Given how well the classic song "Where Is My Mind?" worked at the end of Fight Club (1999) and given his "loudQUIETloud" (see Karina's review of the 2006 documentary) method of crafting songs, Black Francis (a.k.a. "Frank Black," a.k.a. Charles Thompson) would seem the perfect candidate to compose a fantastic new score for a classic silent film. And so an eager, sold-out crowd of fans lined up at the 51st San Francisco International Film Festival for a Friday night screening of Paul Wegener and Carl Boese's silent-era, German Expressionist horror film The Golem (1920), hoping for just that. Francis -- deliberately billed with his Pixies-era stage name -- set up underneath the screen at the Castro Theater with his seven-man band (strings, horns, keyboards, etc.) and started the proceedings with a blast of guitar (the "loud" portion of the evening).
Surprisingly, Francis' raspy, yowling vocals also emitted from the darkness; he has composed an album of songs to go with the film, rather than a traditional score. The trouble is that they don't always seem to go. The effect is rather like synching Pink Floyd to The Wizard of Oz. Sometimes some magical cohesion happens between image and music, but most times the two forms are battling for your attention. The most distracting thing of all was a snarky commentator/narrator whose job was to make fun of the film between songs. ("There has to be a 12-step program for this!") At least once he spoke over the film's intertitles, and so viewers were forced to choose between trying to read or listen.
So, for those unable to follow the story, it goes like this: the emperor announces the expulsion of all the Jews from Prague. Rabbi Loew (Albert Steinruck) decides to save the day by building a man of clay and magically bringing it to life. In one amazing scene, the Rabbi and his assistant Famulus (Ernst Deutsch) conjure up a demon to learn the magic word that will animate the clay. Meanwhile, the messenger for the emperor, Knight Florian (Lathar Menthel), falls for the Rabbi's daughter, Miriam (Lyda Salmonova). Unfortunately, Famulus also loves her. The Golem does his job and saves the Jews, but before the Rabbi can return it to clay and destroy it, Famulus uses it to attack Florian (great way to win over the girl, that). From there, the Golem goes on a rampage, not unlike Frankenstein's monster.
Aside from his directing duties, Paul Wegener played the creepy, expressive Golem, which he had played twice before. Many consider the film to be an example of German Expressionism, but Wegener denied that label. The great film critic Lotte H. Eisner, in her 1974 book The Haunted Screen, argues that Wegener's slanted, skewed sets actually represent the realism of the Jewish ghettos, rather than a poetic interpretation. Regardless, Wegener very often resorts to ordinary, everyday shots for dialogue exchanges, and the result is less streamlined or off-kilter than other Expressionist horror classics like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919) or Nosferatu (1922); it's ultimately a good film, but not a great one.
Since Francis has chosen a second-tier film and doesn't have to suck up to some solemn, beloved classic, he can bend the rules a bit. It's an overall show of fits and starts, but even when it's not working, Francis' score still brings a new kind of agony to the story, much like the wailing of Neil Young's guitar score on Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man (1996). One of the most fascinating things Francis does is to compose lyrics from a first-person perspective, singing "I" did this, "I" want that or "I" am something else. It's not clear which point of view he represents... the Golem? The Rabbi? The lovers? Either way, it adds a new mystery to the film, a new level of melancholy. The agonized inner thoughts of the master and/or his creation bring the story closer to the more universal themes of Frankenstein.
In 2005, the San Francisco International Film Festival showed Frank Borzage's Street Angel (1928) with a live score by the San Francisco cult band American Music Club, and it was a perfect match, all the way through (it was one of the great movie nights of my life). That band, whose moods swing from joyous to glum, swayed with the emotional flow of the film. For The Golem, Francis's songs sometimes seemed like stand-alone tidbits, leftovers from old albums, but at other times they seemed to fit the story, literally, with lyrics about building a creature out of clay, or masters and servants. At still other times, Francis simply let loose with an amazing soaring instrumental. And when a particular musical mood matched up with an image, it was heavenly, like a sudden burst of light. At regardless, Francis is still in peak form, and his music still thunders and tingles.
