Fans of classic cinema, rejoice! Ben Model returns to Boise for two days of silent film accompanied by live performances of original scores. One of the nation’s leading silent film accompanists, as well as a dedicated film archivist and historian, Ben has composed and performed original music for screenings at the Library of Congress, for Turner Classic Movies, his own YouTube channel, and for DVD and Blu-ray releases for his own label, Undercrank Productions.
Ben has also been a staple of silent film screenings in Boise for more than a decade, and he returns for a string of events at both the Egyptian Theatre and the Idaho State Museum from February 13 to 15. These will include a rare showing of groundbreaking filmmaker Nell Shipman’s “The Light on Lookout Mountain” (1925) and the world premiere of his score for the Charlie Chaplin comedy “The Adventurer” (1917).
The Boise Beat spoke to Ben Model via email about his slate of events in Boise this week and his conception of the new score for the Chaplin film.
The Boise Beat: You have several film and music events this week – can you tell us what can be expected at each stop?
Ben Model: On February 13 at 6pm, the Idaho State Museum is presenting “Idaho Film and Cinematic History,” where I’ll be joined by Prof. Ryan Cannon from Boise State University and Layce Johnson from the Idaho State Archives. We’ll be talking about the history of film production in Idaho, early filmmaking and film preservation.
I’ll also be presenting and performing a live piano score for the Nell Shipman short drama “The Light on Lookout Mountain” (1926). Shipman produced, co-directed and starred in this 17-minute film, which was shot on location in Priest Lake. What we’ll be screening is a new 2K digital restoration I’ve just produced, working with a new scan of the only known copy, courtesy of the Library and Archives Canada.
The Boise Beat: You may also be introducing audience members to Shipman, for whom Nell Shipman Point was named. Can you give us an overview of her career and place in both film history and Idaho history?
Ben Model: Nell Shipman is an important and somewhat overlooked part of early film history. She was one of a number of pioneer women filmmakers who worked during the silent era, the 1910s and 1920s. Shipman starred in films beginning in 1916, and starting in 1920, she often also wrote, directed, and/or produced her films. The plot lines of many of her films had her out in nature in the Northwest. Her screen characters often had a special bond with nature, a respect for the forests and mountains and the creatures that inhabited them, and this was often a core part of the film’s story lines. Her own productions were produced and distributed independently, and while some are lost, the ones that survives are worth seeing.
The Boise Beat: You also have two days of screenings at the Egyptian Theatre on the 14th and 15. What can we expect there?
Ben Model: We’ll pack the historic movie palace on Friday the 14th during the daytime with area 5th and 6th graders for two programs. We do this every year, showing the students a couple of comedy shorts that I will accompany on the Robert Morton theatre pipe organ. This is always a lot of fun, and is a big part of what I call “audience preservation.”
The Boise Beat: What do you enjoy most about screening silents for younger audiences?
Ben Model: People think kids won’t like these films — there’s no color, no dialog, etc — but that’s not the case at all. We’ve done these screenings for several years, and so that means that there are several thousand young people who’ve seen a Buster Keaton comedy in a movie palace with live theatre organ accompaniment. I can’t do shows like this in New York City, so it’s a real treat for me.
The Boise Beat: And you also have an event on the 15th at the Egyptian.
Ben Model: Yes, the real big, main event is Saturday night at 8pm at the Egyptian Theatre! The Boise Philharmonic Chamber Ensemble will be performing the world premiere of a new orchestral score I’ve composed for the Charlie Chaplin classic, “The Adventurer” (1917). This was specially commissioned for the event, as was my score for other film the Chamber Ensemble will accompany, the Charley Chase comedy “DOG SHY” (1925).
On the second half of the program, I’ll play the Egyptian’s original-installation theatre organ to accompany a short 44-minute comedy feature starring Douglas MacLean called “Bell Boy 13″ (1923). For the last few years, I’ve presented something I’ve recently had restored and produced for DVD, always a rare film. This hilarious comedy has been out of circulation for about 100 years, and Boiseans will be only the second movie theater audience to see the new restoration.
The Boise Beat: Can you talk about the inception of the score for “The Adventurer” – where you began when writing it, what informed the score, and how it came to its final form for the premiere?
Ben Model: Charlie Chaplin’s “The Adventurer” is an old, dear friend of mine. I bought an 8mm copy of it when I was in grade school, and have accompanied it many, many times. A new restoration was undertaken in 2013 to restore many of Chaplin’s short comedies, and these new editions look much much better than they have in years. My first orchestral score back in 1999 was for “The Adventurer”, and over the years I’ve been less and less crazy about it. My scoring sensibilities have grown and improved, largely from getting to compose a new score almost every year initially for the Boise Philharmonic’s youth symphony and as of 2008, for the Philharmonic’s Chamber Ensemble. The old score doesn’t sync with the new restoration, and I wanted to compose a new orchestral score for the film. So with that in mind, as well as the fact that someone requested this film at last year’s show, I decided to create a new score.
A couple of things helped me come up with a new take on the film and how I would support it musically. Last year, I happened to have three shows in one week where I’d been asked to program and accompany Chaplin shorts. The program I put together included “The Adventurer,” and from playing the film three times, I was able to get a fresh “take” on the film, its storyline and the trajectory Chaplin’s character goes through in it. That seems a bit “heady” for a 25-minute slapstick comedy, but there is something I found in this film that is an exception to most of his other comedy shorts from this period in 1916 and 1917. Another clue that helped me have a fresh look at the film was a newspaper insert in the film that — if you look at a frame grab from the new Blu-ray — you can actually read the news articles that were written for this film instead of being dummy text. I won’t go into the details of it here, but readers can check out a blog post I wrote about it at https://www.silentfilmmusic.com/chaplin-adventurer-newspaper/ .
I’m really looking forward to hearing how the new angle I’ve tried out, in terms of underscoring, works with the film when maestro Eric Garcia raises his baton on Saturday night, filling the Egyptian with the authentic silent cinema sound of live orchestral accompaniment as we send several hundred fans back in time at our show.
