A Concert of Original Music
aligned to the action of the
Buster Keaton masterpiece

'Music for 'The General' is a concert of live, original music set to the action of the Buster Keaton masterpiece. The program was the result of a commission in 2002 from the Cine Clube de Covilhã, a group of cinema enthusiasts in the university town of Covilhã in the central mountains of Portugal for a festival of silent film with live music.An hour and a quarter of music describes the madcap, rough and tumble action of the film and reflects a wide variety of compositional influences from parlor songs evocative of mid 19th century America to angular late 20th century experimentalism and improvisation. Military marches à la Hannes Eisler and Kurt Weill, love songs, cartoon music, the film music of Ennio Morricone, Danny Elfman and Nino Rota and the circus qualities inherent in Klezmer music are all channeled to musically animate this product of the cinematic genius of Buster Keaton.

The Ensemble

Aedan Geiger - trumpet, valve trombone

Sylvan Wilkinson - tenor saxophone

Rob Pearce - percussion

Chuck Currie - clarinet

Nathan Skip - alto saxophone

Gregg Moore - tuba, trombone, mandolin, banjo, electronics

Tickets: $20. Available at the door (cash or e-transfer).

*Children under 12 free.

Please email Ruthie Tilston at ruthietilston@yahoo.ca for reservations and any further information.

The Film
The General (1927) is an imaginative masterpiece generally regarded as one of the greatest of all silent comedies, the best train film ever made, and Keaton's own favorite. However, Keaton's greatest picture received both poor reviews by critics, who considered it tedious, and disappointing, weak box-office results when initially released in the late 20's. It led to Keaton's loss of independence as a film-maker and a restrictive deal with MGM and would take many decades to take it's rightful place as one of the greatest pieces of film art.
Today The General is regarded as an extraordinary, ground-breaking classic. The film has variously been called the best work of a cinematic genius, the silent screen's best, and the first film comedy of epic proportions.
Keaton biographer Tom Dardis wrote of Buster Keaton in The General. "Many of Keaton's critics have commented on the stunningly convincing look of The General, often comparing it with the Civil War photographs of Matthew Brady. In the 50 years since it was made, The General has become a piece of American folklore." Filled with hilarious sight gags and perfectly timed stunt work, the chase comedy was written and directed by Buster Keaton and Clyde Bruckman, and filmed with a huge budget for its time. It is memorable for its strong story-line of a single, brave, but foolish Southern Confederate train engineer doggedly in pursuit of his passionately-loved locomotive ("The General") AND the woman he loves. His stoic, unflappable reactions to fateful calamities, his ingenious and resourceful uses of machines and various objects (water tanks, a large piece of timber, a cowcatcher, a rolling artillery cannon on wheels, and unattached railroad cars), and the unpredictable forces of Nature, provide much of the plot. Based on a true Civil War story of the daring raid/seizure of a Confederate train by Union raiders, the tale is told from the point of view of a Southern engineer.
Tim Dirks
From http://www.filmsite.org/gene.html

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