Silent film makes a loud comeback
LET ME take you back to the 1920s when the moving image was a phenomenon, cinema was a spectacle and sound effects hadn’t even been invented yet.
These were the days when Joan Crawford was flirting with the lens, Greta Garbo was swooning at, well, everybody and Charlie Chaplin was tap dancing with bread rolls on forks.
This is the era where film began, but the roots of cinema are too often buried in the dusty depths of film archives.
So you might think you'd have to be a die-hard optimist to do NEIL BRAND’s job.
As one of a handful of silent film pianists in Britain, he’s part of a worldwide revival of music that died out in 1928 along with cinematic sound.
Not many people realise 'silent' film was never supposed to be soundless. Screenings of new movies were accompanied by live music and sometimes actors even spoke the lines from behind the cinema screen.
For 25 years Neil Brand has been a one-man band, travelling the world and tinkling the ivories to make sure silent film gets the recognition it deserves. And he is positive it’s about to make a HUGE comeback.
It can’t be easy to convince a generation of Brits who have grown up with Hollywood action flicks, computer generated images and colour screens that silent films are worth watching.
But early flicks inspired modern day movies and TV. You’ll find the first ever gangster film, epic war stories and early soap operas with the usual cliff-hanger endings all in the silent era.
Not many people realise 'silent' film was never supposed to be soundless.
For rom-com lovers there are timeless classic love stories and for big kids how about some slapstick with comedy duo Laurel and Hardy?
Silent film has it all and Neil Brand is determined to tell the world. He’s even joined forces with fellow fanatic and TV comedian Paul Merton to take silent films on the road. But I asked him ‘why now’?
“As soon as the year 2000 began the whole of the 20th century was up for grabs. Everything that had happened up to that point was all, in a sense, historic,” he told express.co.uk.
“From Hitler to the Beatles – everything from that era suddenly became of interest,” he added.
Which might explain why Brand found himself playing piano to Hitchcock’s classic thriller Blackmail in the middle of Trafalgar Square.
“We had an audience of about 2,000 people who came and watched the whole thing projected onto our enormous inflatable screen – many of them on freezing cold flagstones,” he told us.
“We had an enormous sound system so I was playing piano above the noise of the traffic!” he added.
The remarkable thing about watching Brand perform is that you’ll never see him with sheet music. Instead he improvises, ‘completing’ the story with sound.
Each time he ‘plays’ a film he watches the screen intently, letting his fingers follow the mood of the on-screen action. Every performance is completely unique.
When you watch Brand play you start to realise the hold he has over his audience. He controls how we identify with the film. He can make or break the suspense.
*****VISIT NEIL’S WEBSITE FOR PERFORMANCE DATES*****
He’s been joined by a ‘silent’ partner who - funnily enough - makes his living from talking.
TV comedian Paul Merton is best known as a Have I Got News For You regular, but not many people know he’s also one of Charlie Chaplin’s biggest fans.
They’ve spent weeks travelling the country and upping the profile of the silent era.
“We’ve just played to 15,000 people in what amounts to three weeks. Paul has almost single-handedly built a silent film audience,” said Brand.
“A whole new generation who never knew about Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton suddenly do,” he said.
Of course silent film’s got something that sound never will. It ‘speaks’ to everyone, regardless of nationality, which could be why Charlie Chaplin took the whole world by storm.
“People forget these aren’t just films waiting around for colour,” explains Brand.
“There’s very much a look associated with silent film. It's not just about 1920s style but something a bit more dramatic that’s probably off the stage. It’s a face that will transmit across a theatre.
“Look at the women from the silent era, they’ve all got really strong features from Joan Crawford and Greta Garbo even down to stars like Ava Norman with deep dark eyes, quite wide apart.”
It’s exactly that haunting look which still speaks to an audience today and explains why Neil Brand refuses to believe he’s fighting a losing battle.
