If you’ve never seen Carl Theodor’s silent film masterpiece The Passion of Joan of Arc, now’s the time. And you have seen it, you’ll surely not want to miss this special, one-of-a-kind screening on the big screen with live music. Adrian Utley (Portishead) and Will Gregory (Goldfrapp) have composed a new live score for the film, which they will perform with six electric guitars, a choir, harps, percussion, horns, and keyboards on Saturday, October 29 at Alice Tully Hall. The artists will be on-hand for a post-performance discussion moderated by our very own Richard Peña.
“It’s easy to see why the work turns up so often on film critic-curated lists of the all-time greats. Where much silent cinema was about garish make-up and exaggerated melodramatic gestures, Dreyer tells his tale via brutal close-ups of his cast,” wrote Thomas H Green for The Telegraph when the film closed the Brighton Festival. “The orchestral ensemble, which featured both Utley and Gregory – the latter dropping in delicious Moog-style synthesiser effects – amped up the power of the cinematic experience, making it vital and contemporary, where a tinkling piano soundtrack would have rendered it a historical artefact.
Utley and Gregory discuss their composition in a short DSHED documentary, which you can view here. The Passion of Joan of Arc is presented as part of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts’ White Light Festival. Click here for more information and to buy tickets.
