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| Buster Keaton: The General (1927). |
Evento inaugurale / Opening Event
THE GENERAL (Buster Keaton Productions / United Artists, US 1927)
Dir: Buster Keaton, Clyde Bruckman; prod: Joseph M. Schenck; sc: Buster Keaton, Clyde Bruckman; adapt: Al Boasberg, Charles Smith, dal libro / from the book The Great Locomotive Chase by William Pittenger; ph: J. Devereux Jennings, Bert Haines; ed: J.S. Kell; lighting effects: Denver Harmon; technical dir: Fred Gabourie; asst. dir: Harry Barnes; cast: Buster Keaton (Johnnie Gray), Marion Mack (Annabelle Lee), Glen Cavender (Captain Anderson), Jim Farley (General Thatcher), Frederick Vroom (Southern General), Charles Smith (il padre di Annabelle / Annabelle’s Father), Frank Barnes (il fratello di Annabelle / Annabelle’s Brother), Joe Keaton (Union General), Mike Donlin (Union General), Tom Nawn (Union General), Ross McCutcheon (Norther raider), Snitz Edwards [scenes cut after premiere]; copyright: 22.12.1926; rel: 5.2.1927; lunghezza originale / orig. length: 7500 ft.; 35mm, 7079 ft., 79’ (24 fps), The Douris Corporation.
Didascalie in inglese / English intertitles.
Accompagnamento musicale dal vivo di / Live score by Alloy Orchestra.
Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2004 Sacile, Teatro Zancanaro, 9 Oct 2004
David Robinson (GCM): "Buster Keaton said, late in his life, that he was more proud of The General "than any picture I ever made, because I took an actual happening out of the Civil War – out of the history book”. The narrative is closely based on true events recalled at length in William Pittenger’s book Daring and Suffering: A History of the Great Railway Adventure, first published in 1863, reissued in 1893 as The Great Locomotive Chase, and still currently in print. Pittenger (1840-1904), a corporal in the Northern army, joined a party of 24 men led by a professional spy, James J. Andrews, who made their way, disguised as Southern civilians, from Tennessee into Atlanta. There they seized a train, drawn by the locomotive The General, while its passengers were at breakfast. Their plan was to run the train north to Chattanooga, where they would join up with Union troops, having burned bridges and cut communications along the route."
"The train’s conductor, William A. Fuller, accompanied by a passenger, Anthony Murphy, set off in pursuit, at first on foot, then on a handcar, and finally in a succession of three locomotives. The conspirators were within only a few miles of their destination when Fuller, on The Texas, overtook them and forced them to abandon their prize. Most of the party were apprehended, and several were executed. (The story was filmed again by Disney in 1956, as The Great Locomotive Chase)."
"The principal change Keaton and his co-director Clyde Bruckman made to the story was to show it from the point of view of the Southern pursuers: "You can always make villains out of the Northerners,” said Keaton, "but you cannot make a villain out of the South.” Moreover, the Southerners end up the victors – essential to a comedy resolution. The names of the characters were changed: The conductor William Fuller becomes the engineer Johnnie Gray (Keaton), with two loves in his life – his locomotive and his girlfriend Annabelle Lee (gallantly played by Marion Mack). Annabelle – seized by the Northerners along with the locomotive – replaces Mr. Murphy as Johnnie’s companion in the adventure. Shot without a script, the film has nevertheless an exemplary, symmetrical narrative structure, centring on the sequence of the rescue of Annabelle and The General from the enemy’s headquarters. After the introductory episode – in which Annabelle Lee spurns Johnnie, not understanding why he is refused by the army – each half of the film is a locomotive chase, with the second a direct reversal of the first. The Battle of Rock River provides the climactic dénouement."
"Keaton at first intended to shoot The General in the original locations, between Atlanta and Tennessee, but decided that Oregon looked more authentic. In Oregon, too, he could still find narrow-gauge tracks of the kind used in the Civil War period, now serving the timber mills, and winding picturesquely around valleys, mountains, and lakes. Keaton asked the Tennessee authorities to loan him the real General locomotive, which was on display in the Chattanooga railroad station, but he was refused. Undeterred, he made-over three aged locomotives still in use in the lumber camps to look like real period engines. Some precious 16mm home-movie reportage of the shooting reveals that he worked with parallel tracks and a second locomotive to achieve the astonishing travelling shots of the fast-moving trains."
"Keaton’s restaging of the Civil War – the scenes of the railway marshalling yards and the ambush at Rock River – is no less spectacular or authentic than The Birth of a Nation, Gone With the Wind, or The Red Badge of Courage. For his armies he engaged 500 men from the Oregon National Guard – as the Southerners they wore grey uniforms and marched from left to right, while as Northerners they adopted dark blue uniforms and marched the other way. The filming of the Rock River battle – covered by 6 cameras – proved an alarmingly realistic engagement. At least 9 men were injured, several almost drowned, and Keaton himself was knocked out by the force of an explosion. The explosives set off a forest fire, which caused location production to be halted for several weeks until rain had cleared away the effects of the smoke."
"The most astonishing scene in the film is the collapsing bridge which hurls a locomotive and its entire train into the water below. No models were used, and the train is said still to lie immovable in the riverbed. At $42,000 this is reputed to have been the most costly shot in the entire silent cinema."
"Even Keaton’s face, as James Agee pointed out, has the look of a portrait by Matthew Brady. The dominant documentary quality of the story and setting gives a unique quality to Keaton’s performance. His character never appears to be trying to be funny or to do funny things. Rather, he is totally and intensely concentrated on his life-or-death mission. The comedy is generated by the mishaps which assault him, and by the ingenuity of his solutions to the problems and hazards. Dramatic action and comic business are one and interdependent. The story never appears simply an excuse for the comedy, nor are the gags a decoration planted on the story. Even so, these gags include some of Keaton’s greatest. A film built around trains was the culmination of a lifetime’s fascination for Keaton: "Well, the moment you give me a locomotive and things like that to play with, as a rule I find some way of getting laughs out of it.” The General is an exhaustive anthology of railroad gags."
"The film was a commercial disaster for United Artists. It had cost a then-phenomenal $415,232, and grossed little more than that sum domestically. The General was largely rejected by critics and audiences, who were evidently not yet ready for a comedy of such unprecedented inspiration, innovation, and brilliance. Variety wrote that it was "far from funny”; Life’s Robert E. Sherwood thought some of its gags "in gruesomely bad taste”, and the New York Times considered it "by no means as good as Mr. Keaton’s previous efforts”. The financial blow was almost fatal to United Artists, and Keaton was never again to be allowed complete creative freedom. Time, albeit too late, brings its changes. Today few would dispute The General’s reputation not just as one of the greatest comedies, but as one of the finest films ever made and one of the 20th century’s enduring works of art." – David Robinson (GCM)
Alloy Orchestra’s Score for The General
Ken Winokur: "Alloy has been talking about writing a score for The General for more than a decade. It’s an obvious film for us. There’s such a kinetic quality to the film, with the train chugging back and forth throughout the story, that we thought we could be particularly effective in writing music that mirrored the movie’s rhythm. We felt that our style of music, with its strong emphasis on percussion, would be ideal for the film."
"In the spring of 2003 David Shepard suggested that Alloy create a score for the film that he could use on a DVD, along with our existing score for Steamboat Bill, Jr. We agreed immediately and then started trying to make arrangements to perform it live. I talked to Bill Pence of the Telluride Film Festival, who had previously suggested we tackle The General, and he agreed to host the premiere of our score at the Film Festival."
"The next step was to locate the print we would tour with. At David Shepard’s suggestion, I contacted Tim Lanza, who manages the Rohauer Collection (now called the Douris Corporation). The Rohauer collection contains the best original material on the film. Tim had worked with Alloy only the previous year with the Black Pirate. I was pretty sure that we would be able to make some arrangements with him. As we had done with the Black Pirate, Alloy funded a new print which was struck from the existing negative. The Rohauer collection has the original camera negative of The General, in nearly mint condition. A couple of decades back, they made an excellent safety neg from the nitrate camera neg. Our print, struck by John Allen of Cinema Arts in Pennsylvania, comes from that safety neg. Our new print is astoundingly beautiful - crisp, sharp, excellent contrast, and nearly scratchless."
"When David Shepard sent us the video copy of the film, we started working. We first transfered the video to our computer (a Mac G4, running Digital Performer). After watching the film a couple of times, we started going through the film scene by scene. We always skip the first scene, usually the titles, and leave it till last. As we ran a particular scene, the three of us would improvise ideas and record them to the computer. Unlike most "orchestras" Alloy works collaboratively. Any one of us (there are only 3 members) may suggest an idea. We’ll play around with ideas until we find something that we all like. Alloy works quickly at this stage, making up new song ideas almost as quickly as we can record them."
"Next we’ll start trying to take the simple ideas and turn them into songs. This process takes much longer than writing the simple theses. Usually there will be several sections for each song, and a different song for each scene in the film. Each song is comprised of several different melodies or rhythms. There are usually bridges between these sections and between one song and the next. This process takes quite a bit of time, but it is what makes the music really interesting and makes the film flow naturally."
"As soon as we have a section we’re happy with, we’ll record it into the computer. Usually in one or two takes we have one we are satisfied with. Because of the numerous percussion instruments, we use lots of microphones and set them up so that each is feeding into a channel of the computer. Typically we’ll have 16 tracks ready to record at any time. We’ll shut off the ones we’re not using for that particular song. In this way, we can record quickly without additional setup. We have learned to do all this ourselves, so that we don’t need to hire an audio engineer. After a few listens, we’ll fix any songs we’re not happy with, occasionally having to come up with a entirely new song idea."
"Even though there is a great deal of drumming in this show, we found ourselves relying on the sound traditional orchestral instruments rather than our notorious “rack of junk”. Of course, many of these orchestral instruments are played by Roger Miller on his Kurzweil sampling synthesizer. Because of the period setting of the film we instinctively knew that a more modern sound wouldn’t work. Many of the scenes have no percussion at all. Terry Donahue and I (Alloy’s percussionists) found ourselves contributing an unusual amount of melody – Terry on the accordion and musical saw, and me playing clarinet."
"The next step in the recording process is the overdubbing of sound effects. Because of the precision needed for timing of the effects, we do each one individually. If it’s a little late (they usually are a 1/10 of second late) we’ll move them to the precise moment. This is the one thing for which the computer is indispensable. Before our studio was computerized, all the sound effects had to be performed “live” with no way to easily fix a misplaced effect. It took a lot more practice in those days to get the sound effects just right."
"For the General one of the challenges was getting all the gunshots. During the battle scene at the end, there are literally hundreds of them. We started by creating “gunshots” by recording snare drum hits. Cannons were a combination of snare and bass drum, or floor tom tom. It took a whole day to record a variety of guns, cannons and exploding shells and put them in the proper place. In the end, we used dozens of different sounds so that the various explosions sounded different from one another."
"The last step in the recording process is to mix the entire score. This process takes almost as long as the recording. We spend a couple of weeks carefully balancing the levels of the many tracks, equalizing the sounds, and adding reverb."
"Over the last decade or more, I have been subtly improving the sound of our recordings. I have come to the conclusion that the pristine recording, that is the goal of most recorded music, doesn’t work well for our silent films. I have been experimenting with using fewer microphones, using more omni mics, and using old style mics. I am using more reverb (both natural and digital). The effect of these techniques is to smooth out the often harsh sound of our percussion and to make the whole recording sound like it was performed in a concert hall instead of our small studio."
"The General took us about a month to write and record. The DVD recording was done and sent off to Image Entertainment to be mated with the film."
"Although we had finished the composition we were still unable to perform the score. Typically Alloy spends as much as a couple of months practicing before we premiere our new scores. The General was written and recorded in April 2004. We then started practicing for our premiere in September in Telluride Colorado. We probably rehearsed the film 30 or more times. This score seems quite simple - there are a number of themes that recur through the film. But in reality it’s very hard for us to perform. The themes, although they recur, are often played at different tempos (usually to match the speed of the train). It’s hard to remember exactly what tempo a particular song is played for a particular scene. Also there are lots of sound effect that we perform live. It’s always difficult to get the timing just right on these. There is no substitute for extensive (and often boring) rehearsal."
"With the work finished, a successful premiere, and now about 25 performances under our belt, we can look back and judge our own score. We are very satisfied with this project, and feel that it is one of our best efforts to date (The General is our 20th feature length score). Our style is gradually shifting toward more traditional music. At least that’s true for this film with it’s 19th century setting. We have become much more adept at matching our music to the action of the film. Our scores have become more and more complex over the years, with each scene change or subtle mood change being mirrored by our music. Even though it was the mechanical rhythms of the train that attracted us to this project, it is Keaton’s subtle emotions that make this film so satisfying. Hopefully we have underscored and amplified these subtle emotions with our music." – Ken Winokur / Alloy Orchestra (June 27, 2004)
AA: The beloved classic revisited in the jubilant opening event. Alloy Orchestra has a good, strong rhythm, and a perfect sense of the action. The print is neat and clean, but without black levels nor depth. Good but not brilliant. Our well-loved, sonorized Helsinki print is not perfect but neither is it worse than this. The film itself keeps getting better. ****
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