SHORT FILMS

from the Lumière & Pathé brothers

to Chaplin & Buster Keaton

The silent film concerts of the Prima Vista Quartet

 

« The composer gave the audience a true lesson in cinema by presenting various modes of musical accompaniments. The quartet offered the public an exceptional show. Their performance is not only artistic, but it is also physical. The cine-concert or when the music becomes one with the images. One forget musicians, actors, there remains only the pleasure of the images and music, and at the end, the delicious sensation of having witnessed something unique, the kind of feeling that only performing arts can still generate.»

Caroline Musquet (Le Journal de Saône et Loire)

« An unquestionable highlight of this year's festival was the Ciné Concert of silent shorts from the 1920s accompanied by original scores performed by the Prima Vista string quartet. [The musicians], led by viola player and composer Baudime Jam, play exquisitely and make the most of the contrast between their black tie demeanor and the artfully calibrated havoc on screen. This is perhaps the best silent film accompaniment I've heard. Festival programmers in search of a sure-fire crowd pleaser that melds high art with pop art should definitely take note, as it were. »

Lisa Nesselson (Variety)

It was to the tradition of the multiform musical setting of silent films that Prima Vista Quartet paid tribute by creating this film concert which he was commissioned in 2001 by the prestigious International Short Film Festival of Clermont-Ferrand, and that he interpreted, since in many festivals in France and abroad. A different approach was chosen for each of the four short films in order to illustrate the diversity of what could be a screening at the time of silent cinema - from classical repertoire extracts montage to original score, including improvised variations on a popular song and mickeymousing.


In 2005, the Prima Vista Quartet has renewed its collaboration with the International Short Film Festival of Clermont-Ferrand, which commissioned the creation of the musical accompaniment of two French shorts. The program created in 2001, consisting of four short films, has thus been completed with two other creations, thus forming a program of six French-American short films.

In 2013, the Balzac theatre (Paris) has commissioned the Prima Vista Quartet two additional short films for the opening screening of its children program. It was the first time this series featured a musical accompaniment performed by a string ensemble.

In 2015, the festival «Croisements» hosted the Prima Vista Quartet for double bill film concerts tour in China which featured «The Goddess» and four short films (Chaplin and Keaton), among which three with newly composed scores.

> interview with the composer

An anthology of gems from the golden age of silent cinema

the films


> "Entrance of a train in the Ciotat station"

Dir. Louis Lumière (1’) - 1897


> "Trip around a star"

Dir. Gaston Velle (6’) - 1906


> "Peter Pan handled"

Dir. Walter Lantz (11’) - 1925


> "Now you tell one"

Dir. Charley Bowers (17’) - 1926


> "Felix the Cat dines and pines"

Dir. Otto Messmer (7’) - 1926


> "Hallucinations of a Fireman"

avec Joséphine Baker (8’) - 1928


> "The Turn-of-the-Century Barber"

Prod. Pathé (1’) - 1896


> "A Film Johnnie"

Dir. George Nichols (12’) - 1914

> "The Immigrant"

Dir. Charlie Chaplin (23’) - 1917

> "One Week"

Dir. Buster Keaton (22’) - 1920

> "The Haunted House"

Dir. Buster Keaton (18’) - 1921


total duration  2h06

composer  Baudime Jam

                          (2001 / 2005 / 2013 / 2015)

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