have been retitled 'The Wandering Accompanist.'

• Sunday, Nov. 2: 'Four Around A Woman' (1921) and 'The Wandering Image' (1920), both directed by Fritz Lang, at the Harvard Film Archive. A double bill of very obscure early Lang efforts, both shown in 35mm prints, illustrated the pitfalls of preparation.

First up was 'Four Around A Woman,' a title that I'd previewed only once, and found it didn't make a lot of sense to. Because I wasn't too inspired, I didn't spend a lot of time developing original material.

'The Wandering Image' followed. With extensive Bavarian Alps location shooting (a rarity for Lang), I responded much more readily to this flick. So, to go along with the expansive landscapes, I plotted out an ambitious soundscape for the picture, making simultaneous use of my digital synthesizer and the hall's Yamaha grand piano.

So come screening time, guess which score went well, and which was a mess? Of course the completely unplanned 'Woman' music fell together perfectly, while the 'Image' score was an avalanche of weak moments and missed opportunities that never quite jelled.

Maybe there's a lesson in that. But the first film, 'Four Around A Woman,' surprised me in that when seen on the big screen and with an audience, it seemed to make perfect sense! Musical themes for characters and situations came easily, and it all built nicely to a melodramatic climax.

With 'The Wandering Image,' it was more like 'The Wandering Accompanist,' as nothing I did seemed to work very effectively with what was happening on screen. And I kept botching the notes when I reached over to get the big bass drum/cymbal sound for lightning strikes, etc.

Part of this might be the result of 'Wandering Image' being my third film of the day, and I'm perfectly willing to admit that at some point an accompanist is going to run out of gas. I might just been tired.

But I also take it as yet another example of how just showing up and going with it seems to be a pretty good strategy for my style of playing. Call it the "Woody Allen School of Accompaniment" after his observation that 90 percent of life is showing up.

Not quite Our Gang: A scene from 'I Was Born, But...' (1932), a silent from Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu.

• Tuesday, Nov. 4: Two days later, it was back to Harvard to accompany an afternoon screening of 'I Was Born, But...' (1932), a film from Japanese director Yasojiro Ozu.

I'd never encountered Ozu's work before this: a delicately observed portrait of two young brothers who discover that their father is not "someone important," but a company salaryman.

It's not all comedy, but the tone is light enough to justify a score that was very different from what I usually do. Using a few simple melodies and a synthesizer setting that blended woodwinds and the sound of a plucked harp, which I think evoked a kind of child-like wonder throughout the film.

Also I avoided the clichéd sound of fifths played on a pentatonic scale, which I've sometimes heard referred to as "chopsticks" music. Tong War, anyone?

Instead, I built the score using a modal scale that incorporated a sharped 4th and a flatted 7th, which sounded vaguely Asian, and also worked in a lot of bright harmonies: chords with several notes of the scale close together all at once.

I was really pleased with how it came out. No big musical gestures, just a modest running accompaniment that I hope evoked the world Ozu was trying to depict.

The course is taught by Prof. Adam Hart, who afterwards said he thought the music for "I Was Born, But..." was the best of what I did for his class. Thank you, Adam! I completely agree!

Me banging the hell out of my Korg synthesizer back in 2010.

• Technical issues: One nice thing about the recent Harvard screenings is that I'm now able to plug my synth output directly into the theater's sound system. It really sounded great, so one less opportunity to stress out my aging speaker/amps.

However, this past weekend I did acquire a second Korg keyboard as a back-up for my 13-year-old machine, which is literally falling apart.

It's the exact same model as mine: a Korg Triton LE with the full 88 keys. But it's much newer and much cleaner , as it has been an indoor Korg.

I got it from a nice guy in Westerly, R.I. who was selling it on Craigslist. When I fit saw it, it was like my old bang-ed up machine had discovered the synthesizer fountain of youth! It was reborn!

Haven't had a chance to really play with it. But as soon as I can check it out thoroughly, the trusty old Korg will be relegated to back-up status, and the new Korg will start being hauled around to venues hither and yon.

I'll eventually get around to deciding on a totally new synth: probably some kind of Kurzweil. But I haven't been satisfied with the keyboard feel of what I've tried out so far, so we'll see.

In the meantime, I at least have a back-up if one or the other of my fleet of aging synthesizers finally shits the bed, if you'll forgive me using a technical term.

The next piece of equipment I really need are new speakers for venues that do not have adequate house sound systems. The two old Rolands I drag around have been great, but they're literally falling apart, and in some ways they're clearly not reliably handling the full output of the synth.

But as with the keyboard, I've yet to find anything quite like my Rolands, which I understand are not made anymore.

It's just like what happens to me with shoes: as soon as I find a style I like, they get discontinued!

Anyone know any speakers for sale?