The film claimed to be an attempt to interpret the inspiration behind Rachmaninov’s composition of his Prelude in C and sees Knight frighten himself through his late night reading Poe’s ‘The Premature Burial’ as the book’s conscious victim is trapped, helpless, in a coffin as soil gradually closes in on him. But things picked up with Prelude(UK, 1927, image left), written by and starring Castleton Knight. Unfortunately either the church acoustics or poor PA system meant that the sound of both the film and the reading were almost wholly inaudible beyond about the third row, which was a shame. This was followed by a (perhaps slightly over-long?) reading of Poe by Bryony Dixon. Ted Parmelee, US, image right) narrated by James Mason. As a scene setter we watched not a silent but a chilling 1953 animated version of The Tell-Tale Heart (Dir. And where better to experience a selection of Edgar Allan Poe adaptions than in the hugely atmospheric St Mary De Castro church. These included writer and screenwriter Michael Eaton who provided a fascinating contrast between the original George Elliot source material for the film Mr Gilfil’s Love Story (1920, image right), the screenplay for the film written by Eliot Stannard (the earliest complete British film screenplay to have survived) and the completed film as directed by A Bramble the BFI’s Bryony Dixon, relating the tale of Eric Allan Humphriss (a man almost lost to history due to a frequent misspelling of his surname) who in 1931 made one of the first attempts at manually altering the soundtrack of an early talkie to change the dialogue spoken by the film’s star, in what could be seen as one of the first steps towards the sort of audio and video manipulation that today contributes to the scourge of fake news pianist and Yorkshire Silent programmer Jonathan Best then spoke to challenge the conventional notion that most silent era film piano accompanists were playing genuinely improvised scores but were instead more focused on an ‘adaptive’ form of improvisation based upon various modifications of existing themes Federico Striuli provided a hugely informative perspective on the transition from silent to sound within the Italian film industry and lastly film historian Geoff Brown spoke on the new musical practices that needed (or in some cases failed) to be adopted by British film studios in the nascent sound period.Īnd then it was time for the first film. Day 1īut before we got to see the films themselves the first day was given over mainly to presentations on aspects of silent and early sound film from a variety of learned speakers. We got drama, comedy, suspense, war and adventure and in line with the festival’s current focus on the transition from silent to sound, we even got a few of those nasty ‘talkies’ thrown in for good measure. Where does one start? Sixteen features, eleven shorts, ten presentations, three compilations, two documentaries and two readings, all squeezed into the five days of the 19 th British Silent Film Festival, held at the Phoenix Cinema in Leicester from 13-17 th September. The dress code for the evenings - inspired by india – saw celebrities bring their interpretation in the form of Indian crafts, sublime silhouettes, and incredible artistry.Ĭatch all the best-dressed from the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre's Day 2 evening here.Phoenix Cinema, Leicester 13-17 September 2017 From Tom Holland, Zendaya, Gigi Hadid to Priyanka Chopra and Shahrukh Khan, the best of Bollywood and Hollywood came together to celebrate a retrospective that looks back at India’s contribution and representation in fashion through history.Įxpect to see John Galliano’s magic at the house of Dior, a room dedicated to the chintz and muslins seen through the history of fashion, and archival pieces from Chanel and YSL, on prominent display.įast forwarding into the present, Indian designers and their incredible works of fashion, including Anamika Khanna, Tarun Tahiliani, and Sabyasachi Mukherjee can be seen charting the way forward for Indian couture. It’s day 2 at the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre NMACC, and the list of celebrities gets even bigger and better.
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