9:15 PM

Innis Town Hall

Live Images

“Tom plays guitar like a thousand bluebirds screaming.” - Patti Smith

Legendary composer/guitarist Tom Verlaine (formerly of Television) makes his first Toronto appearance in several years with this exclusive program of music composed for an adventurous, smartly-selected program of avant-garde films from the 20s, and a rarely-seen commissioned short by Danish master Carl Theodor. Dreyer.

Tom Verlaine’s band Television - a fixture of the downtown NYC scene of the mid-70s, and regulars at CBGBs - recorded only two LPs before splitting up in 1978, but their influence has far outstripped their productivity. Along with bands like the Talking Heads, Patti Smith Group and Pere Ubu, Television was among the most crucial contributors to the development of post-punk independent pop music. Apart from Television, Verlaine has recorded eight solo albums, scored the feature film Love and a .45, and is widely regarded as one of the finest instrumentalists in rock music. His songs have been recorded by an enormous range of artists, from David Bowie to Sonic Youth and the Kronos Quartet. For this special program, Verlaine and fellow guitarist Jimmy Ripp perform Verlaine’s scores for a program of classic films, presented in rarely-seen 35mm prints.

Fall of the House of Usher
James Sibley Watson & Melville Webber | USA | 2 min. | 35mm b&w | 1928

Based on a Poe story, this extraordinary early American avant-garde film employs elaborate quasi-Expressionist costumes, sets and optical tricks. This twisted tale of a brother and sister living under a family curse has never been realized with such style and panache.

The Life and Death of 9413 – A Hollywood Extra
Robert Florey & Slavko Vorkapich | USA | 11 min. | 35mm b&w | 1927 | Cinematography by Slavko Vorkapich & Gregg Toland

One of the first American films to show the influence of German Expressionism and the French avant-garde films of the Twenties, this is a peculiar satiric fantasy about a man aspiring to Hollywood stardom, shot mostly in Slavko Vorkapich’s kitchen using cut-out miniatures.

Emak Bakia
Man Ray | France | 13 min. | 35mm b&w | 1926

In Emak Bakia, the mischievous dadaist and surrealist Man Ray pioneered the technique of cameraless filmmaking, exposing lengths of film to light after sprinkling them with pins, grains of salt and other common objects. In its playful use of disparate materials – animation, non-objective shapes, rayograms, unfocused and optically fragmented images – Emak Bakia remains fresh and inspiring nearly 80 years after it was made.

Etoile de mer (Star of the Sea)
Man Ray | France | 12 min. | 35mm | b&w | 1928 | Starring Kiki de Montparnasse

Man Ray’s visual interpretation of a Robert Desnos poem follows the progress of a genuinely surreal love affair, one characterized by oblique erotic images and unexpected reversals of conventional situations.

Brumes d’automne (Autumn Mist)
Dimitri Kirsanoff | France | 12 min. | 35mm b&w | 1928 | Starring Nadia Sibirskaya

The fourth film by a unique, self-taught artist, Brumes d’automne delicately sustains a single mood throughout. A woman recalls her past; as she burns her old letters, images from her memories appear.

Ballet Mécanique
Fernand Léger w/Dudley Murphy | France | 10 min. | 35mm b&w | 1924

Called one of the most influential works in the history of experimental film by the American Film Institute, this is painter Fernand Léger’s only film. Its connection to his drawings and paintings can be seen in the fragmentation and multiplication of images, along with a certain obsession with mechanical objects.

They Caught the Ferry (De Naede Faergen)
Carl Theodor Dreyer | Denmark | 10 min. | 35mm b&w | 1943

The Danish government commissioned Dreyer to make this short film during World War II to call attention to the number of lives being lost needlessly through careless driving. In Dreyer’s hands, what could have been a pedantic safety film becomes an impressionist tale following a young couple’s race with Death.

Live score for all films composed by Tom Verlaine, and performed by Tom Verlaine and Jimmy Ripp.

Images courtesy of the Film Reference Library. All prints courtesy of the Douris Corporation; thanks to Tim Lanza.

JOIN US after the performance for the Images Off-Screen Party at the Gladstone Hotel (1214 Queen St. West), featuring outdoor projections by Oliver Hockenhull.