This Sunday is a special day for fans of the iconic film star Louise Brooks. Two of the actress' highly acclaimed silent films will be shown with live musical accompaniment. One screening will take place in England, the other in Ireland.
On Sunday, April 10th, the British Film Institute is showing Beggars of Life, a1928 American silent film. This special screening, part of the 14th annual British Silent Film Festival, takes place at the BFI Southbank in London. Accompanying the film will be The Dodge Brothers, who will be joined on-stage by the acclaimed silent film accompanist Neil Brand.
Directed by Academy Award winner William Wellman, Beggars of Life is based on the acclaimed 1924 book of the same name by “hobo-author” Jim Tully. The film stars future Academy Award winner Wallace Beery, and silent film stars Richard Arlen and Louise Brooks. The film tells the gritty story of a girl in trouble who dresses as a boy and goes on the run in rural America. Sometimes said to be a Depression-era work, the film and the story it's based on actually pre-date the 1929 economic collapse. If anything, this striking film pre-figures the desperate tenor of the desperate years which soon followed.
Beggars of Life was very well received when it first showed in England in 1929. The London Observer described it as “An unusual melodrama of vagabondage, with Wallace Beery and Louise Brooks playing well.” The Bioscope, a trade journal, echoed the sentiment when it called the film a “Powerful story with a wealth of human interest. . . . Louise Brooks plays a difficult part with distinction and Richard Arlen is extremely good as her tramp lover.”The Kinematograph Weekly, another trade journal, added, “Louise Brooks has the only feminine role in the picture, and this graceful girl steps out in Beggars of Life in one of the biggest roles of her screen career.”
The Dodge Brothers have accompanied the film at least twice before, and to positive press. Described as "wonderful stuff" on British radio, this UK-based group plays an exuberant hybrid of American country blues, jug band, and skiffle. Their roots music accompaniment should prove a natural fit.
Over in Dublin, the Irish instrumental group 3epkano will be performing their soundtrack to the 1929 German classic Diary Of A Lost Girl. This special screening will take place at a popular Dublin venue known as The Button Factory.
Diary of a Lost Girl marks the second collaboration between the great Austrian-born director G.W. Pabst and the legendary American actress Louise Brooks. The first was Pandora’s Box, also from 1929. It is considered one of the great silent films.
Diary of a Lost Girl tells the tragic story of Thymian, a young woman forced by circumstance into a life of prostitution. The film was based on a book by Margarete Böhme, a German writer. Though little known today, Böhme's book was nothing less than a literary sensation when first published in 1905. One contemporary scholar has called it “Perhaps the most notorious and certainly the commercially most successful autobiographical narrative of the early twentieth century.”
Pabst’s film of Diary of a Lost Girl stars Fritz Rasp as Thymian’s creepy seducer, avant-garde dancer Valeska Gert as a sadistic reform school disciplinarian, and the tragic Jewish actor Kurt Gerron as a night-club MC.
3epkano is an experimental / instrumental post-rock seven-piece band / ensemble formed in Dublin, Ireland in 2004. They specialize in producing original and innovative soundtracks for films from the silent movie era. 3epkano has accompanied silent films at the Kilkenny Arts Festival, National Gallery of Ireland, Meeting House Square, Sugar Club, Savoy cinema and at the Triskel and Mermaid Arts Centres in Ireland. Their other performances include the village square in Penne d'Agenais in France and Lincoln Center in New York City. In 2007, they performed their score to Pandora’s Box at BAMcinemaFEST.
3epkano's score for Diary of a Lost Girl debuted last year at the Brooklyn Academy of Music as part of BAMcinemaFEST. 3epkano subsequently accompanied the film at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. on January 2 of this year.
The April 10th multinational pair of screening is not without precedent. On July 17th of last year, Diary Of A Lost Girl was screened on the same day in both San Francisco, California and Berlin, Germany - as part, respectively, of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival and Berlin - Babylon and Beyond events. Sunday's dual screenings follow the April 6th showing of another Brooks vehicle, It's the Old Army Game, in Toronto, Canada as part of the Toronto Silent Film Festival. The world, it seems, cannot get enough of this iconic film star.
For more info: The 1928 Louise Brooks film Beggars of Life will be shown at the BFI Southbank (Belvedere Road, South Bank, London, SE1 8XT). Start time is 18:15. More info at this page. The 1929 Louise Brooks film Diary Of A Lost Girl will be shown at The Button Factory (Temple Bar Music Factory, Curved Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2). Doors open at 19:30, the movie starts at 20:15. Tickets are 12 euro and are available through www.tickets.ie More info at this webpage.
In 1995, Thomas Gladysz founded the Louise Brooks Society, an internet-based archive and international fan club devoted to the legendary film star. Gladysz has contributed to books, organized exhibits, appeared on television and radio, and introduced the actress's films around the world. Recently, he edited and wrote the introduction to a new “Louise Brooks edition” of Margarete Bohme’s The Diary of a Lost Girl.
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