Mahmovies! Delian Mode and The Man With a Movie Camera
Last night was a great start to Mahmovies! second season of Music for the Eyes. RIP: Remix Manifesto is a mash up style documentary about remix culture, copyright and 'copyleft'. Strongly recommend you download it and watch it here. -
The live music performance by The Lost Fingers was amazing, I was sceptical, but turns out they are delightful to watch live. Double bass, guitars & good singing can make cheesiest tunes sound cool!
I am now looking forward to next week's screening and expecting my ears will be tingled because these two gems:
Delian Mode (Kara Blake, 2009)
Duration: 25 mins
This is a documentary about Delia Derbyshire who created theme song for 'Doctor Who'. Not only did this musical pioneer create this unforgettable theme, she created every sound it comprised. This experimental short film is a collage of sound and image created in the spirit of Derbyshire’s unique approach to audio creation and manipulation and illuminates such soundscapes onscreen while paying tribute to a woman whose work has influenced electronic musicians for decades. It recently won Best Short Documentary at Hot Docs. (If you are too young to remember the original Dr Who series and the music, listen to it here.)
The Man with a Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov, 1929 & The Cinematic Orchestra, 2002)
Duration: 68 minutes
Russian Cinema pioneer Dziga Vertov's experimental manifesto of vision shows us a day-in-the-life portrait of a city from dawn until dusk and still pulses with the unruly energy and visual innovation of Vertov's genius. After an opening statement, there are no words in the film (neither voice-over nor titles), we are treated to a celebration of the modern city with a marked emphasis on its buildings and machinery. Differing film speeds, superimposition, evocative and manipulative editing all blend seamlessly in a magic show of life above and below the city. Shooting shops, traffic, children, coal miners, workers, human bodies, and nature - the movie is a spectacular urban symphony that is still celebrated as one of the earliest manifestations of the direct documentary genre.
Fast forward to 70 years after its completion, the Porto Film Festival asked the British electronica group, The Cinematic Orchestra, to compose a soundtrack for their favorite silent film and they picked The Man With a Movie Camera. They added a string section to compliment their music, moving away from the trademark jazz /funk of their live sets towards something more powerful. Anyone that knows me, knows how much I love silent movies and how I hope 2010 will be a year we see silent movies making a come back. This could be the start.
Mahmovies! is a free event and seating will be on a first come first serve basis, starting at 7.30pm on 1st February at thejamjar. Location map: http://www.thejamjardubai.com/index1.html
Other links:
Mahmovies! on Twitter: @Mahmovies
Mahmovies! on Facebook: Mahmovies Facebook Group
thejamjar on Twitter: @thejamjar
The Delian Mode website: thedelianmode.com
The Cinematic Orchestra website: thecinematicorchestra.com