It may be sacrilege to add music to the 1931 Dracula, and it might also be a great idea. It wasn’t until ten or fifteen minutes into a sound-check/run-through last year that I realized…hey, this is gonna work. The two… Read More »Dracula (1931) – a Horror Movie Without Horror Movie Music
I found myself in a near-trance state, accompanying the 1912 Les amours de la reine Élisabeth (Queen Elizabeth) yesterday at Iris Barry’s History of Film at MoMA. It wasn’t the performance of Sarah Bernhardt that had me under its spell,… Read More »Early Film, and Helping An Audience Know Where to Look
I don’t know what possessed me to do this, but I’ve started a vlog. I may not have the patience or stamina to stick with it, and I value blogging. Making myself write on a regular basis has helped me… Read More »My New Vlog – And Theda Bara
In revisiting one of Chaplin’s best comedy shorts, one of my and many others’ favorites, I noticed something slightly unusual about its title. I wrote my first orchestral score for a silent film – this one – about twenty years… Read More »Scoring a Chaplin Mutual –What’s in a Name?
“It was Blanchette Rockefeller’s piano,” I was told when I was introduced to the instrument in 2003. This was at the Gramercy Theatre on West 23rd Street, and when I arrived was greeted in the auditorium by Ethel Shein. And… Read More »A 1950s Baby Grand for 1910s-1920s Films
Getting to accompany silent films for MoMA’s Modern Matinees series Iris Barry’s History of Film gives me two ways to grow. Neither of which were part of the plan, of course. One is something regular attendees may experience, at a… Read More »Getting Better All The Time: Fall-Winter 2019 Edition
Wait…don’t I have a print of a March of Time episode about the opening of MoMA’s new building and film library from 1939? Ah, yes. Here it is…The March of the Movies, in 16mm. Turns out there were two episodes… Read More »The March of the Movies – and MoMA
When I was in college, I played for a silent film course taught by MoMA’s Charles Silver. Charles loaned me a few LPs to listen to, since I was new to this. One of the records was Musical Moods from… Read More »MoMA’s Arthur Kleiner – Moods on Vinyl
This summer, I read two books, inspired by my being booked for a film series that will run at MoMA from October 21 through the end of the year. I wanted to get inside the point of series, and not… Read More »Reading Up on Iris Barry and MoMA Film’s Beginnings
There is a notion that silent films should be shown at what is often referred to as “silent speed”, or 18 frames per second. In the silent era, motion picture projectors were hand-cranked and, later, motorized but with rheostats. A… Read More »“Silent Speed” and 16mm Projectors