Enjoy the silence

The era of silent films faded into the cinematic sunset in the 1920s with the advent of “talkies” and early sound technology.

But more than 80 years later, silent films still manage to overcome language and culture as the most universal of moving images.

The Library of Congress Mount Pony Theater enjoys the silence Sunday in Culpeper with a free screening of, “A Cottage On Dartmoor,” a British thriller from 1929.

“It’s a strikingly beautiful, atmospheric thriller, very Hitchcokian,” says Mike Mashon of Culpeper, head of the moving images division on Mount Pony. “It’s less well known in the U.S., but certainly is a gem that deserves wider recognition.”

What “Dartmoor” lacks in voices acclaimed British musician Stephen Horne makes up for with his original score.

Considered one of England’s leading silent film accompanists, he has performed his piano composition for “Dartmoor” at New York’s Lincoln Centre, the Pordenone Silent Film Festival in Italy, Washington’s National Gallery of Art and beyond.

His score is also on the DVD version of the silent movie that was restored and released in 2003 by the British Film Institute in London, where Horne works as an in-house pianist.
Sunday, Horne brings the musical drama of “Dartmoor” to Culpeper following two separate weekend performances in New York and D.C.
Mashon, his friend and fellow movie festivalgoer, said it’s one of the finest silent film scores he’s ever heard.

“Stephen is a master at accompanying — and not overpowering — a film,” he said. “Music for silent films is supposed to enhance your enjoyment of the film, even while not calling attention to itself.”

Horne’s “Dartmoor” score is an excellent example of this, Mashon added, mentioning a “cleverly brilliant” scene set in a British movie theater.

Indeed, the British pianist adds much feeling to the film, effectively illustrating emotions like dread and nervousness or what barbershop gossip might sound like on the piano.

Horne, reached this week via e-mail in England, said he began working on the score six years ago for the DVD release, but that it started as an improvisation.

However, the more he performed to “Dartmoor” the more the music became fixed, “until it got to the point where I would call it a composition.”

“But it’s still one that is in my head, not written down.”

Each performance, then, is slightly different, Horne said, about 70 percent composed and 30 percent improvised. The movie’s original soundtrack — a mixture of incidental music and occasional sound effects, according to him — is lost to time.

For its visual impact, “A Cottage On Dartmoor” gets better with each viewing, Horne said. He especially likes its ambiguity, something he said is uncommon in silent films.

“It’s quite hard, particularly toward the end, to pin down the characters’ motivations. It’s also very stylish, comic and, finally, quite moving.”
Swedish actor Uno Henning (1895-1970) stars as Joe, a spooky barber’s assistant, who has got quite the crush — and that’s putting it lightly — on a cute manicurist called Sally (Norah Baring).

But when it becomes clear that she’s just not that into him, and instead fancies a strapping Dartmoor farmer called Harry (Hans Schlettow), Joe, eyes shining like a demon, embarks on a long trip down into darkness.

Back and forth, back and forth, he sharpens his razor on leather. On the stark horizon, a single figure flees and barren trees twist to heaven.

The screens flashes red.

But who’s in the cottage? And will there be murder?

Though “Dartmoor” is not to be confused with Stephen Sondheim’s much more recent “Sweeney Todd,” the two films both feature sinister themes with the main action playing out in the jolly old barbershop.

The print showing Sunday on Mount Pony is on loan from the British Film Institute — which is similar in its offerings and mission to the LOC National Audiovisual Conservation Center Packard Campus in Culpeper.

Mashon said the LOC actively loans its films — hundreds of titles each year — to cinemas around the globe, including the BFI’s National Film Theatre in London, located on the banks of the Thames River.

On the other hand, the LOC rarely has to borrow films because it has so many in its collection. In fact, Mashon said, the LOC in Culpeper likely has more silent films than any other archive in the world.

“We’ve probably been collecting film since 1894, and given the silent era ended in the late 1920s, have much to share with our audience,” he said.

That’s why Sunday’s silent film is just the first in what Mashon hopes will be regular silent screenings. Not to mention that the Mount Pony Theater is equipped with a digital Wurlitzer organ that has yet to rise from the stage.

Mashon, in fact, was first drawn to movies by the 1921 silent, “Orphans of the Storm,” which he saw on his local PBS station as an 11-year-old.

“I’ve always been fascinated by the way in which a story can be ‘told’ primarily through pictures,” he said. “In some ways, this is cinema in its purest form.”
Mount Pony moviegoers can expect surprise, laughter, a few tears and a lot of good music, Horne said, encouraging patrons to pay careful attention to the scene in the movie theater.

Silent film is the “pure fusion of image and music” in a way that’s universal, he said of its appeal then and now.

Sunday, hear for yourself why the dancers at the London Studio Centre are so mad for this British musician that they set up a Facebook page, “We’re in love with Stephen Horne.”

The show starts at 2 p.m.

It’s not silent if there’s live music:
Silent film musician Stephen Horne of England performs his original score live Sunday in the Mount Pony Theater to “A Cottage On Dartmoor,” a silent from 1929. The free show starts at 2 p.m.
RESERVATIONS: (540) 827-1079 x79994 –or- (202) 707-9994.
Don’t have reservations? Show up in the lobby early to get on standby.
Based at London’s British Film Institute, Horne has recorded music for DVDs, the BBC and museums. A pianist first, Horne often blends flute and keyboards into his performances and has played at major venues around the globe. He is also a specialist in dance accompaniment most beloved by dancers at the London Studio Centre. Check out stephenhorne.co.uk