TICKETS ON SALE NOW
2012 is the year that the BFI brings the master of suspense to audiences on a truly Olympian scale, with gala events of rarely seen early films and a major season at BFI Southbank. As part of the London 2012 Festival, the BFI is staging a series of spectacular one-off screenings of Hitchcock’s British silent films from the 1920’s, restored by the BFI National Archive, and brought to life for audiences with newly commissioned scores from the best of British contemporary musical talent. Tickets for the first two of these events are now on sale via www.bfi.org.uk. The BFI will also be holding a full retrospective of Hitchcock’s work from his entire career at BFI Southbank from August – October 2012.
Nitin Sawhney, one of the world’s most distinctive and versatile musical voices, is writing a score to accompany The Lodger: A Tale of the London Fog (1926) at the Barbican Hall, 7.30pm, Saturday 21st July 2012. The score will be performed by the London Symphony Orchestra and is commissioned by independent film distributor Network Releasing in partnership with the BFI. Ticket prices from £15.
Early booking is recommended as tickets sold out very quickly for The Pleasure Garden (1925) which will have a new score from promising young composer and recent graduate from the Royal Academy of Music Daniel Patrick Cohen to be performed by The Royal Academy of Music’s Manson Ensemble at Wilton’s Music Hall, E1, on Thursday 28 June and Friday 29 June, 7.30pm both nights. The Pleasure Garden, Hitchcock’s first film as director, also marks Daniel Patrick Cohen’s first commissioned score. Ticket price £20. Check website for returns only.
All events can be purchased online via www.bfi.org.uk or via the BFI Southbank Box Office 020 7928 3232. Tickets for The Lodger can also be purchased via (Barbican url/ticket purchasing to be added)
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 in 1899 – 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 the world leading experts at the BFI National Archive in the biggest and most complex archival restoration project undertaken by the BFI. However, more funds are still needed if the BFI is to achieve its ambition to restore even more of 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.
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”.
The other 7 silent Hitchcock films are:
DOWNHILL (1927)
EASY VIRTUE (1927)
THE RING (1927)
THE FARMER’S WIFE (1927)
CHAMPAGNE (1928)
THE MANXMAN (1929)
BLACKMAIL (1929)
This project has been able to take place thanks to the generosity of some key organisations and companies and many individuals. Chief among the donors are The Film Foundation and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, and the leading UK facilities house Deluxe where much of the digital restoration has been undertaken. There’s still a chance for anyone who would like to ensure that these films are presented as widely as possible with our fund-raising site still able to accept donations via www.bfi.org.uk/saveafilm.
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.
xx - posted on 23/05/2012 13:13:28
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