OLD FILMS, NEW SOUNDS: SCREENING SILENT CINEMA WITH ELECTRONIC MUSIC pdf

ences between the film and video image, with many students noting that theyhad not necessarily been aware of the difference in image quality until it waspointed out to them.One problem w

One of the simplest demonstrations that a film studies instructor can take in the classroom involves familiarizing students with the differencebetween film and video projection From 2004 to 2006 I taught an introductoryfilm history course in the School for the Contemporary Arts at Simon FraserUniversity covering cinema’s first five decades While approximately twenty-fivepercent of the students taking this course were enrolled in the department’s filmproduction major and were actively creating their own 16mm films, the remain-ing students were largely taking the course out of personal interest or to fulfillrequirements for other degrees As such, the majority of students were not nec-essarily familiar with the technical differences between film and video, nor theirvariability in image quality In order to demonstrate this distinction, a compari-

under-son was undertaken using the German expressionist film The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (Germany, 1919, Robert Weine) Starting from the beginning of the film,

a DVD print was shown on screen via a data projector, which ran for about fiveminutes The same opening scenes of the film were then projected via a 16mmprojector, and this is the format through which students viewed the entire film.This demonstration subsequently led to discussions in tutorials about the differ-

BLAIR DAVIS

O LD F I LM S, N EW SO U N DS: SC R E E N I N G

S I LE NT C I N E MA WITH E LECTRO N I C M U S I C

Résumé: Les diverses circonstances qui entourent le visionnement d’un film dans

un cours de cinéma influencent profondément la réaction des étudiants face à vre en question Que ce soit l’information fournie au sujet du film avant sa projec-tion ou la qualité de la copie utilisée, les choix de l’instructeur peuvent avoir unimpacte déterminant (et parfois imprévu) sur la réception du film Cet article retraceles expériences d’un instructeur qui a tenté d’identifier les divers effets sur les étu-diants de la musique d’accompagnement des films muets Au cours d’un vision-nement en particulier, une musique d’accompagnement électronique a été trèsefficace au près des étudiants Cela a mené à une série d’expériences pédagogiquesvisant à déterminer si les étudiants répondent aux films muets plus favorablement

l’œu-si l’accompagnement est moderne plutôt que traditionnel Cette recherche a étéentreprise non seulement pour répondre à mon propre besoin d’améliorer mesméthodes d’enseignement, mais aussi pour fournir un modèle à d’autres instruc-teurs qui veulent diversifier leurs façons de présenter des films muets

ences between the film and video image, with many students noting that theyhad not necessarily been aware of the difference in image quality until it waspointed out to them.

One problem with this teaching demonstration, however, was the fact that

the 16mm print of Caligari had no musical soundtrack, something that the

stu-dents had become accustomed to having with their silent films during the ter This factor would ultimately lead to subsequent demonstrations testing thenotion of whether modern electronic music could be used to enhance studentengagement with silent films in the classroom I decided to fill the silence of the

semes-Caligari print by synching up a CD during the screening (a senior colleague at

another institution occasionally played jazz albums in such a situation) The

album selected to accompany Caligari was Songs of a Dead Dreamer by DJ

Spooky, featuring music that might be generally described as “electronica” bysome, or “trip-hop” by others (my students used both of these terms to describethe music, for example) The terms largely refer to music that has been created

by a Disc Jockey (DJ) through combining pre-existing musical samples togetherand/or crafting electronic tones into rhythmic structures–criteria that informs thedefinition of electronic music for the purposes of this essay.1 With its dream-

like/surreal soundscapes, Songs of a Dead Dreamer was well suited to the sionist imagery presented in Caligari, and the album’s title served as a thematic

expres-link to the film’s depiction of somnambulism The music was an overwhelmingsuccess with the students, who noted that the music and imagery often becamesynchronized, whereby when the scenes in the film changed so too did the musicsimilarly change in its beat or tempo.2

The success of the screening led to others of its kind in the same semester

The Soviet montage film Man With a Movie Camera (Soviet Union, 1929, Dziga

Vertov) was accompanied by a new score from The Cinematic Orchestra (whichhad been specifically composed by the group for the film in 2001).3This was fol-

lowed later in the semester by the short French surrealist film Ballet Mechanique

(France, 1924, Ferdinand Leger), accompanied by the first two tracks from

elec-tronica artist Amon Tobin’s Chaos Theory album Anecdotally, the feedback I

received from both my students and my teaching assistant indicated that theyactually preferred to hear modern music while watching silent films, because itallowed them to engage with the films more fully than if a more traditionalpiano, organ or orchestral score had been used This strong anecdotal feedbackultimately led to the need for more objective evidence regarding students’ musi-cal preferences for silent films in subsequent semesters

This type of positive student response to a silent film is certainly ideal, but is notalways achieved in the classroom Jan-Christopher Horak observes, for example,that students do not always fully appreciate silent films, particularly whenshown a poor print:

Teaching silent film courses on a regular basis, I’m one of the first toadmit that the advent of DVDs has made my job easier Trying to con-vince students that the film they are watching is not only a cinema clas-sic, but also as sophisticated and modern as any film made in the soundera, is a particularly hard sell when the print in question is a ‘dupey,’fifth-generation 16mm reduction from the 35mm nitrate original, anddead silent to boot When shown DVDs produced from restored mastermaterials, and including a full orchestral score or at least piano accom-paniment, students are much more willing to give silent films a chance.4

Here the issue is that students will respond differently to a silent film depending

on a variety of factors, such as the quality of the print selected Instructors makenumerous choices concerning the way in which the class is conducted and mate-rials are integrated Many of these choices, such as which print of a film to use,may seem relatively simple, but they can often have larger, unforeseen implica-tions One illustration of this involves Edward T Hall’s notion of proxemics—the

relationship of social space to culture In The Hidden Dimension, Hall defines

proxemics as the “use of space as a specialized elaboration of culture,”5notingfor instance that the arrangement of furniture in a room is typically determined

by cultural preferences Hall examines in particular how fixed seating ments will create a remarkably different social dynamic than when individualsare able to move their seats, with conversation being more prevalent in the lattercase.6Instructors will typically notice a difference in the quality of discussion in

arrange-a room with fixed searrange-ating, such arrange-as rows of desks or tarrange-ables, arrange-as opposed to sittingaround a table with moveable chairs where eye contact is readily accessible If asimple choice like seat arrangement can affect classroom dynamics, instructors

Amon Tobin performing a live DJ set.

must also be aware that the decisions they make in terms of how films are sented can also have important consequences for students.

pre-Since viewers regularly respond to films emotionally as well as cognitively,

it is only natural that a student’s emotional response can occasionally overwhelmtheir interpretations of a film As an instructor, I have noticed that those studentswho describe being bored by a given film often cannot offer much in the way ofinterpretation of that film during group discussions, and that consequently theyoften perform poorly when writing about the film Torben Grodal argues in

Moving Pictures: A New Theory of Film, Genres, Feeling and Cognition that

“cog-nitive and perceptual processes are intimately linked with emotional processeswithin a functionally unified psychosomatic whole.” He sees a “systemic relationbetween the embodied mental processes and configurations activated in a giventype of visual fiction and the emotional ‘tone’ and ‘modal qualities’ of the expe-rienced affects, emotions and feelings in the viewer.”7Grodal’s theories concern-ing the interrelationship of cognitive and emotional responses to visual stimulican be extended to auditory cues, as the act of perception is rarely unconnected

to other bodily senses–hearing typically being primary among them This

combi-nation of visual and auditory stimuli serves to create an environment in which the

act of perception normally occurs, hence emotional responses may be activated

by one or more elements of that environment

Such conceptions of spectatorship are indicative of what Joseph D Andersonand Barbara Anderson describe as an ecological approach to film in their anthol-

ogy Moving Image Theory: Ecological Considerations Described as a “theory

about everyday perceiving in the world,” this ecological approach “takes intoaccount routine, everyday selection on the part of the perceiver [examiningwhat] information we choose to gain and how we gain it from a plethora of mov-ing images.”8Again, given the largely inseparable nature of image and sound incinematic spectatorship, auditory information may be included in considerations

of audience perception when analyzing the effects of any given audio-visualenvironment on individual viewers.9Such tenets are in keeping with the largertradition of media ecology, which Neil Postman describes as “the study of media

as environments.” A main concern of the field of media ecology, says Postman, isabout “how media of communication affect human perception, understanding,feeling and value The word ecology implies the study of environments: theirstructure, content and impact on people.”10With these notions of “understanding”and “feeling” paralleling Grodal’s conception of “cognitive” and “emotional” responses

to cinema, this ecological framework may be seen as vital to an understanding

of how the environment created by an instructor’s myriad of choices, concerningboth the visual and auditory components of a classroom film screening, can affectthe impact that silent films have on students

The act of replacing traditional forms of music with contemporary ones toaccompany silent films is a process that is not unfamiliar to the majority of mod-

ern students Dominique Russell argues that film music currently exists within achanging “soundscape,” whereby “there has been a change in our sound envi-ronment through the proliferation of ‘private sound bubbles,’ created throughcompact music players Headphone technology creates private soundtracks tocommon images Insulated from room tone and ambient noises, two head-phone wearers become spectators to two very different scenes, depending onwhat they are listening to.”11Students have become accustomed to recontextu-alizing visual phenomenon by selecting alternative auditory cues to experienceprivately via iPods, mp3 players and other such devices As Russell suggests,when the spectator changes the soundtrack that accompanies visual stimulus,the very scene itself changes due to the resulting environmental shift created bythe new relationship between sight and sound.

It was the desire to create such a shift that led Anna Siomopoulos, PatriciaZimmermann and their colleagues at Ithaca College in New York to commission

a new score by Fe Nunn in 2004 for a screening of Within Our Gates (USA, 1920,

Oscar Michaeux) as a part of Black History Month Combining a jazz quartet,African drumming and spoken-word performance, Siomopoulos andZimmermann describe this new score as an attempt to “destabilize the film text,reanimate film reception, and complicate film spectatorship through music, spo-ken word, and multiple voices.” The project was motivated by the need to

“rethink the exhibition of politically significant silent films” in order to “create anew reception context” for them.12

The act of incorporating modern music into silent film screenings is also notwithout precedent outside of academia Since 1982, Pordenone Italy has hosted

Le Giornate Del Cinema Muto, a silent film festival that has regularly featuredcontemporary scores written and performed by such composers as Wim Mertensand John Cale.13 In 1984, Giorgio Moroder compiled a modern rock score for a

theatrical re-release of Metropolis (Germany, 1928, Fritz Lang) Within Canada,

the Vancouver-based theatre The Blinding Light (operating from 1998-2003)

reg-ularly ran screenings of such silent films as Metropolis, City Lights (USA, 1931, Charlie Chaplin) and Man With a Movie Camera featuring live musical accompa-

niment by the group Eye of Newt, which incorporates sampled music into theirperformances The Blinding Light also hosted screenings with the Vancouvergroup Deep Blue Funk Films, which paired the music of Massive Attack with

Cabinet of Dr Caligari in a performance labeled “Massive Caligari Attack.” Deep

Blue Funk describes this approach as a “synchronicity experiment,” an idea theysee as borrowed from Carl Jung’s concept of the “harmony of two otherwise unre-lated events that occurs at a particular moment in time and space.”14

Furthermore, DJ Spooky has himself created a new electronic score for Birth

of a Nation (USA, 1915, D.W Griffith) Titling the performance Rebirth of a Nation, it has been commissioned in recent years by festivals in the United

States, Paris and Vienna, including a festival held by The Lincoln Center for the

Performing Arts.15Spooky states that he created the new score in an “attempt todraw the viewer into a direct relationship with the work, to draw the viewer into

a kind of self-critical standpoint which encourages reflection on one’s own

responses to the work,” particularly in relation to one’s own responses to Birth

of a Nation itself.16With the increasing frequency of experimentation with tronic music used to accompany silent films in cinematic, musical and artisticcommunities, the reasons for transporting such approaches towards reconceptu-alizing silent film screenings into academia become particularly cogent

elec-METHODOLOGY

My methodology consisted of multiple approaches towards determining studentresponse to the various screenings Immediately after each of the three screen-

ings (Cabinet of Dr Caligari, Man With a Movie Camera and Ballet Mechanique),

the entire class of approximately ninety students became a large focus group.Students participated in dialogues with one another and myself about the posi-tive and negative effects of the use of electronic music and its implications forfilm spectatorship, and I documented their comments In each case this largegroup dialogue was followed the next day by the use of a smaller focus groupmade up of the members of a class tutorial session consisting of eighteen students.Here, students were able to elaborate on their opinions from the day before, dis-cussing the demonstration in more detail Comments were again documentedand compared with those of the larger group While no personal information wasgathered, the age range of students appeared to be predominantly eighteen totwenty-four years, although several students appeared significantly older

DJ Spooky on the turntables.

These focus groups were triangulated with the use of a survey (seeAppendix A) conducted with the entire class at the end of the semester, allow-ing several weeks for reflection on the demonstration as a whole The survey didnot seek to document audience effects, but to record the self-reported effect ofenhancement and/or distraction created by the total aural/visual experience dur-ing screenings The survey was completed anonymously and consisted of ninequestions, divided into three sections for each of the three respective screenings.Students were asked to indicate which of the given statements they felt bestdescribed their own viewing experience in each case by circling the most appropriatechoice The survey asked what effect the modern music used to accompany eachrespective film in class had on their engagement with the film, as to whether itA) strongly enhanced; B) somewhat enhanced; C) neither enhanced nor detractedfrom; D) somewhat detracted from; or E) strongly detracted from their engage-ment with each film.

The survey then used the same five criteria to determine what effect anorgan or piano score would have had on students’ engagement with the samefilm, and then also asked what effect a symphonic or string instrument scorewould have had These three questions were asked for each of the three films

While the survey therefore asked respondents to imagine the use of organ/

piano/symphonic music with films they had not seen with such musical paniments, students had been exposed to numerous other silent films featuringall of these different forms of instrumentation throughout the semester, and weretherefore familiar with each musical variation asked by the survey While the use

accom-of control group screenings accom-of these same films using these other types accom-of musicwould have proven ideal (and would have undoubtedly yielded different resultsthan questioning students about the hypothetical use of such music), such astructure was unfortunately not permitted under the institutional confines of thecourse at the time The survey also invited respondents to include any additionalwritten comments they wished to make about the demonstration Completion ofthe survey was encouraged but not mandatory, and seventy-two responses to thesurvey were received

At the start of the survey, the word engagement was defined as “your tion to/interaction with each film.” The term engagement was chosen because itsignified the degree of student interest involved, and the ultimate goal of thisdemonstration was to determine strategies to increase students’ overall interest

atten-in silent films This notion of “engagement” was reiterated before the survey wasdistributed, in order to remind students that they were to respond to each spe-cific act of classroom spectatorship and not just to their own general preferencesabout the various musical genres as a whole While there is a risk that person-

al musical tastes may have influenced student reactions, focus group responsesseemed to indicate that this was not a significant problem Many studentsdescribed how they were able to separate their own musical preferences from

their considerations of how the chosen music affected their overall experiences

of watching these films

The results of the survey (see Appendix C) were quantified in order to mine how many students objected to a given score, and how many felt that agiven score added to their experience of watching each film The demonstrationand survey were then repeated in a subsequent semester in another introducto-

deter-ry film course (see Appendix B and C), using a different group of students, a ferent film and a different choice of electronic music in order to further test thevalidity of the hypothesis that an electronic score can enhance student engage-

dif-ment with silent cinema in a diverse set of circumstances The film Haxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages (Denmark/Sweden, 1922, Benjamin Christensen)17

was shown to a class of approximately forty students A musical playlist sisting mainly of tracks by both Amon Tobin and DJ Spooky was selected toaccompany the film, with the attempt to match the tempo and rhythm of indi-vidual musical tracks to the mood or pace of specific scenes from the film Whilethe variables of this second demonstration are different from those of the first (inthat the film and music were different18) the fact that the survey results werehighly similar to those of the first demonstration supports the hypothesis despitethe change in variables

con-RESULTS, PATTERNS & OBSERVATIONS

In the initial demonstration using music by DJ Spooky to accompany Cabinet of

Dr Caligari, 72.2 percent of students felt that the music enhanced their

engage-ment with the film Additionally, 19.4 percent found that the music detractedfrom their viewing experience and 8.3 percent felt that it neither enhanced nordetracted Alternatively, these statistics point out that 80.5 percent of studentshad no objections to the use of a modern score In contrast, 47.8 percent of stu-dents felt that a symphonic or string instrument score would have enhancedtheir engagement, but only 9.8 percent believed it would detract, with 42.2 per-cent remaining neutral towards such music Furthermore, if a piano or organ

score had instead accompanied Caligari, only 26 percent of students felt that it

would have enhanced their engagement, with 31.8 percent believing it woulddetract, and 42 percent of students remaining neutral While the data may indi-cate that 90.1 percent of students had no objections to a symphonic score, it alsoindicates that nearly half of those students might have found a non-symphonicscore to be more engaging

The response to the modern score by The Cinematic Orchestra to

accompa-ny Man With a Movie Camera was even more encouraging The survey found

that 82.8 percent saw the new score as enhancing their engagement, with only2.8 percent seeing it as detracting and 14 percent remaining neutral These num-bers indicate that 94.5 percent had no objections to the modern score, the highestresponse to any of the musical choices in the entire survey Comparatively, only

24.2 percent of students felt that an organ or piano score would have been eficial, and 39.1 percent believed that a symphonic/string score would have

ben-aided in their engagement The use of Amon Tobin’s music to accompany Ballet Mechanique drew the lowest amount of support, with only 49.2 percent respond-

ing favorably However, only 13 percent saw the music as detrimental, with 36.9percent being indifferent Furthermore, the acceptance rate of the electronicmusic is still higher here than that of other musical forms for the film, with only36.5 percent of students preferring a symphonic score, and 20.6 percent favoring

a piano or organ score

The subsequent survey in the second demonstration, regarding the use of

electronic music in a screening of Haxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages, yielded

similar results The survey found that 78.1 percent of the new group saw the tronic music as enhancing their engagement with the film A further 18.7 percentfound that the music detracted, while only 3.1 percent remained neutral In con-trast, only 50 percent of these students would have found a piano or organ scorebeneficial, while only 46.8 percent would have benefited from a symphonic score.The survey results indicate that the majority of students in almost all of thescenarios preferred the modern electronic soundtrack Furthermore, in each case,regardless of whether a majority was reached, the positive response to this music

elec-outweighed the negative response Focus group comments for the Caligari

screening, for example, noted that the DJ Spooky music was “more effective”

and allowed for a “better experience” for students At the Man With a Movie Camera screening, students made similar observations regarding the Cinematic

Orchestra score: “It made the film feel more contemporary;” “It allowed me toconnect with the film more;” “It gave the images more resonance.” Such state-ments also appeared in the anonymous survey comments “The addition of con-temporary music is an interesting idea I liked the choices, the [sic] improved thefilms quite a bit,” wrote one student “Loved the modern music, it put things in

The Cabinet of Dr Caligari

(Robert Weine, 1919)

a modern, more relatable context for me,” wrote another.

What became most striking about the survey results, however, was the tern that emerged when comparing the preferences of individual respondents forone screening to that same respondent’s preferences in other screenings In sodoing it became evident that those who disliked or were neutral about onechoice of electronic music were likely to be enthusiastic about another suchchoice Ninety seven percent of respondents in the initial survey that were neu-tral towards one or more of the electronic choices were enthusiastic about atleast one of the other electronic accompaniments Similarly, 95.6 percent ofrespondents that disliked one or more of the electronic musical choices reactedfavorably to at least one of the other electronic choices In many cases, studentswho felt that one electronic score strongly detracted from their engagement with

pat-a film noted thpat-at pat-a different electronic score strongly enhpat-anced engpat-agement foranother film Therefore, instructors who may be worried that an electronic scorecould alienate a significant portion of their students during any given screeningshould be comforted by the fact that those who do not enjoy one particular piece

of electronic music will very likely respond favorably to other choices during thecourse of a semester In so doing, the odds become much higher that instructorsmay instill interest in those students who might otherwise tend to dismiss silentfilms entirely

Many students in the surveys singled out organ music as being particularlydetrimental to their viewing experiences Overall, 43 percent of respondents inthe initial survey were neutral towards a piano or organ score, with an addition-

al 33.3 percent noting that such music detracted from their engagement with the

films The consensus of the large focus group for the Ballet Mechanique

screen-ing was that there would have been diminished interest in the film if an organscore were used “Organ music would be so distracting, esp.[sic] today, because

we rarely hear that,” said one anonymous survey comment This statementpoints to the fact that organ music falls outside of the common musical frame ofreference of most contemporary students, with one student noting that suchmusic is rarely heard outside of a religious context While organ music is cer-tainly in keeping with the historical context of original exhibition practices ofsilent films, the fact that it may be detrimental from a student’s perspective inclassroom screenings should give instructors cause to consider alternative musi-cal choices

While they did not appear to enjoy organ music, the survey results do cate that most students are generally not opposed to symphonic scores Only 11.3percent of respondents in the initial survey felt that a symphonic or string scorewould detract from their engagement with the films, with 41.1 percent believingthat such music would be beneficial While 47.3 percent remained neutral, theseresults point out that students are perhaps more comfortable with symphonicscores than organ scores precisely because the former is more familiar to them

indi-than the latter.19 “Symphony music if well synchronized is nice,” noted oneanonymous respondent, “but doesn’t really affect things as much negative orpositively as the others” (i.e organ/piano or electronic music) Other respon-dents had specific demands of symphonic scores, with one noting that the suc-cess of such scores “partly depends on how well it captures the mood of thefilm.” Another noted that a symphonic score would have strongly enhanced

engagement with Caligari, but “only if Expressionist,” and would have strongly enhanced engagement with Man With a Movie Camera, but only “if rhythmic.”

Such preferences seem to indicate an acceptance of symphonic scores createdspecifically to suit a particular silent film, and an aversion to simply adding pub-lic domain classical music to a film without much regard for synchronization orcompatibility

A recurring notion among focus group participants was that using modernelectronic music served to make silent films feel “more modern” or “contempo-rary.” At the same time, many noted that electronic music also allowed the silentfilms screened to feel more “artistic” or “avant-garde,” stating that the filmsseemed as if they could have been created fairly recently as opposed to beingeight or nine decades old Such comments are particularly encouraging for tworeasons Firstly, as Horak describes, they show that students can consider silentfilms to be as “sophisticated and modern as any film made in the sound era.”Secondly, these comments signify not only an appreciation of silent films by

these students, but also a consideration of the aesthetic qualities of the films

themselves To label something as avant-garde is to make an evaluative ison between a work of art and its predecessors or contemporaries If electronicmusic can inspire a greater degree of reflection among students as to the artisticmerits of silent films, then instructors should strongly consider integrating thismusic into classroom screenings

compar-In turn, students classified piano, organ and orchestral scores as being

“older” forms of music, forms they considered more “traditional” and “old

fash-The Man With a Movie Camera

(Dziga Vertov,1929).