Friday, November 19, 2010

METROPOLIS

Last night was the Alberta premiere of Fritz Lang's masterpiece Metropolis. It was presented by the Calgary Cinematheque, with live musical accompaniment by the world renowned Alloy Orchestra.

All I can say is WOW!

This was the first film I have ever seen with live music and, I'm not sure but, I think I'm converted.

To see the film (I have always been a fan of this movie and the image of the robot, in particular, has stuck with me over the years), now as close to Lang's vision as possible, was amazing- there were only a few minutes worth of intertitles explaining some missing scenes - but to see it with the Alloy Orchestra made for an incredible experience, you could not just hear the music you could feel it. Here is a quote from their website: "An unusual combination of found percussion and state-of-the-art electronics gives the Orchestra the ability to create any sound imaginable. Utilizing their famous "rack of junk" and electronic synthesizers, the group generates beautiful music in a spectacular variety of styles. They can conjure up a French symphony or a simple German bar band of the 20's. The group can make the audience think it is being attacked by tigers, contacted by radio signals from Mars or swept up in the Russian Revolution."

Before the performance began I got to meet the Orchestra and they signed a copy of the poster I designed (see above), which was very cool, so you can guess what will be going on my office wall as soon as I get it framed.

The orchestra has been to Calgary before but it took a film like Metropolis to draw my attention to these very talented performers. All I can say is that the next time they come here I will be in the front row of whatever film they are accompanying.

I also hope to check out a few more films with live music in the future since there is a theater in town that does this every once in a while around January, so I will be on the lookout for that.

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