James Milne aka Lawrence Arabia in the studio with The Carnivorous Plant Society (Photo Jason Oxenham)
James Milne aka Lawrence Arabia in the studio with The Carnivorous Plant Society (Photo Jason Oxenham)
Musician Lawrence Arabia may have a classic movie-ish name but now he's putting his to a soundtrack for a vintage flick to be performed live at this year's film festival.
The cosy Ponsonby basement space is crowded with six musicians and at least twice as many instruments crammed into a sort of semi-circle, so they can all see each other, and keep an eye on the live black and white film they're playing along to.
A temporary white pull-down screen has been stretched over a set of crammed shelves, with the projector bringing the chaotic streets of 1926 New York, as envisioned in Paul Fejos' American classic Lonesome, to life in the dark room.
"Maybe we could extend the fortune-teller theme, and bring that into Roller Coaster?" Finn Scholes asks James Milne, better known as local art pop wunderkind Lawrence Arabia, during a pause in proceedings.
"Or we could strip it back to that piano part, and repeat it?"
The New Zealand International Film Festival has a long tradition of breathing new life into old films with live music accompaniment, often the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, adding the characterful colour to Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton.
In 2013, the Italian prog-rock band Goblin played its soundtrack to the horror film Suspiria.
This year the festival has commissioned Milne to reimagine the music for 1928 classic Lonesome, in collaboration with eccentric five-piece band Carnivorous Plant Society, led by Scholes.
Lonesome tells the tale of Mary and Jim, two lonely workers eager to break out of their mundane existence, who meet by chance at a beach (Coney Island), and fall for each other over the course of an idyllic afternoon, before being separated.
"The whole thing is kind of aiming to convey the chaos of the modern city in 1926; it's about industrial New York in the 1920s and about how lost and lonesome people get in that world. We're trying to convey some of that urban atmosphere, and some of those feelings," Milne explains.
Sheet music is strewn around the room, fun titles hinting at the various soundscapes they're creating: Roller Coaster, Law, Bumba Rumba, Looking. And all sorts of instruments are dotted around - in among the larger presence of the tuba, piano, vibraphone, guitars, double bass, drums, trumpet, and piano accordion, are interesting percussion like a Flexitone, bells, chimes, chains, all manner of little pipes and flutes and recorders. They may not have a full orchestra at their disposal, but there's not much in the way of evocative sounds that this sextet can't produce with their talents.
The whole process began with Milne spending an intensive week brainstorming musical ideas with the film running in the background.
"I actually started by not really watching the film, but just composing music with images in my mind. And I had this sort of brain-vomit of composition, and came out of that with about 15 different pieces of music of varying lengths, maybe a few more - but some of them were completely unsuitable, like disco tracks," he laughs.
James Milne and The Carnivorous Plant Society (from left) Siobhanne Thompson, Tam Scholes, James Milne, Alistair Deverick, Finn Scholes and Cass Mitchell. (photo Jason Oxenham).
He then brought them to Scholes and the band, and they began piecing the puzzle together.
"We put the film up and started auditioning different pieces against different segments, different images, and then we started trying to make it actually fit."
It's perhaps a slightly unconventional methodology for creating a film score, but the group aren't turning everything on its head.
"I don't want to second-guess what people will expect," says Milne, "but I think if you stay somewhat sympathetic to the visual cues then it should create something that's enjoyable to experience."
So there will be a piano accordion during the fairground segment, and chimes to go with the fortune teller.
They did have a bit of fun trying to reimagine the whole storyline centred around an evil doll who makes an appearance as a fairground prize though.
"There is something terrifying about dolls from the 1920s, so we did try this real doom chord that Finn put over the doll image in the end, and it could've totally gone that way.
"It was a good joke. We could've made the whole film like a prequel to Chucky, and focused on this possessed doll," Milne laughs.
"But I think in the end we've tried to keep relatively true to the film-maker's intentions, tried to stay with the mood he was trying to get across."
What they've come up with is pretty far removed from the original film score, however. They've stayed away from sweeping, fast-paced romantic string orchestrations, and instead have been inspired by more exotic instrumental music.
"There was some Nino Rota [film composer for Fellini and Visconti] stuff I checked out, and I listened to some exotica compilations. I was thinking about trying to making it more dreamy, playing against the manic silent films scores of old, and it seemed to work. So on the whole it's a lot dreamier than an old silent film soundtrack.
"It's sort of adding an extra layer of possible surrealness to it. The vibraphone is used a lot in exotica, and that's making quite a few appearances."
It's also the perfect material for Carnivorous Plant Society, who have an exotic, cinematic sound of their own, full of rich instrumental flourishes and characterful phrases, all of which come through in the score.
"Finn has deconstructed and reconstructed all the pieces I've written, making some great Frankenstein's monster pieces out of it, and so it has their stamp all over it. It's been a really fun process," Milne smiles.
It all seems like the perfect accompaniment for a film that was really made as a visual spectacle - the plot is quite simple, but the director, Paul Fejos, really embraced new techniques, employing colour tinting, superimposition effects, experimental editing, and a roving camera, plus three scenes of dialogue, which were some of the first in cinema history.
"It really is more of a visual creation rather than a complex plot, and so we're slaves to the images really. Ideally we'll just perfectly enhance them."
Who: James Milne aka Lawrence Arabia and the Carnivorous Plant Society What: 1928 silent film Lonesome, accompanied by live music and sponsored by TimeOut Where and when: Screening at the Civic Theatre on Sunday, July 26 at 6pm Also: The Auckland Philharmonia playing the score to Charlie Chaplin's The Kid and The Immigrant at the Civic, Sunday, August 2, 6pm
