Coming up: 'The Passion of Joan of Arc' on Wednesday, March 22 at Rogers Center

Maria Falconetti in 'The Passion of Joan of Arc.'

I hope you'll join us on Wednesday this week for a movie that will change your mind about silent film.

It's 'The Passion of Joan of Arc' (1928), a feature from Danish director Carl Dreyer. I'm doing music for it on Wednesday, March 22 at the Rogers Center for the Arts in North Andover, Mass.

Why will this change your mind about silent film?

Because more than any other film I can think of from that era, it demonstrates how cinema (a brand new art form at the time) had qualities that were distinct from other art forms that came before it.

And it did all this without dialogue or a sound track. It did this through images alone.

In doing so, Dreyer's film hinted at the true potential for this new art form in its purest state, meaning a story told through pictures that moved.

Alas, a cinema of images (and without dialogue) was already in the process of being swept aside by cinema with synchronized dialogue, sound, and effects.

But still, Dreyer was able to give us a sense of what was possible, even without all these added attractions. And in that sense, he helped change my mind about silent film, and I hope 'Joan of Arc' has the same effect on you.

To find out, come see it! Showtime is 7 p.m. at the Rogers Center, which is on the campus of Merrimack College in North Andover, Mass.

And if all that's not enough, how about this? Admission is free!

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An original poster for Carl Dreyer's 'The Passion of Joan of Arc' (1928).

FRIDAY, MARCH 17, 2017 / FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Jeff Rapsis • (603) 236-9237 • jeffrapsis@gmail.com

Rediscovered silent religious drama to be shown at Rogers Center for the Arts on Wednesday, March 22

'The Passion of Joan of Arc' (1928), long thought lost until a copy was found in Norway, to be screened with live music

NORTH ANDOVER, Mass.—A ground-breaking European feature film—considered lost for decades until a copy surfaced in Oslo, Norway—will soon return to the big screen at the Rogers Center for the Arts.

'The Passion of Joan of Arc' (1928), a film noted for its innovative camera work and an acclaimed performance by actress Maria Falconetti, will be screened on Wednesday, March 22 at 7 p.m. as part of the Tambakos Film Series at the Rogers Center for the Arts in North Andover, Mass.

Admission is free and the program is open to the public. Live music for the movie will be provided by silent film accompanist Jeff Rapsis.

Directed by Denmark's Carl Theodor Dreyer, 'The Passion of Joan of Arc' chronicles the trial of Jeanne d'Arc on charges of heresy, and the efforts of her ecclesiastical jurists to force Jeanne to recant her claims of holy visions.

The film’s courtroom scenes are shot almost exclusively in close-up, situating all the film’s meaning and drama in the slightest movements of its protagonist’s face.

Of Falconetti's performance in the title role, critic Pauline Kael wrote that her portrayal "may be the finest performance ever recorded on film." Her performance was ranked 26th in Premiere Magazine's 100 Greatest Performances of All Time, the highest of any silent performance on the list. Falconetti, a legendary French stage actress, made only two films during her career.

The film has a history of controversy. The premiere of 'The Passion of Joan of Arc' in Paris on Oct. 25, 1928 was delayed because of the longtime efforts of many French nationalists, who objected to the fact that Dreyer was not Catholic and not French and to the then-rumored casting of Lillian Gish as Joan.

Before the premiere, several cuts were made by order of the Archbishop of Paris and by government censors. Dreyer had no say in these cuts and was angry about them. Later that year, a fire at UFA studios in Berlin destroyed the film's original negative and only a few copies of Dreyer's original cut of the film existed.

Dreyer was able to patch together a new version of his original cut using alternate takes not initially used. This version was also destroyed in a lab fire in 1929. Over the years it became hard to find copies of Dreyer's second version and even harder to find copies of the original version of the film.

It was banned in Britain for its portrayal of crude English soldiers who mock and torment Joan in scenes that mirror Biblical accounts of Christ's mocking at the hands of Roman soldiers. The Archbishop of Paris was also critical, demanding changes be made to the film.

'The Passion of Joan of Arc' was released near the end of the silent film era. About 70 percent of all movies made during that time are now lost due to decomposition, carelessness, fire, or neglect. But copies of "missing" films still occasionally turn up in archives and collections around the world, so researchers and archivists continue to make discoveries.

In the case of 'The Passion of Joan of Arc,' the original version of the film was lost for decades after a fire destroyed the master negative. In 1981, an employee of the Kikemark Sykehus mental institution in Oslo, Norway found several film cans in a janitor's closet that were labeled as being The Passion of Joan of Arc.

The cans were sent to the Norwegian Film Institute where they were first stored for three years until finally being examined. It was then discovered that the prints were of Dreyer's original cut of the film before government or church censorship had taken place. No records exist of the film being shipped to Oslo, but film historians believe that the then-director of the institution may have requested a special copy.

For 'The Passion of Joan of Arc,' Rapsis will improvise a score from original musical material that he creates beforehand, using a digital synthesizer to recreate the sound and texture of a full orchestra.

"What I try to do," Rapsis said, "is create music that bridges the gap between a film that might be 80 or 90 years old, and the musical expectations of today's audiences."

'The Passion of Joan of Arc' continues another season of silent films presented with live music at the Rogers. The series provides local audiences the opportunity to experience silent film as it was intended to be shown: on the big screen, in good-looking prints, with live music, and with an audience.

“These films are still exciting experiences if you can show them as they were designed to be screened,” said Rapsis, accompanist for the screenings.

'The Passion of Joan of Arc' will be shown on Wednesday, March 22 at 7 p.m. as part of the Tambakos Film Series at the Rogers Center for the Arts, Merrimack College, 315 North Turnpike St., North Andover, Mass.

Admission is free and the program is open to the public. For more information, call the Rogers box office at (978) 837-5355 or visit www.merrimack.edu/rogers.

Next: 'The Winning of Barbara Worth' (1926) on Wednesday, Jan. 25 at Rogers Center

Next up on the accompaniment calendar: a movie that I can't believe I didn't know about for such a long time.

It's 'The Winning of Barbara Worth' (1926) and despite the clunky title, it's a real winner, with something for everyone.

And you can see for yourself when the film is screened on Wednesday, Jan. 25 at 7 p.m. at the Rogers Center for the Arts at Merrimack College in North Andover, Mass.

Admission is free and the program is open to the public. A lot more info about the film and the screening is in the press release I've pasted in below.

Why am I so up on 'The Winning of Barbara Worth'?

Consider:

• It has stars whose names are still recognized today, including Gary Cooper and Ronald Colman. (And, to a lesser extent, Vilma Banky.)

• It was filmed in Nevada's remote Black Rock Desert, which gave director Henry King incredible vistas and unsurpassed location shooting.

• Although it's a high-stakes drama, it's filled with warm comic touches that are so typical of director King's style, and which greatly enrich the film.

• It's a Western, but not about injuns and bandits. Instead, it's a story about agriculture and water and the settling of the American West.

I know that last point doesn't sound too compelling, but it makes all difference.

The story of 'Winning' takes place amid the first attempts to irrigate California's arid Imperial Valley—the vast area west of Los Angeles and San Diego.

Pioneering settlers recognized the valley could be an agricultural paradise if only water could be brought to it.

So in the late 19th century, grand plans were made to reroute the nearby Colorado River so it would flow into and through the valley.

However, in 1905, the Colorado famously overflowed the dikes and canals under construction and an out-of-control deluge caused extensive flooding and the inadvertent creation of the land-locked Salton Sea, which we still have with us today.

The river was eventually controlled, and today the Imperial Valley is indeed is one of the most productive growing regions in the world.

In 'The Winning of Barbara Worth,' this series of events provides the setting for human drama that takes place among the heroic efforts to transform the valley.

Unlike so many films from long ago, this one rings true even today, I think. The cast, the setting, the story—all combine to show the narrative power of silent film at the peak of the form.

And for some reason, it's not as well known as it should be, even among film fans. I only discovered it a few years ago, when working with Kevin Brownlow on a presentation about the American West in silent cinema.

It could be the title, which is a mouthful and doesn't do much to convey the scale and scope of this production.

Well, whatever the reason, here's your chance to catch up with one of the silent era's under-appreciated gems.

See you at the screening! For more info, check out the press release below.

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Vilma Banky and Gary Cooper in 'The Winning of Barbara Worth' (1926).

THURSDAY, JAN. 12, 2017 / FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Jeff Rapsis • (603) 236-9237 • jeffrapsis@gmail.com

Rip-roaring epic silent Western with live music at Rogers Center for the Arts on Wednesday, Jan. 25

'The Winning of Barbara Worth' (1926), ground-breaking outdoor drama starring Gary Cooper and Ronald Colman, to be screened at Merrimack College

NORTH ANDOVER, Mass.—A film that helped create Hollywood's love affair with the American West will continue this season's silent film programming, part of the Tambakos Film Series at the Rogers Center for the Arts in North Andover, Mass.

'The Winning of Barbara Worth' (1926), a silent drama starring Gary Cooper, Ronald Colman, and Vilma Banky, will be shown on Wednesday, Jan. 25 at 7 p.m.

Admission is free and the screening is open to the public. Live music will be provided by accompanist Jeff Rapsis, a New England-based performer who specializes in creating music for silent film presentations.

Directed by Henry King, 'The Winning of Barbara Worth' chronicles the epic story of pioneer settlers who dreamed of irrigating California's parched Imperial Valley in the early 20th century. Filmed on location in Nevada's Black Rock desert, the movie is noted for its extensive use of vast open spaces and wild scenery.

The story centers on a rivalry for the affections of Barbara Worth (Vilma Banky), adopted daughter of a powerful rancher. A local cowboy (Gary Cooper) finds himself competing with a newly arrived engineer (Ronald Colman), who has come to the rural valley to work on plans to harness the Colorado River for irrigation.

Will the local ranch hand prevail over the city slicker engineer? Can citizens of the parched region prevail over nature and transform their lands into an agricultural paradise? Will rumors of shortcuts taken in constructing a massive dam lead to disaster?

All these questions combine to create a film that showed Hollywood and movie-goers the power of a drama set in the rural American west.

The film is also noted for its camerawork by Greg Toland, who would later go on to do principal photography for 'Citizen Kane' in 1941.

For 'The Winning of Barbara Worth,' Rapsis will improvise a score from original musical material that he composes beforehand, using a digital synthesizer to recreate the sound and texture of a full orchestra.

"What I try to do," Rapsis said, "is create music that bridges the gap between a film that might be 80 or 90 years old, and the musical expectations of today's audiences."

'The Winning of Barbara Worth' continues another season of silent films presented with live music at the Rogers. The series provides local audiences the opportunity to experience silent film as it was intended to be shown: on the big screen, in good-looking prints, with live music, and with an audience.

“These films are still exciting experiences if you can show them as they were designed to be screened,” said Rapsis, accompanist for the screenings.

“There’s a reason people first fell in love with the movies, and we hope to recreate that spirit. At their best, silent films were communal experiences in which the presence of a large audience intensifies everyone’s reactions.”

For each film, Rapsis improvises a music score using original themes he creates beforehand. None of the the music is written down; instead, the score evolves in real time based on audience reaction and the overall mood as the movie is screened.

"If you haven't seen a silent film the way it was intended to be shown, then you're missing a unique experience," Rapsis said. "At their best, silent films can be surprisingly sophisticated. They still retain a tremendous ability to cast a spell, engage an audience, tap into elemental emotions, and provoke strong reactions."

The 2016-17 Tambakos Film Series, which runs most Wednesday nights during the semester, focuses on Silent Films with live musical accompaniment, Hollywood classics and foreign masterworks. It continues on February 1st with crime thriller ‘The Grandmaster’ followed by A Clockwork Orange, Taxi Driver, and Jules et Jim. The next masterpiece in the Silent film Series is "The Passion of Joan of Arc" (1928). Danish director Carl Dreyer's intense recreation of the trial of Joan of Arc. 'The Passion of Joan of Arc' will screen on Wednesday, March 22, 2017.

All films are screened at the Rogers Center for the Arts, Merrimack College, 315 North Turnpike St., North Andover, Mass.

For more information, call the Rogers box office at (978) 837-5355 or visit www.merrimack.edu/rogers.

For more about the music, visit www.jeffrapsis.com.

Tonight 9/23: Opening night at Rogers Center features double bill of Buster's best pictures

Buster in 'Sherlock Jr.' (1924), showing tonight at the Rogers Center in North Andover, Mass.

Alas, I'm not attending this year's Buster Keaton Celebration in Iola, Kansas, which takes place this weekend.

But I'm doing the next best thing: accompanying a pair of upcoming Keaton programs in my corner of the world.

First up is tonight's season-opener at the Rogers Center for the Arts on the campus of Merrimack College in North Andover, Mass.

The program features 'Sherlock Jr.' (1924) and 'Our Hospitality' (1923), two of Buster's best silents that I think show his remarkable abilities even early in his film career, when these pictures date from.

For more info on this show, and the rest of the season at the Rogers Center, check out the press release below.

And then on Sunday, Sept. 27, I'm accompanying Keaton's last silent feature, the MGM-produced "Spite Marriage" (1929) at the Wilton (N.H.) Town Hall Theatre in Wilton, N.H. Showtime is 4:30 p.m.

Both programs are free and open to the public, although a suggested donation of $5 per person is requested for the Wilton show to help defray expenses.

Buster's silent features still work as well as ever, and remain audience favorites today.

But even just a little historical perspective makes them all the more interesting and amazing, I think.

What I'm thinking about is how I recall someone once described the difference among silent film's "Big Three" of comedy.

Charlie Chaplin's art was essentially rooted in the past—a kind of Victorian sensibility found in the theatrical melodramas of the 19th century. Audiences responded to the timeless and familiar qualities of this kind of story-telling.

Harold Lloyd played a character very much of the present, meaning the Roaring '20s. Audiences responded to him because his adventures were part of the shared experience of contemporary living.

And Keaton? Well, we're still trying to catch up to Buster: his outlook, his attitude, and everything else.

In that sense, I think an important aspect of Buster's work is how he used the film medium.

Watch enough silent films of all types, and you realize how advanced Keaton was for his time.

Remember, it was an era when filmmakers were just beginning to develop the basic grammar of cinema: long shots vs. close-ups, transitions, camera positions, and so much else.

Apparently on instinct alone, Buster knew how to position a camera and frame a shot and edit a sequence for maximum impact.

Timeless appeal: Buster and a sundial in 'Seven Chances' (1925).

So his films are full of techniques that later became common in motion pictures.

But that's something not immediately apparent to modern audiences, who've been marinated in visual story-telling and entertainment our whole lives.

To us, Buster's films look like: well, what films are supposed to look like. But check your calendar: we live in 2015, and Buster was working 90 years ago.

Talk about timeless!

Okay, here's info about tonight's screening and the rest of the 2015-16 season of silent film with live music at the Rogers Center in North Andover, Mass. Hope to see you there!

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Buster Keaton (left) stars in 'Our Hospitality' (1923), part of the 2015-16 silent film series at the Rogers Center for the Arts.

MONDAY, SEPT. 7, 2015 / FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Jeff Rapsis • (603) 236-9237 • jeffrapsis@gmail.com

Rogers Center announces silent film series with live music for 2015-16 season

Classic comedies, dramas to be screened with live accompaniment at Merrimack College, North Andover, Mass.

NORTH ANDOVER, Mass.—Silent film on the big screen and with live music will return to the Rogers Center for the Arts in North Andover, Mass. with a series of shows scheduled for the 2015-16 season. Admission to the screenings is free and the public is welcome.

The schedule includes a double dose of comedy from one of silent era's top funnymen; a creepy thriller to be shown for Halloween; a mind-bending epic drama set in four different time periods; and the original silent version of 'Ben Hur.'

Musical accompaniment will be performed live by silent film composer Jeff Rapsis, regarded as one of the nation's leading silent film musicians.

The series aims to recapture the magic of early Hollywood by presenting silent films as they were intended to be shown: in restored prints, in a theater on a big screen, with live music, and with an audience.

"If you can put together those elements, it's surprising how much power these films still have," said Rapsis, who specializes in improvising live music for silent film screenings throughout New England and beyond. "You realize why these films caused people to first fall in love with the movies."

The series features some of the most-requested titles from the silent film era:

• Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2015, 7 p.m.: 'Buster Keaton Double Feature' starring Buster Keaton. Buster breeches the fourth wall big-time in the imaginative "Sherlock Jr." (1924); an old-time backwoods family feud is the focus of "Our Hospitality" (1923), Keaton's breakthrough feature film. Laugh your way through two of the funniest comedies of the silent era!

• Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2015, 7 p.m.: 'The Lodger' (1927), directed by (a very young) Alfred Hitchcock. The search is on for the man responsible for a series of murders in fog-shrouded London. Legendary filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock's career began in the silent era, when then young director first produced his brand of darkly suspenseful thrillers. Remember: in silent film, no one can hear you scream! See if if you dare!

A poster for 'Intolerance' (1916), part of the 2015-16 silent film series at the Rogers Center in North Andover, Mass.

• Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016, 7 p.m.: 'Intolerance' (1916), directed by D.W. Griffith and starring (literally) a cast of thousands. D.W. Griffith's early blockbuster about man's inhumanity to man weaves together four stories spanning four eras of civilization. Filmed an a vast scale, setting a new standard for Hollywood extravagance. A movie made for the big screen, and here's your chance to see it!

• Wednesday, March 23, 2016, 7 p.m.: 'Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ' (1925) starring Ramon Novarro, Francis X. Bushman. Just in time for Easter! In the Holy Land, a Jewish prince is enslaved by the occupying Romans; inspired by encounters with Jesus, he lives to seek justice. One of the great religious epics of Hollywood's silent film era, including a legendary chariot race that's lost none of its power to thrill.

All films will be screened at the Rogers Center for the Arts, Merrimack College, 315 North Turnpike St., North Andover, Mass.

"If you haven't seen a silent film the way it was intended to be shown, then you're missing a unique experience," Rapsis said. "At their best, silent films can be surprisingly sophisticated. They still retain a tremendous ability to cast a spell, engage an audience, tap into elemental emotions, and provoke strong reactions."

The opening program in this season's silent film series at the Rogers Center will include Buster Keaton's 'Sherlock Jr.' (1924) and 'Our Hospitality' (1923), to be screened on Wednesday, Sept. 23 at 7 p.m. at the Rogers Center for the Arts, located on Walsh Way on the campus of Merrimack College, 315 Turnpike St., North Andover, Mass. Admission is free. For more information, call the Rogers box office at (978) 837-5355.

'Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse' (1921) on Wednesday, March 25 at Merrimack College

How many of the Four Horsemen can you name? Let's see—there's Pestilence, Death, War, and...Irving?

What film introduced silent-era megastar Rudolph Valentino and launched a prolonged tango craze?

Answer: 'The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,' a sprawling multi-generational family drama set in the years leading up and then during World War I.

And we're screening it, tangos and all, on Wednesday, March 25 at 7 p.m. at the Rogers Center for the Performing Arts at Merrimack College in North Andover, Mass.

I've only done this film once, and it's quite a workout. Not only is it loooong (with some versions running somewhere between 2½ and 3 hours) but it's also full of big dramatic scenes, including Rudy's steamy 'tango' sequence with its legions of on-screen guitar players.

And then there's the war, which is a menacing presence during most of the film. Somehow the music has to evoke that without growing tiresome. We'll see how I do.

So overall, it's a big film, and a fitting conclusion to our 2014-15 schedule of silent films at the Rogers Center.

I like doing films there and audience attendance has been growing—typically we get 80 to 100 people at these screening, sometimes more.

So I hope to be back with some silent film programs for the 2015-16 season. Please let me know what films you'd like to see run at the Rogers Center.

And in the meantime, I hope you can make it to the Rogers Center for a rare screening of this important and dramatic film.

And I encourage anyone to come down and sit with me on the bench. After all, it takes two to tango!

Okay—if you'd like more info about the picture or the screening, the press release (below) covers all the bases.

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Rudolph Valentino shows off his dancing skills in 'Four Horsemen.'

TUESDAY, MARCH 17, 2015 / FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Jeff Rapsis • (603) 236-9237 • jeffrapsis@gmail.com

Ground-breaking WWI silent film drama on Wednesday, March 25 at Merrimack College

'Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse' introduced Rudolph Valentino, started tango dance craze; to be screened with live musical accompaniment

NORTH ANDOVER, Mass.—A drama that helped launch the career of silent film heartthrob and megastar Rudolph Valentino will be shown in January at Merrimack College.

'The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse' (1921), a multi-generational family drama that climaxes during World War I, will be screened with live music on Wednesday, March 25 at 7 p.m. at the Rogers Center for the Arts, Merrimack College, 315 North Turnpike St., North Andover, Mass.

The screening is part of the Rogers Center's silent film series. Admission is free and the screening is open to the public.

'Four Horsemen' was originally scheduled to be shown in February at the Rogers Center, but the screening was moved to a March date due to a scheduling conflict.

Based on a novel by Spanish author Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, 'Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse' tells the story of an extended Argentine family with mixed ethnic background: one side is German, while the other is French.

The family get drawn into World War I in far-off Europe, with members ending up on opposing sides. With brothers pitted against one other on the battlefield, the destruction of war changes lives and fortunes forever.

'The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse' had a huge cultural impact, becoming the top-grossing film of 1921, beating out Charlie Chaplin's 'The Kid,' and going on to become the sixth-best-grossing silent film of all time.

Also, the film turned then-little-known actor Rudolph Valentino into a superstar and associated him with the image of the Latin Lover. In addition, the film inspired a tango craze and such fashion fads as gaucho pants.

In 1995, 'The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse' was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

Regarding the title: the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are mentioned in the Bible in chapter six of the Book of Revelation, which predicts that they will ride during the Apocalypse. The four horsemen are traditionally named War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death.

"This is a big sprawling drama, and a great chance to see the legendary Rudolph Valentino in the picture that launched his celebrity," said Jeff Rapsis, a New Hampshire-based silent film accompanist who will create live music for the screening.

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.

All movies in the Rogers Centers’ silent film series were popular when first released, but are rarely screened today in a way that allows them to be seen at their best.

They were not made to be shown on television; to revive them, organizers aim to show the films at the Rogers Center as they were intended—in top quality restored prints, on a large screen, with live music, and with an audience.

‘The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse’ will be shown with live music on Wednesday, March 25 at 7 p.m. at the the Rogers Center for the Arts, Merrimack College, 315 North Turnpike St., North Andover, Mass. Admission is free. For more information, call the Rogers box office at (978) 837-5355. For more info on the music, visit www.jeffrapsis.com

Coming up: Two separate screenings of Fritz Lang's 'Woman in the Moon'

Our group's Kilimanjaro summit photo, taken at 6:30 a.m. on Saturday, Jan. 10, 2015.

Okay, I'm back in silent film mode after three weeks in Tanzania, a journey that included a 10-day expedition to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro.

All 12 members of our party made it to the 19,341-foot summit, the highest point on the African continent. I'll post a full account of this adventure as soon as my head stops spinning.

The summit, by the way, is called "Uhuru Peak," using the Swahili word for "freedom."

But prior to Tanzania's independence in the 1960s, it carried the imperialist moniker of "Kaiser Wilheim Spitze."

Why? Because Kilimanjaro was part of Germany's colonial empire when geologist Hans Meyer in 1889 became the first European to reach the top.

The Germans lost their African territories after World War I, ceding control to the British, whose "hands off" policy including letting the Kaiser's name stand. (That's me imitating Cecil B. Demille at the Lava Tower, up at about 15,000 feet on Kilimanjaro.)

But by then, Germans were on their way to creating a new empire—this time in silent cinema.

The 1920s were a time of bold experimentation in German movie-making, and the result was a body of work that would prove much more durable than their colonial empire.

And one of the major achievements of this period, I think, is Fritz Lang's ground-breaking sci-fi espionage soap opera 'Woman in the Moon' (1929).

I feel 'Woman in the Moon' is an underrated film, long overshadowed by Lang's spectacular 'Metropolis' from 1927.

Come to think of it, the lunar landscape of 'Woman in the Moon' doesn't look that much different from parts of Kilimanjaro.

As such, I love presenting it to audiences, as they always seem to come away surprised that a film like this could even be made during the silent era.

It's also a great film for music, and seems to bring out the best in me whenever I accompany it.

In the coming week, we'll screen 'Woman in the Moon' not once but twice in our part of the world.

First up is Wednesday, Jan. 21 at 7 p.m. the Rogers Center for the Arts at Merrimack College, North Andover, Mass.

And then I'll do it again on Sunday, Jan. 25 at 4:30 p.m. at the Wilton Town Hall Theatre in Wilton, N.H.

Both screenings are free and open to the public. Hope you can make it!

For more info about the screenings and the film, below is the press release that went out to promote the screening on Wednesday, Jan. 21 at Merrimack College.

(For the Wilton screening, just change the date and time to Sunday, Jan. 25 at 4:30 p.m.)

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The iconic original poster for Fritz Lang's 'Frau im Mond.'

FRIDAY, DEC. 26, 2014 / FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Jeff Rapsis • (603) 236-9237 • jeffrapsis@gmail.com

Silent sci-fi adventure film on Wednesday, Jan. 21 at Merrimack College

'Woman in the Moon,' pioneer space drama about first moon voyage, to be screened with live musical accompaniment

NORTH ANDOVER, Mass.—A sci-fi adventure hailed as the first feature film to depict realistic space travel will be shown in January at Merrimack College.

'Woman in the Moon' (1929), directed by German filmmaker Fritz Lang ('Metropolis,' 1927), will be screened with live music on Wednesday, Jan. 21 at 7 p.m. at the Rogers Center for the Arts, Merrimack College, 315 North Turnpike St., North Andover, Mass.

The screening is part of the Rogers Center's silent film series. Admission is free and the screening is open to the public.

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 large deposits of gold.

The film, made with German rocket experts as technical advisers, is noted for anticipating 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.

But 'Woman in the Moon,' with its melodramatic plot and colorful characters, also stands as the forerunner of many sci-fi story elements that quickly became clichés: the brilliant but misunderstood professor; a love triangle involving a beautiful 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.

"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 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."

Rapsis, a resident of Bedford, N.H., will improvise live musical accompaniment during the screening, using both an acoustic piano and 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."

Cast member Willy Fritsch, as "Helius," prepares for launching mankind's first manned moon voyage.

Director Fritz Lang, who was 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. 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."

As their spacecraft nears the moon, the cast of 'Woman in the Moon' look back at the receding Earth.

All movies in the Rogers Center’s silent film series were popular when first released, but are rarely screened today in a way that allows them to be seen at their best. They were not made to be shown on television; to revive them, organizers aim to show the films at the Rogers Center as they were intended—in top quality restored prints, on a large screen, with live music, and with an audience.

‘Woman in the Moon’ will be shown with live music on Wednesday, Jan. 21 at 7 p.m. at the the Rogers Center for the Arts, Merrimack College, 315 North Turnpike St., North Andover, Mass. Admission is free. For more information, call the Rogers box office at (978) 837-5355. For more info on the music, visit www.jeffrapsis.com.

'Cat and the Canary' (1927) on Weds., 10/29 at Rogers Center, North Andover, Mass.

Two of the memorable faces in 'The Cat and the Canary' (1927): Martha Mattox as "Manny Pleasant" and Laura LaPlante as Annabelle West.

No, it's not the talkie version with Bob Hope cracking wise.

But the silent edition of 'Cat and the Canary' (1927), an early haunted house thriller, is filled with other delights.

One of the great strengths of the silent version, I think, is the cast.

"We had faces," remarks Norma Desmond in 'Sunset Boulevard' (1950). And 'Cat and the Canary' is chock full of memorable ones!

No big-name performers that anyone would recognize today, mind you. But the film still works on an audience by virtue of the terrific ensemble cast that German director Paul Leni assembled for his first Hollywood film.

See for yourself when we run 'The Cat and the Canary' on Wednesday, Oct. 29 at 7 p.m. at the Rogers Center for the Arts at Merrimack College in North Andover, Mass. Admission is free!

More details in the press release below.

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Actor Tully Marshall as attorney Crosby has a close encounter in 'The Cat and the Canary' (1927)

SATURDAY, OCT. 4, 2014 / FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Jeff Rapsis • (603) 236-9237 • jeffrapsis@gmail.com

'Cat and Canary' (1927) to play Rogers Center with live music on Wednesday, Oct. 29

Just in time for Halloween: Creepy haunted house silent film thriller to be shown after sundown

NORTH ANDOVER, Mass.—'The Cat and the Canary' (1927), a haunted house thriller from Hollywood’s silent film era, will be screened with live music on Wednesday, Oct. 29 at 7 p.m. at at the Rogers Center for the Arts on the campus of Merrimack College in North Andover, Mass.

Live music for the movie will be provided by silent film accompanist Jeff Rapsis. Admission is free and the screening is open to the public.

'The Cat and the Canary' stands as the original movie thriller—the first picture to feature the reading of a will in a haunted mansion complete with clutching hands, a masked killer, disappearing bodies, and secret passageways.

Silent film starlet Laura LaPlante leads the cast as a young heiress who must spend the night in the creepy old mansion, which is filled with relatives who all have motives to frighten her out of her wits. Meanwhile, a dangerous escaped lunatic is loose on the grounds. Can she and the others make it through the night?

Created for Universal Pictures by German filmmaker Paul Leni and based on a hit stage play, 'The Cat and the Canary' proved popular enough to inspire several remakes, including one starring Bob Hope. It was also the forbearer of all the great Universal horror classics of the 1930s and '40s.

The Rogers Center screening will use a fully restored print that shows the film as audiences would have originally experienced it. 'The Cat and the Canary' will be accompanied by live music by New Hampshire composer Jeff Rapsis, who specializes in silent film scoring.

Rapsis will improvise the score on the spot during the screening.

"Silent film is all about the audience experience, and this one is a perfect Halloween crowd-pleaser," Rapsis said. "It has something for everyone—spooky scenes, some good comedy, and it's all fine for the whole family."

Critics praise the original 'Cat and the Canary' for its wild visual design and cutting edge cinematography.

Film reviewer Michael Phillips singled out the film for using "a fluidly moving camera and elaborate, expressionist sets and lighting to achieve some of the most memorable shots in silent film, from the amazing tracking shots down the curtain-lined main hallway to the dramatic zooms and pans that accompany the film's shocks."

Leonard Maltin called the original 'Cat and the Canary' a "delightful silent classic, the forerunner of all "old dark house" mysteries."

Following 'The Cat and the Canary,' the 2014-15 silent film series at the Rogers continues with a sci-fi epic and a war adventure.

• Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2015, 7 p.m.: 'Woman in the Moon' (1929) directed by Fritz Lang. A grand sci-fi adventure epic about the first rocket ship to the moon. The rarely-screened final silent feature from German filmmaker Fritz Lang (director of 'Metropolis'), 'Woman in the Moon' laid the groundwork for all of the great outer space movie tales to come, complete with melodramatic plot and eye-popping visuals. Welcome the year 2015 by pondering a vision of the future as imagined by one of yesterday's great moviemakers.

• Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2015, 7 p.m.: 'The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse' (1921) starring Rudolph Valentino. An extended family split up in France and Germany find themselves on opposing sides of the battlefield during World War I. The film that turned then-little-known actor Rudolph Valentino into a superstar and associated him with the image of the Latin Lover. The film also inspired a tango craze and such fashion fads as gaucho pants. A great way to celebrate Valentine's Day!

All films will be screened at the Rogers Center for the Arts, Merrimack College, 315 North Turnpike St., North Andover, Mass.

"If you haven't seen a silent film the way it was intended to be shown, then you're missing a unique experience," Rapsis said. "At their best, silent films still connect with cinema-goers. They retain a tremendous power to cast a spell, engage an audience, tap into elemental emotions, and provoke strong reactions."

'Cat and the Canary' will be shown on Wednesday, Oct. 29 at 7 p.m. at the Rogers Center for the Arts, located on Walsh Way on the campus of Merrimack College, 315 Turnpike St., North Andover, Mass. Admission is free. For more information, call the Rogers box office at (978) 837-5355. For more info on the music, visit www.jeffrapsis.com.

Coming on Wednesday, Jan. 22: 'Birth of a Nation' in North Andover, Mass.

Tomorrow is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and I'll be spending part of it preparing for a screening of 'The Birth of a Nation' (1915) later this week at Merrimack College in North Andover, Mass.

Showing this film poses problems. It's a landmark piece of cinema, sure. But it also contains a healthy dose of good old racism as it existed in this nation a century ago.

The racism, which in part was responsible for reigniting the Ku Klux Klan, is enough to make 'The Birth of a Nation' permanently damaged goods in the eyes of some. One theater manager whom I greatly respect said he would never, ever run the film, as it would bring an avalanche of protest to his doorstep.

But I think Martin Luther King Day provides a great opportunity for today's audiences to experience 'The Birth of a Nation' in a thoughtful context. This film, which Woodrow Wilson likened to "writing history with lightning," shows in a palpable way how far we've come. Also, it can get us thinking about how far we still have to go.

So I'm pleased to be creating live music for this film on Wednesday, Jan. 22 as part of the this year's silent film series at the Rogers Center for the Performing Arts on the campus of Merrimack College in North Andover, Mass.

Start time is 7 p.m., and it's a long film, so I'll keep opening remarks brief. Admission is free. Don't miss this rare opportunity to see a classic of early Hollywood on the big screen in its full-length version, with live music and an audience.

For more information, here's the text of a press release that went out earlier...

* * *

THURSDAY, DEC. 26, 2013 / FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Jeff Rapsis • (603) 236-9237 • jeffrapsis@gmail.com

‘Birth of a Nation’: Silent film masterpiece or racist artifact?

Controversial movie to be screened with live music for MLK Day on Jan. 22 at Merrimack College

NORTH ANDOVER, Mass.—What if a movie was acclaimed as a masterpiece, but portrayed the Ku Klux Klan as heroes? What if a movie aimed to show the realities of life during the Civil War, and yet used white actors playing roles in blackface? What does it say if a movie was clearly racist, depicting blacks as an inferior sub-species to whites, but was still a box office smash?

Those are among the questions posed by ‘The Birth of a Nation’ (1915), the ground-breaking epic film from director D.W. Griffith, which continues to inspire controversy nearly a century after its initial release.

In honor of Martin Luther King Day this year, a restored print of the film will be screened with live music at the Rogers Center for the Arts, Merrimack College, 315 North Turnpike St., North Andover, Mass. The screening, part of the Rogers Center’s silent film series, will take place on Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2014 at 7 p.m.

Admission to the screening is free and the public is welcome. The program will be accompanied live by silent film musician Jeff Rapsis.

Organizers of the Rogers Center’s film series specifically chose the occasion of Martin Luther King Day to screen ‘The Birth of a Nation,’ long regarded as a masterpiece of early cinema but tarnished by racism and prejudice.

“Although ‘The Birth of a Nation’ has been reviled for its blatant and pervasive racism, it was a huge hit in its day and was accepted as one of the landmarks of early cinema,” said Rapsis, a New Hampshire-based silent film accompanist who will perform a live score for the movie.

“Screening this compromised classic to honor Martin Luther King Day is a chance for today’s audiences to appreciate how far we’ve come, and to also ponder how many of the prejudices on display in this film that we may still harbor, even unconsciously,” Rapsis said.

As the first-ever Hollywood blockbuster, ‘The Birth of a Nation’ thrilled audiences in 1915 with its large-scale wartime action sequences, its recreation of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, and spectacular photography by cameraman G.W. Bitzer.

Even at the time of its release, the movie was regarded as monumentally insensitive to issues of race, depicting blacks as a sub-race inferior to whites and portraying Ku Klux Klan members as heroes. Conceived by Griffith, a native Southerner, as a saga of two families caught up in the Civil War and its aftermath, many viewers and critics regarded the film as a prolonged statement of cinematic bigotry.

Seen today, the film abounds with offensive racial comments and imagery both overt and implied. To complicate matters for contemporary audiences, Griffith had all leading roles of black characters played by white actors in blackface; black actors were kept in the background or used only for crowd scenes, which lends the film a surreal quality to modern viewers.

Despite the racism, the film’s innovative and powerful story-telling techniques, as well as its massive scale, opened Hollywood’s eyes to the full potential of cinema as an art form, exerting a powerful influence on generations of filmmakers to come.

The film’s pervasive influence extended beyond theaters, at times in unfortunate ways. As an unintended consequence, ’The Birth of a Nation’ inspired a revival of the then-dormant Klan, which flourished anew in the south thorough the 1920s, making extensive use of Griffith’s film for propaganda purposes.

The controversy continues today, with ‘Birth of a Nation’ inspiring passions nearly a century after its release. Has enough time passed for today’s audiences to regard this landmark film as an artifact of its time, or an indication of enduring prejudice? This Martin Luther King’s Day, decide for yourself how far we’ve come with a screening of a restored print of this tarnished American classic the way it was intended to be seen: on the big screen, with live music, and with an audience.

The film stars Lillian Gish (at right), Mae Marsh, Henry Walthall, and dozens of other silent-era performers. Gish, who died in 1993 at age 99, continued to act in films as late as 1987, when she appeared in ‘The Whales of August.’ Her later work includes an appearance on the TV series ‘The Love Boat’ in 1981.

All movies in the Rogers Centers’s silent film series were popular when first released, but are rarely screened today in a way that allows them to be seen at their best. They were not made to be shown on television; to revive them, organizers aim to show the films at the Rogers Center as they were intended—in top quality restored prints, on a large screen, with live music, and with an audience.

‘The Birth of a Nation’ will be shown in honor of Martin Luther King Day on Wednesday, Jan. 22, at 7 p.m. at the Rogers Center for the Arts, Merrimack College, 315 North Turnpike St., North Andover, Mass. Admission to the screenings is free and the public is welcome. For more info on the music, visit www.jeffrapsis.com.

CRITIC COMMENTS on ‘THE BIRTH OF A NATION’

“...the film represents how racist a white American could be in 1915 without realizing he was racist at all. That is worth knowing. Blacks already knew that, had known it for a long time, witnessed it painfully again every day, but "The Birth of a Nation" demonstrated it in clear view, and the importance of the film includes the clarity of its demonstration. That it is a mirror of its time is, sadly, one of its values.”
—Roger Ebert, 2003, The Chicago Sun-Times

“If one can put the racial overtones aside, this is quuote probably the most accurate celluloid representation of Civil War times to exist. It was made only 50 years after the Civil War ended, when many people who had actually been through the war were still alive to give first hand accounts.”
—Robert K. Klepper, ‘Silent Films,’ (1999)

“More than a hugely successful spectacle, it was a masterpiece—using Griffith’s trademark cinematic techniques and combinging emotional intensity and epic sweep—but it was a deeply tainted one. Its racism—consciously intended by the filmmaker or not—makes parts of ‘Birth’ extremely difficult to watch today.”
—Peter Kobel, ‘Silent Movies,’ (2007)

Five screenings in four states: It's a Halloween Nosferatu-a-thon!

Actor Max Schreck would have a hard time accompanying 'Nosferatu' with those fingernails.

Tomorrow I embark on a daunting adventure: doing live music for five separate screenings of 'Nosferatu' (1922) in less than two weeks. And a screening of 'The Phantom of the Opera' (1925) is mixed in there for good measure. Can you tell Halloween is coming up?

First, here's a round-up of the where and when, if only to help ME keep track of where I'm supposed to be...

• Saturday, Oct. 19, 7 p.m.: "Nosferatu" (1922); Brandon Town Hall and Community Center, Main Street/Route 7, Brandon, Vt.; http://www.brandontownhall.org. Our annual "Chiller Theater" presentation in the as-yet-unheated Brandon Town Hall. Admission free, donations accepted, with proceeds to help continuing preservation work.

• Thursday, Oct. 24, 7 p.m.: "The Phantom of the Opera" (1925), starring Lon Chaney, Mary Philbin; the Putnam Arts Lecture Hall, Keene State College, Keene, N.H. Free and open to the public. Long before Andrew Lloyd Webber created the hit stage musical, this silent film adaptation starring Lon Chaney helped place 'Phantom' firmly in the pantheon of both horror and romance.

• Saturday, Oct. 26, 8 p.m.: "Nosferatu" (1922); Leavitt Theatre, 259 Main St. Route 1, Ogunquit, Maine; (207) 646-3123; http://www.leavittheatre.com. Admission $10 per person. Another unheated "chiller theater" screening, if only because it's a summer-only cinema in a seaside resort.

• Sunday, Oct. 27, 4:30 p.m.: "Nosferatu" (1922); Wilton Town Hall Theatre, Main Street, Wilton, N.H.; (603) 654-3456; www.wiltontownhalltheatre.com. Admission free, donations of $5 per person encouraged. Movies since 1912!

• Wednesday, Oct. 30, 7 p.m.: "Nosferatu" (1922); Rogers Center for the Arts, Merrimack College, 315 North Turnpike St., North Andover, Mass. (978) 837-5355. Free admission. Nice modern arts center on college campus north of Boston.

• Thursday, Oct. 31, 6:30 p.m.: "Nosferatu" (1922); The Flying Monkey Movie House and Performance Center, 39 South Main St., Plymouth, N.H.; (603) 536-2551; http://www.flyingmonkeynh.com. Admission $10 per person. Hoping for a good turnout from students at Plymouth State University, who usually ignore these screenings.

Wow, that's 'Nosferatu' in four different states! The vampire sure gets around. If anyone makes it to all five screenings (besides me), I'll donate a pint of blood to the American Red Cross in your honor.

This will be interesting, and not just in terms of finding my way to theaters all over New England. Because I improvise the score live each time, it'll be intriguing to see how the accompaniment evolves during the performances.

Yes, I do have a few musical ideas in my head that I'll use when I sit down for the first performance, which is tomorrow night up in Brandon, Vt. I've done 'Nosferatu' before, and I have a "vampire" chord sequence that is versatile enough to power most of the score.

But inevitably, new ideas will happen along the way. And those ideas may get carried over to the next screening, where they'll evolve a bit further, and so on. So by the time of the fifth performance in Plymouth, N.H. (on Halloween night!), the score might be totally different from what I did in Brandon 12 days earlier.

The idea that I sit down without any sheet music and create a movie score in real time seems a bit strange to people, but it's really nothing magical. Even if I don't have a idea in my head, all I have to do it play one note, and the score sometimes creates itself from there.

Just play one note and hold it, and you can go in so many directions, depending on what the movie seems to want.

One note, so many possibilities! Just in terms of the mechanics of music, there are so many ways to go. Is it the root of a chord? If not the root, which part of the chord is it? Either way gives it a certain character.

And if not part of a chord,will it want to resolve somehow? Each direction carries its own relevance to what might be happening on screen.

I'm kind of reminded of what I remember reading once in Vonnegut (probably from 'Bluebeard' (1987), one of his later novels), where an abstract artist explained his method by saying that he started by making one mark on a blank canvas, and the canvas would then do at least half the work.

I had a nice guy come up to after a recent screening, a musician who wanted to know if I took on students, as he wanted to know if he could learn more about what I do.

I'm not really part of any school or traditional academic setting, so I don't have pupils, although I'm glad to share anything I can. And I thought about this, and most of what I do can be taught: the methods, the way to transform melodies, the way to create a certain kind of music to bring a film to life.

The only thing that I would be at a loss to teach would be where the melodies come from in the first place. I can make some observations, such as people tend to be attracted to melodies with notes that skip around in a small area, such as the "Ode to Joy" from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

But where does a melody come from in the first place?

With me, it just seems to flow naturally out of some place in my brain where scraps of old music (pop songs, cartoon scores, Broadway overtures, brass band marches) are continually playing. Sometimes it seems like several pieces are running at once, all colliding deep down below, like tectonic plates below the earth's surface, breaking up and recombining into something new.

That's where the tunes come from, I think. And we'll see if any keepers emerge during the upcoming Nosferatu-a-thon. It's been my experience that the state of mind I get into when accompanying a film seems to allow me to tap into this inner music more readily.

My self-editing and critical filtering gets turned down, and new melodies of all different types seems to flow more readily. Many times, I'll be sitting there accompanying a movie, and I'll be as surprised as anyone at the music flowing out of my keyboard. Geez, where did that come from?

But then afterwards, sometimes the audience tells me. This past March, after improvising a completely made-up-on-the-spot piano score to Mary Pickford's drama 'The Foundling' (1915) at Cinefest in Syracuse, N.Y., a guy came up and said he especially appreciated how I was able to use a melody from Schubert's 'Trout' Quintet.

My witty reply was to say that I thought something sounded fishy. Wow, from channeling Schubert to channeling Henny Youngman!

Well, to channel Groucho Marx: "They can't all be gems, folks."

One more time! 'Phantom of the Opera' on Halloween in North Andover, Mass.

Your date for the evening has arrived.

What better way to celebrate Halloween than with Lon Chaney in a darkened theater?

That's what we'll be doing on Wednesday, Oct. 31 at the Rogers Center for the Arts on the campus of Merrimack College in North Andover, Mass. Join us for a screening of 'Phantom of the Opera' (1925), the original screen adaptation starring Lon Chaney in the title role.

I have a special place in my heart for 'Phantom,' not because I'm a creepy thwarted musician (although maybe it's truer than I think) but because it was the first full-length silent film for which I did live accompaniment.

It was for a one-off Halloween screening at the Palace Theatre in Manchester, N.H. that our newspaper, HippoPress, was co-sponsoring. I had agreed to do the music live as a way to make the event more unusual and, frankly, save money.

But I had just completed the score to an independent feature film, 'Dangerous Crosswinds' (2005), made right here in New Hampshire by director Bill Millios, and I was eager to do more. But because no other directors were knocking at my door, I figured this would be a good way to keep going and do more film music.

And so we did 'Phantom of the Opera.' Because there wasn't a lot of time to prepare the music in details, I knew all along I'd be winging it. I watched the film several times and developed a few ideas in advance, but that was it. Next thing I knew, it was the day of the performance.

I remember being a little nervous by the prospect of sitting down at the keyboard and staying with a full-length film from beginning to end. But then 'Phantom' started, and so did the music. And as the movie ran, I found that creating a score in real time to support the on-screen action was something I could manage, at least for the moment.

So I kept at it, pleased that I was able to shift from scene to scene, but also do things within a scene to bring out changes in tone or emotion or byplay between characters.

Then, about halfway through the film, during the masked ball scene, I found myself working with melodic material (a brisk, somewhat demented-sounding waltz) that I had just come up with on the spot, and was twisting it and shaping it to suit the action.

Specifically, there's a moment where the Phantom stops the party and dramatically threatens the revelers, and then departs, after which the party-goers pause for just a moment before diving right back in to fun and games.

The Phantom, costumed as 'Death,' brings the masked ball to a halt—but only temporarily.

I found the moment as staged in the film to actually be somewhat comic, and so brought that out in the music, shifting rapidly from the tense "Phantom" music back to the demented waltz, making it sound even a bit more heavier and more demented.

(And in being comic, it served to further deepen the Phanton's isolation from others—geez, this guy just can't connect with anyone! And it also showed the tragic aspect of his character, too—most of humanity just can't understand the depth of the emotions which drove him to become 'The Phantom.' Wow!)

And even as I was playing it, another part of me was absorbing the whole effect, pleased that it seemed to work so effectively. "Hey, I can do this," I remember thinking.

And at that point, I realized that I could actually do this—that I could somehow juggle creating music in real time and also staying with a film's dramatic line, always being somewhat aware of what the current scene is leading towards, what's likely to come next, and how it all fits into the whole arc of the story.

It kind of felt like that dim memory of first riding a bike successfully, without training wheels or without someone holding on to me.

Looking back, that moment at the keyboard was a major realization for me, as it marked the opening up of all the explorations of film and music that have followed. It made me want to do more, not just to do music, but also to experience silent film in a new way.

And eventually, it made me want to see if I could create music that would help moviemakers of yesterday somehow connect with audiences of today. There's a great deal of power still in these silent films, I felt, and maybe my sort of music could help them reach beyond the film museum and actually affect people and engage people, which they were designed to do, and which is why we first fell in love with the movies.

So much, but it all started with sitting down to do music for 'Phantom' that night at the Palace. And so I'm pleased to have the film in this year's Halloween rotation. Tonight's screening at the Rogers Center for the Arts will be the fourth (and final!) time I do it this season, and I'm really looking forward to helping support Lon Chaney terrorize all of Paris once again.

For more info on the screening, here's the text of the press release that went out earlier this month. Also, tonight's screening will be introduced by noted film scholar Christopher DiGrazia, so come by at 6:30 p.m. and take in his presentation prior to our 7 p.m. screening. See you there...if you dare! Cue evil laugh music. Bwah-ha-ha-ha!

* * *

Subtle? You expected subtle?

MONDAY, OCT. 15, 2012 / FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Jeff Rapsis • (603) 236-9237 • jeffrapsis@gmail.com

'Phantom of the Opera' at Merrimack College
on Wednesday, Oct. 31

Classic silent horror film starring Lon Chaney to be screened with live music week on Halloween night; free and open to the public

NORTH ANDOVER, MASS.—It was cinema's first real shocker—a movie so frightening that audiences would shriek in terror and even faint. It was 'The Phantom of the Opera' (1925), the silent horror film starring legendary actor Lon Chaney. The classic tale of the mad musician who lurks in the shadows of the Paris Opera House will be revived with live music on Wednesday, Oct. 31 at 7 p.m. at the Rogers Center for the Arts on the campus of Merrimack College in North Andover, Mass.

The screening, the latest in the Rogers Center's silent film series, will feature live accompaniment by Jeff Rapsis, a New Hampshire-based composer who specializes in creating scores for silent films. Admission is free. The program will be proceeded by a discussion of the film starting at 6:30 p.m.

'The Phantom of the Opera,' adapted from a 19th century novel by French author Gaston Leroux, featured Chaney as the deformed Phantom who haunts the opera house. The Phantom, seen only in the shadows, causes murder and mayhem in an attempt to force the opera's management to make the woman he loves into a star.

The film is most famous for Lon Chaney's intentionally horrific, self-applied make-up, which was kept a studio secret until the film's premiere. Chaney transformed his face by painting his eye sockets black, giving a skull-like impression to them. He also pulled the tip of his nose up and pinned it in place with wire, enlarged his nostrils with black paint, and put a set of jagged false teeth into his mouth to complete the ghastly deformed look of the Phantom.

Chaney's disfigured face is kept covered in the film until the now-famous unmasking scene, which prompted gasps of terror from the film's original audiences.

"No one had ever seen anything like this before," said Rapsis, who will accompany the film. "Chaney, with his portrayal of 'The Phantom,' really pushed the boundaries of what movies could do."

Chaney, known as the "Man of a Thousand Faces" due to his versatility with make-up, also played Quasimodo in the silent 'Hunchback of Notre Dame' (1923) and circus performer 'Alonzo the Armless' in Tod Browning's 'The Unknown' (1927).

The large cast of 'Phantom of the Opera' includes Mary Philbin as Christine Daaé, as the Phantom's love interest; character actor Snitz Edwards; and many other stars of the silent period.

'The Phantom of the Opera' proved so popular in its original release and again in a 1930 reissue that it led Universal Studios to launch a series of horror films, many of which are also regarded as true classics of the genre, including Dracula (1931), Frankenstein (1931), and The Mummy (1932).

The silent film version of 'Phantom' also paved the way for numerous other adaptations of the story, up to and including the wildly successful Andrew Lloyd Webber musical from 1986 that continues to run on Broadway and in productions around the world.

The original silent 'Phantom' featured lavish sets, including a large theater designed to represent the sprawling interior of the Paris Opera House. After shooting was complete, the set was never torn down and continues in use today as part of Universal's Stage 28; it was seen most recently in 2011's 'The Muppet Movie' as the abandoned Muppet Show theater.

Rapsis said 'The Phantom of the Opera' was not made to be shown on television or viewed on home entertainment centers. In reviving silent films, the Rogers Center aims to show them 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 improvises accompaniment as a film is screened. "Recreate those conditions, and the classics of early Hollywood leap back to life in ways that can still move audiences today. They all featured great stories with compelling characters and universal appeal, so it's no surprise that we still respond to them."

Rapsis performs on a digital synthesizer that reproduces the texture of the full orchestra and creates a traditional "movie score" sound.

Organizers say the original silent film version of 'The Phantom of the Opera' is not only a terrific movie, but also a fun way for families to mark Halloween night.

And above all, be prepared to get scared.

"Remember—in silent film, no one can hear you scream," Rapsis said.

‘The Phantom of the Opera’ (1925), the classic silent horror film starring Lon Chaney, will be shown on Wednesday, Oct. 31 at 7 p.m. at the Rogers Center for the Arts, located on Walsh Way on the campus of Merrimack College, 315 Turnpike St., North Andover, Mass. Admission is free. For more information, call the Rogers box office at (978) 837-5355. For more info on the music, visit www.jeffrapsis.com.

Upcoming silent film programs at the Rogers Center include:

• Wednesday, April 3, 2013, 7 p.m.: "The Mark of Zorro" (1920) starring Douglas Fairbanks Sr.; Douglas Fairbanks Sr. stars in the still-thrilling original adaptation of the tale of a masked avenger who sought justice in Spanish California. Great crowd-pleaser that had an enormous impact on popular culture, including inspiration for the "Batman" comic book series.