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Filmic returns in June for landmark soundtrack season
Filmic, Bristol’s ongoing celebration of the symbiotic relationship between film and music, returns to the Watershed in June. This small but perfectly formed season focuses on five classics with landmark soundtracks. They’ve been selected by Bristol-based film writer and score expert Sean Wilson, whose new book The Sound of Cinema: Hollywood Film Music from the Silents to the Present is published this month.
First up is that no-brainer selection Psycho (June 3-5), whose Bernard Hermann score is as integral and influential as that shower sequence. Psycho enthusiasts will also be overjoyed to learn that the Watershed is screening the brand new 4K restoration, with a full 13 seconds of additional monochrome hack’n’slash that was originally chopped by the censor.
The steamy southern gothic of Elia Kazan’s A Streetcar Named Desire (June 5) is amped up by Alex North’s jazz-infused score. Indeed, back in 1951 jazz was considered so degenerate by such stern protectors of public morals as the Office of the Production Code and the Catholic Legion of Decency that this became a rare example of a film whose soundtrack was censored.
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Sam Peckinpah’s last great western Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (June 12) is not only one of the key films of seventies cinema, but also gave us the Bob Dylan classic Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door. His Bobship also acquits himself well in an acting role (which is more than can be said for Hearts of Fire or the woeful dramatic elements of Renaldo and Clara).
The half-pint antichrist pitches up in London in Richard Donner’s classy 1976 horror The Omen (June 19), for which Jerry Goldsmith bagged his only Oscar. Goldsmith’s imaginative, genuinely spooky score is just as memorable as David Warner having his head sliced off.
Donner also directed the final film in the season: the first Superman (June 26), in which the young Christopher Reeve takes to the air. It’s an interesting John Williams selection, given that he bagged Oscars for his Jaws and Star Wars scores.
So what’s missing? Well, there are no electronic scores at all. No Vangelis (RIP). No Tangerine Dream. Maybe they’re being saved for the next season.
Sean will be putting his selections into context with an illustrated talk entitled The Sound of Cinema (June 19) that promises to take an enjoyable romp through 126 years of film history to explore the enduringly powerful combination of moving image and music.
Go here for full details of the Filmic season and to book tickets.
Main pic: Vivien Leigh and Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire. Credit: BFI
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