![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/11253779_10155975403690291_793918355_n.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\nEvery year a silent film is screened at Ebertfest, with music performed (and composed) by the three-man Alloy Orchestra<\/a>. It’s always a highlight of the festival. They have such interesting careers. They are film historians, but also artists, who choose projects based on their own personal or shared interests, the feeling that their contribution to something may be worth while, that they might have something to add. They have spoken about the movies they choose to compose music for. Most of the movies have some element of suspense to them, a forward propulsion. Light comedies don’t so much fit their style. They resist what they call “Mickey Mouse” effects in their music (i.e. a dog barks onscreen, they make a dog bark sound with their instruments). They resist being literal. They are more after the “feel” of something. Seeing them do their work, in the orchestra pit at the Virginia Theatre, staring up at the screen, and playing along with the images, is always a huge thrill. <\/p>\n This year, the silent film screened was the 1926 film A Page of Madness<\/i>, directed by Teinosuke Kinugasa. Richard Neupert, a regular Ebertfest guest, introduces the silent films, giving us proper historical context, and he did so here too. I very much appreciated all of the details he provided before we watched this extremely impressionistic piece of work. He spoke of the birth of Modernism in the wake of the WWI, in all areas of the arts, in all countries. Japan was hugely influenced by what was going on in Germany, in France, in Europe in general. Cinema was in its infancy but there seemed to be so many possibilities in the film to DO what was being done in literature and painting and poetry: breaking apart the “text,” dealing in subjectivity, an interest in Freud and Jung, the power of dreams, etc. <\/p>\n Kinugasa wanted to experiment with every effect at his disposal. Dissolves, distortions, collage, juxtaposition … He wanted to break up the narrative. The story does not move in a linear fashion. There are no interstitial titles! He wanted any information to come through the images, not language. <\/p>\n \n There seemed to be a feeling in the room – from Neupert’s comments, and from the interview following with two members of the Orchestra – that the film – with its impressionistic surreal effects, its blending of fantasy and reality, it\u2019s non-linear non-narrative, was hard to understand. I don\u2019t know, maybe it\u2019s because I love the \u201cmodernists,\u201d maybe because I feel that in many ways Finnegans Wake<\/em> is James Joyce\u2019s easiest book (by a LONG shot – it’s 628 pages of word games. I mean, that’s all you need to know), or maybe because I\u2019ve got a page or two or twenty of madness myself, I found it to be pretty straightforward. <\/p>\n \n \n \n \nThe acting was wonderful, too. Very naturalistic.<\/p>\n A Page of Madness<\/i> is modernist because it is fractured up, and nothing plot-wise is “underlined” for us. It’s a living example of Proust’s madeleine. Memories explode, superimposing themselves on the present. Because isn’t that how memories work? You stand in the present-day and you are washed over by the past. Mental torment is made visual in A Page of Madness<\/i>. <\/p>\n Wonderful QA afterwards, run by Neupert and Nell Minow, with Ken Winokur and Terry Donahue, two members of the Alloy Orchestra. <\/p>\n \nAn Ebertfest staple.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Every year a silent film is screened at Ebertfest, with music performed (and composed) by the three-man Alloy Orchestra. It’s always a highlight of the festival. They have such interesting careers. They are film historians, but also artists, who choose … Continue reading ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/ba35965151a5062b2598a9e6707d9b32.gif\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/pageofmadness2.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/tumblr_mrcoi0fDXd1qgyxkdo7_1280.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/a-page-of-madness-gif.gif\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/alloy.jpg\")
<\/p>\n