Saturday, March 29, 2003

Some time ago, I wrote an entry about Dovzhenko's Earth in which I praised the piano playing of Chicago-based silent film accompanist David Drazin. I had seen David play many times at Film Center, and he always did a great job, but on Earth he really seemed to key into the film in a way that truly enhanced the experience. After writing the piece, I received a very nice email from David's wife Carol Seymour thanking me and answering some of the questions in it, most notably that David rarely uses a written score and sometimes plays for films he hasn't seen. This got me thinking a lot about the role of music in film, and how different that role is in silent films as opposed to modern films. I had also been thinking at that time about extending the nature of Cineblog to include some content that was a little more than just me babbling about whatever. So I asked if David would want to sit down and chat about what he did, and we ended up getting together at the Film Center before a showing of The Wedding Circle, an old silent by Ernst Lubitsch. I would love to say that there will be more of this type of original content in the future, certainly that is what I had planned. However, given the fact that it took me two montsh just to transcribe this one, I'm not making any promises. Anyways, enjoy. [more]

Posted by gdd @ 10:09 AM CST [Link]

Sunday, March 16, 2003

One of the problems I have been having as far as updating lately, is that I always used to write these long rambling posts and I liked writing those. I kind of just let loose on a movie for a while, and I felt it was useful for me and maybe if I was lucky it was interesting to read. Now that I don't have the time to do those anymore, I find myself not updating. Perhaps I should just start doing small capsules, but some things don't work that way. I'll give it a try, but if it doesn't happen I may officially go on hiatus. You can still see what I'm watching from the Films Seen link.
[more]

Posted by gdd @ 11:06 AM CST [Link]

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