Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: alphaville screening with live score

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Posted by Brad Haven (Member # 954) on 02-24-2003, 01:34 AM:

Is alphaville being screened with this live score anywhere else?

ALPHAVILLE
by Jean Luc Godard (1965) featuring live sound by SCANNER (UK)

Innovative London-based soundscaper and ambient electronicist Scanner performs a live, improvised sampled and remixed score to Jean-Luc Godard's mid-60s, pulp sci-fi, modernist classic Alphaville.

"A dazzling amalgam of film noir and science fiction in which tough gumshoe Lemmy Caution turns inter-galactic agent to re-enact the legend of Orpheus and Eurydice in conquering Alpha 60Ö Godardís theme is alienation in a technological society, but his shotgun marriage between the poetry of legend and the irreverence of strip cartoons takes the film into entirely idiosyncratic areas." - Tom Milne, Time Out.

A cult classic and a film that pushed the very medium itself beyond its limits, Alphaville has intrigued me since I was a student. The unforgettable dirty grinding vocalisations of the computer voice haunt electronic music today and the fusing of ëfilm noirí and science fiction inspired a generation of film makers.

Alphaville is a place where emotion is forbidden and poetry is forgotten, ruled by logic, a super computer. With its abstract, political and intellectual space-chase across the glass and metal landscape of futuristic Paris, we are caught within a film that dissolves boundaries between fiction and documentary, between actors and the characters they play, a situation which prevails in musical trends, with the divide between what is ërealí and ënot realí within musicÖ

Alphaville is a still a radical film that transforms the everyday into something baffling and intriguing. Everything may be familiar but nothing is recognisable.

- Robin Rimbaud

FRI APRIL 4 at CINEMA PARADISO (M) ONE SHOW ONLY
(west australia)

I haven't actually seen this film yet, but it sounds very interesting, i'm going to get my ticket early so i dont miss out!

< Is it just me or is my picture/headshot not showing?

Posted by Greg Mueller (Member # 17) on 02-24-2003, 10:22 AM:

Alphaville
Man it took me about 30 years to be able to sit all the way through this film, try as I might.
I finally did it a couple of months ago, equipped with toothpicks to hold my eyes open. I'm glad I was finally able to do it wo I could quit wondering about it. I would deffinately not pay money to see it.
I made my wife watch it with me. [evil]

Posted by Brad Haven (Member # 954) on 02-24-2003, 10:34 AM:

Hi greg,
Yeah i've heard it's a bit boring, but it does have a live score by an interesting artist, which is my MAIN reason for going.

A friend of mine saw SCANNER live a year or two ago and was quite impressed, he apparently uses a scanner (hence the name) to grab sound bites from mobiles and anything else available and mixes it in with his own noodling, utter crap for some, but i'm a curious bugger!

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 02-24-2003, 10:57 AM:

BORING? This is one of my all-time favorites. Admittedly, it's not for everyone, but--however one might choose to describe it--it is NOT "boring."

I'd be interested to know how they will be doing the live score. Will they be performing it in place of or in addition to the existing track on the film? Hopefully, you'll still be able to hear the voice of Alpha 60, which is probably the most haunting voice ever recorded on a film soundtrack.

Posted by Brad Haven (Member # 954) on 02-24-2003, 11:38 AM:

Hi Scott,
I'll do some investigating on that issue, cinema paradiso is part of our company, so i'll ask our promotions manager.

brad

Posted by Greg Mueller (Member # 17) on 02-24-2003, 06:07 PM:

Now if they'd rerelease The 10th Victim........

Posted by Brad Haven (Member # 954) on 02-25-2003, 06:20 AM:

I found out today that the original soundtrack will be played and he (robin rimbaud/scanner) will play over the top of it, i was also told that he will be doing vocals as well?

As i said i haven't seen this film at all,
Does the way he's doing it seem possible?
Is there much dialogue or music in the film?

The event is being organised by P.I.C.A. (perth institute of contempory art) and is merely being screened at cinema paradiso.

Posted by Greg Mueller (Member # 17) on 02-25-2003, 09:13 AM:

Well it's one of those Italian(?) dubbed films where their lips never match anyway. I don't remember to much about the score. Sure why not! It might be worth going to just to see how they do it. Maybe they'll make up their own dialog like "Tiger Lilly". Now that would be good!

Posted by Hillary Charles (Member # 769) on 02-25-2003, 09:41 AM:

Alphaville was one of those French New Wave films directed by Jean-Luc Godard. Some of it goes on, but the parking garage fight scene is funny, and the scenes with the computer are good. The "futuristic" names given cities like Tokyorama, and Nueva York are cute. Eddie Constatine as Lemmy Caution is so deadpan, even he's funny. I'm not sure that was the intention, but the parts I liked made me laugh.

If you've ever seen the Cranberries video for "Linger" you already know what Alphaville looks like. It's based on that movie.

Posted by Greg Mueller (Member # 17) on 02-25-2003, 09:57 AM:

Ah yes French. That explains it! [evil]

Posted by Hillary Charles (Member # 769) on 02-25-2003, 10:00 AM:

You just KNEW there was something about it... [Big Grin]

Posted by Greg Mueller (Member # 17) on 03-16-2003, 09:35 PM:

So did the Alphaville thing happen yet?

Posted by Brad Haven (Member # 954) on 03-17-2003, 05:25 AM:

Not yet, it screens in the evening of the 4th of april.

I'll post a review after the event.

Is any other cinema in Australia screening Alphaville with the live score?

Posted by David Rigby (Member # 1301) on 03-17-2003, 05:37 AM:

Not wanting to pour cold water on the music thing, but I saw Scanner live with Sigur Ros and Labradford a couple of years back and found him terminally boring (and disappointingly, so were Labradford) [Frown]

That said, he's held in very high regard by some so whatever floats yer boat.

David

Posted by Brad Haven (Member # 954) on 04-04-2003, 11:07 AM:

I just got home from the screening.
I was sitting in the audience waiting with my friend for the show to start, we were trying to work out what equipment he had when we noticed what appeared to be a DVD player [Eek!]

, i looked back and saw a video projector in the port [Frown]

.
The show starts with the DVD image (1.85:1) sitting about one third down below the masking (they obviously didn't check before starting) with the subtitles cut off [Frown]

(fixed after a couple of min's) , the image looked stretched, was this shot 1.85:1 or full frame? The light was poor and SCANNERS work light was glowing on the screen [Frown]

, keystone was also quite bad, apart from that the image was great [Roll Eyes]

.

SCANNERS score was quite interesting and blended with the film quite well, sometimes a little too well. The audio off the dvd was awful and played too loud, it was distorting! Scanners score sounded very good though, he did a four channel mix, he only used the rear channels on a few occasions with great effect!

THE FILM, i found the first third hard to engage in, but i soon got into it. I enjoyed the humour, the set/art design and photography, by the end of the film i was enjoying it, even though i felt a little confused on walking out.

Overall the night wasn't great, just interesting!

What i dont understand is, why hold the event in a cinema if your going to use DVD and use your own sound system?? i felt cheated!!
[Mad]