Nitin Sawhney, Tansy Davies and Daniel Cohen to compose new scores for rarely seen Hitchcock masterpieces
The BFI today announced that it is bringing Alfred Hitchcock’s early, rarely seen, film masterpieces to a whole new audience as an official part of the London 2012 Festival next summer, the finale of the Cultural Olympiad. In a series of spectacular one-off events, the silent films will be accompanied by newly commissioned orchestral music scores from established and new British musical talent including Nitin Sawhney, Tansy Davies and Daniel Cohen. Bringing a fresh and unique perspective to Hitchcock’s creative vision, the music will add new dimensions to the master of cinema’s enduring appeal, providing audiences with a large scale yet intimate communal experience.
Two events have been confirmed so far:
Nitin Sawhney, one of the world’s most distinctive and versatile musical voices, will write a new score for The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1926) to be performed by him with the London Symphony Orchestra, commissioned by independent film distributor Network Releasing in partnership with the BFI. Nitin said “This is a dream project for me. Bernard Herrmann is one of my great musical heroes. It would be honour enough to follow in Herrmann’s footsteps but to actually score a film that precedes his musical genius is a wonderful opportunity for creative imagination and invention. Hitchcock is a Director whose shadow any composer would be proud to stand in.”
Daniel Cohen, a promising young composer to recently graduate from the Royal Academy of Music, will undertake a new score for The Pleasure Garden (1925), to be performed by the Academy Manson Ensemble from the Royal Academy of Music. The Pleasure Garden, Hitchcock’s first film as director, also marks Daniel Cohen’s first commissioned score. Daniel said “The first time I saw a Hitchcock film was in the sixth form – by the end of the day I’d seen three, ‘The Lady Vanishes’, ‘The 39 Steps’ and ‘North by Northwest’ . The last of the three, with its astonishing Bernard Herrmann score, later became the single most important inspiration for me to write music for films.”
Tansy Davies, who in recent years has established herself at the vanguard of the new wave of young British composers, has also been commissioned to write a score for one of the silent Hitchcock films (to be announced shortly). Tansy‘s commission is made possible by PRS for Music Foundation.
Heather Stewart, Creative Director BFI Programme said ‘Hitchcock is one of the great artists of the 20th century. His contribution to world cinema is immense. The BFI is thrilled to be able to bring Hitchcock’s early films to the London 2012 Festival; they are the foundation of his whole body of work and new audiences will be able to enjoy them for the first time ever in all their restored glory and with new scores from an incredible mix of British musical talent.’
Ruth Mackenzie, Director, Cultural Olympiad, said: ‘I’m delighted that the BFI are developing an ambitious programme for the London 2012 Festival and that one of the world’s best loved film makers will be celebrated in the Olympic and Paralympic year.’
Regarded as a creative genius and for many one of the greatest film directors of all time, Hitchcock was born and bred in East London – the home of the London Olympic park – and he continues to inspire and influence still, 31 years after his death. Thanks to the BFI’s fundraising campaign ‘Rescue the Hitchcock 9’ new restorations of the films have begun by experts at the BFI National Archive. However, more funds are still needed if the BFI is to achieve its ambition to restore these early works (1925-29) to their former glory and bring them to life on the big screen and with new scores for the 2012 celebrations.
Rescue the Hitchcock 9 has already received support from The Film Foundation which has donated, in partnership with the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, over a quarter of a million dollars – the largest contribution so far. Martin Scorsese, chair of The Film Foundation said, “I’m thrilled that these films will be preserved and made available with the best possible prints for audiences to enjoy. Hitchcock remains an enduring influence on world cinema and these early works provide a wonderful glimpse into the development of his signature style.” These funds are being used towards the restoration of The Lodger, The Ring, Blackmail and The Pleasure Garden.
The live performances will provide audiences with unique experiences at venues (to be confirmed) across London and will be followed in autumn 2012 by a complete Hitchcock retrospective at BFI Southbank.
Born in 1899 in Leytonstone, Hitchcock’s nine silent films were made in the silent era and he was very early on hailed as a genius by reviewers. Audiences and critics were captivated by his daring mix of European editing styles combined with dramatic composition and a powerful mixture of humour laced with high drama. Anyone who has thrilled to Hitchcock’s later Hollywood classics such as Vertigo, The Birds or Psycho will recognise elements of the Hitchcock touch in his earliest works. Hitchcock’s The Mountain Eagle – the tenth of his silent films – is still missing and top of the BFI’s Most Wanted list.
The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1926)
Hitchcock’s third feature is the first true ‘Hitchcock’ film, and was called “the finest British production ever made” by the trade journal Bioscope. His first suspense thriller, it’s about a mysterious lodger who might also be a serial killer terrorising fog-shrouded London – and, much as he would later do with Cary Grant in Suspicion (1941), Hitchcock cannily cast matinee idol Ivor Novello in the title role and challenged his audience to think the worst of him. Visually, it was extraordinarily imaginative for the time, most notably in the scene in which Hitchcock installed a glass floor so that he could show the lodger pacing up and down in his room from below, as though overheard by his landlady.
The Pleasure Garden (1925)
The opening sequence of Hitchcock’s debut as director uncannily anticipates many of the elements that characterised his later work: the camera stares fixedly at the legs of chorus girls, a spectator leers, the audience is implicated. The diverging lives of two dancers are told in suitably melodramatic style: one ascends to the heights, the other stumbles into a marriage with a dangerous womaniser who goes spectacularly native with a girl in an unnamed colony. Shot in Germany and on Lake Como, the film was confidently ‘signed’ by Hitchcock with a handwritten signature on the opening credits, characteristically defending his decision: “Actors come and actors go, but the name of the director should stay clearly in the mind of the audiences”.
Restoration for both The Lodger and The Pleasure Garden is made possible with the assistance and co-operation of ITV Studios Global Entertainment who are the rights owners of both films. The deal for both pictures was negotiated by Park Circus who are the worldwide theatrical distributor and sales agent for ITV Studios.
Nitin Sawhney is a Mercury, Ivor, Mobo and Olivier nominated songwriter and composer, his output as a musician is astonishing. As the Guardian quite aptly put it, “it would be easier to jot down what this man can’t do than what he can.” He has scored for and performed with many of the world’s leading orchestras, and collaborated with and written for the likes of Paul McCartney, Antony Gormley. Sting, Brian Eno, Shakira, Taio Cruz, Ellie Goulding, Cirque Du Soleil and Nelson Mandela. Sawhney is also, for instance, the only artist ever to play both the BBC Proms and the BBC Electric Proms, gracing London’s Royal Albert Hall and Camden’s Roundhouse respectively. Performing extensively around the world, he has achieved an international reputation across every possible creative medium. Often appearing as Artist in Residence, curator or Musical Director at international festivals, Sawhney works tirelessly for musical education, acting as patron of the British Government’s Access-to-music programme and the East London Film festival and acting as a judge for The Ivor Novello Awards, BAFTA, BIFA and PRS for Music Foundation. He is a recipient of 4 honorary doctorates from British universities, is a fellow of LIPA and the Southbank University, an Associate of Sadler’s Wells, sits on the board for London’s Somerset House and in 2007 turned down an OBE for ethical reasons.
Tansy Davies rose to prominence on the British scene with a sequence of ensemble works for the Composers Ensemble (Patterning), the London Sinfonietta (Torsion) and The Brunel Ensemble (The Void in this Colour), all of which bear the hallmarks of her apprenticeship under Simon Bainbridge and Simon Holt. In her recent work Tansy has found an accommodation between the worlds of the avant-garde and experimental rock, between – in the words of one critic – Xenakis and Prince. Filled with sounds of cracking, slapping, whipping and scraping, it is music that is utterly contemporary, inhabiting the same urban landscape as industrial techno and electronica. In June 2006, the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Zsolt Nagy performed the orchestral work Tilting, and in February 2007 the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group and Thomas Adès premiered her 20-minute commission for large ensemble, Falling Angel. Other recent commissions include works for the Britten Sinfonia, the CBSO Youth Orchestra, the City of London Sinfonia, the Norwegian ensemble BIT 20, and a large-scale multimedia work – Elephant and Castle – for the 2007 Aldeburgh Festival. In 2010 her orchestral work, Wild Card, was premiered at the BBC Proms. Tansy has just released her album, Troubairitz, to considerable critical acclaim.
Daniel Cohen was born in 1988 and has been passionate about cinema and music from an early age. He studied Composition at the Royal Academy of Music between 2006 and 2010, during which time he has scored various short films, had a choral piece performed by the New London Singers in St. Martin-in-the-Fields, a chamber work performed by the Esbjerg Ensemble in Denmark and several orchestral and chamber pieces performed by musicians at the Academy. He is currently in the final stages of producing a concept album, entitled The Passenger, after the Michelangelo Antonioni film of the same name, and working on a project where music is created by electronically manipulating a recording of a poem.
Additional background information on Rescue the Hitchcock 9
Hitchcock’s early films are among the finest achievements of British silent cinema. His subsequent films refined his techniques of stunning visual composition, richly cinematic storytelling linked to dramatic invention, which are uniquely Hitchcock.
The surviving nitrate materials for these films bear the marks of wear and tear over the decades.. New digital techniques mean that the BFI’s team of technical experts are now in a position to restore scratched and damaged negatives and produce much improved viewing copies.
Phase two of the restoration means we are actively seeking more funds for restoration and to enable us to produce these once in a lifetime events: from Hitchcock devotees, film lovers or anyone who cares about our cultural history. Even small amounts to help us reach our target and members of the public who would like to save an important and historic film can contribute by visiting www.bfi.org.uk/saveafilm.
THE HITCHCOCK 9:
THE PLEASURE GARDEN (1925), THE LODGER (1926), DOWNHILL (1927),
EASY VIRTUE (1927), THE RING (1927), THE FARMER’S WIFE (1927), CHAMPAGNE (1928), THE MANXMAN (1929), BLACKMAIL (1929)
BFI Most Wanted:
http://www.bfi.org.uk/nationalarchive/news/mostwanted/mountain-eagle.html
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