Ben Model’s blog

  • My concert band score for Charlie Chaplin’s “The Adventurer” will be performed this week by the Hot Springs High School Band and Community band in the town’s original 1920’s movie theater. The school’s conductor, Truman Savery, found me online just as I was finishing up the concert band (re-)arrangement of…

  • Flight slightly delayed (weather conditions in NYC) so it turns out I have a moment or two while still in Canton/Akron to upload and post these photos… The Lions Lincoln Theatre in downtown Massillon. Wish I’d gotten a night shot because the marquee is beautiful. (search for my entry from…

  • Am posting from the Canton/Akron airport, where I’ve arrived at the gate with plenty of time to spare, courtesy of Philip Carli and his merry Oldsmobile. Nice to see the airport has complimentary wi-fi (ya hear that, LGA & EWR?!)… Saw a lot of great film, missed a few good…

  • Okay, okay, I know the image at right is for the 1930 talkie remake of the 1923 silent, but you get the idea. I played for a double-header at MoMA last night (Sat 9/20): John Barrymore in Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (gorgeous new 35mm print from Eastman House) and…

  • Well, I’ve now screened both part 1 and 2 of Lang’s Die Nibelungen on DVD in prep for my playing for these two at the Burns Film Center on Weds and Thurs. Got these out of the NYPL; I don’t own DVD’s of silents, just reserve ’em and check ’em…

  • This is the Verdensteatret Kino (“kino” means cinema), with banners hung for the festival. I love their logo of a dialog balloon with an “X” where dialog would be. This is the oldest kino in Norway. Here is a photo of one of the murals that line the walls of…

  • Here you see me and Martha Otte, festival director, presenting stumfilm to a group of 5th graders at Verdensteatret on Fri, Sept 5th. Each student got a piece of 35mm film so we could explain what film itself was and (briefly) that our brains turn a series of still pictures…

  • Sept 5 ’08 – Tromsø, NORWAY — Photo above is of me holding yesterday’s “Nordlys” daily paper, showing the big spread given to “Stumfilm Dagere”. Notice the photo of Buster Keaton in Seven Chances, which I’ll be accompanying on Sunday with the Miditzer. The kino (Norwegian for cinema, or movie…

  • Well, folks, I’m off to Tromsø again tomorrow, and am quickly filing this report on the Aug 23 show of Phantom of the Opera at the New Marlborough Meeting House‘s Music and More series, curated by Harold Lewin. This year was the rain check for last year’s show – which…

  • Stumfilmdagere i Tromsø has just been announced online. Click here to see the website (and make sure to click on “Enlgish” in the upper right corner of the webpage).