In April 2004, the Nederlands Filmmusem found 1,812 meters of almost undamaged amber tinted nitrate positive film. This proved to be Sam Wood�s 1922 lost melodrama Beyond the Rocks, starring Gloria Swanson and Rudolph Valentino.

The restorated print of the film was premiered at the Path� Tuschinski theatre in Amsterdam in April 2005 as part of the Filmmuseum�s Biennale. In October the same year, as part of the Giornate del Cinema Muto, Beyond the Rocks was screened at the Teatro Zancanaro theatre with a recorded soundtrack by Dutch composer Henry Vrienten which included extensive use of sound effects. This article came about after the Giornate screening and comments on a rather unique way in which silent film is sometimes presented. It should be noted that this article comments more on the aspect of the accompanying music for Beyond the Rocks and not the possible importance of the film as stated in many other articles about Wood�s 1922 film.

Toying with the Silent Curtain
When I first delved into the history of the silent era, I would concentrate on the film itself in great detail � concepts of framing, the engagement of the director, his style in not only controlling the camera and everything in front of it, but also the communication between him and the audience. I still do look at films this way. But soon after I became a regular of silent film screenings, I began to realise that another major contribution to this communication between film and audience is the use of the music which accompanies a film.


Although the musical accompaniment can, to some extent, be seen as a secondary medium of a story, it is essential that the musician work with the director to portray the emotion and interpret the images to help the audience to understand the film fully. The musicians does not always succeed, of course, whether due to the performance of the pianist or the way the music works with the audience. A particular scene or even a shot could be misread by a pianist so that the music used does not convey to the audience the interpretation the director had intended.
Relaxing in the caf� beside the Teatro Zancanaro theatre in Sacile, Italy, I reflected on the previous night�s screening � the pre-opening event of the 2005 festival, Julien Duvivier�s Au Bonheur Des Dames (1930) a film from the transitional period between silent and sound � and a wonderful introduction to my first time at the Giornate.

The orchestral accompaniment, composed and conducted by Gabriel Thibaudeau was exceptional. Not only did the music capture and support the overall spirit of the film, but it also complemented the wonderful expressivity of the faces of Dita Parlo and Ginette Maddie and established an extraordinary atmosphere entirely at one with Duvivier�s.

Thibeaudeau�s comments on his score in the catalogue were brief, but it expressed his objectives and his sense of what the music should contribute to the film. One phrase seemed to sum it up and stayed with me: �It all flows in one stream, the rhythm of a constantly moving city: Paris!� At first reading this might mean little; but matching it with the experience of the performance and atmosphere, it explains the whole movement and tempo both of the camera and of the relationship of the characters and the city itself within the film.

My caf�-table thoughts were interrupted by a voice at a neighbouring table: two of the other Giornate musicians were discussing Thibaudeau�s score. They too were unqualified in their enthusiasm, and recognizing my interest, included me in the conversation, reiterating the feelings about the interrelation of Thibaudeau�s music and Duvivier�s images. I asked them about the relationship between the cinema screen and the pianist, and the importance of the way the music is played out. �We always need to illuminate a scene and its themes, and then direct it towards the audience. Otherwise I feel that I have failed at what I am trying to achieve.�

�The film could be presented silent� said the other sitting next to me, �with no music accompaniment at all. But what is the point. True, the audience would get some reading of the scene via what they see on the screen. But with the music - when it is right - you have the added bonus of the development of an element that can not only dramatically bring out the themes of the scene but also a far clearer and greater feeling of the whole of the film. We are the extra contact between the images on the screen and the audience.� I asked them about their thoughts about the use of modern techniques of musical accompaniment, such as electric guitars, and more modern musical idioms; I cited Giorgio Moroder�s soundtrack for Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927) as an example.

�I know a lot of people who hate that soundtrack, but I think what they miss is that it made the film far more popular, in particular with normal cinemagoers��

The other musician interrupted, �the problem is that the film was already well known. Queen used it on one of their music videos years before Moroder released his version� it was the same with Nosferatu (Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, 1922), Queen used that too in a music video, and it made the film known and popular. I really don�t like that [Moroder�s] soundtrack to Metropolis - in particular the use of vocals throughout. It just didn�t work with the images. The music should have thrilled the audience. I just found it dull and stale� I suggested that although the music could possibly have introduced audiences of 1984 to Metropolis and other films from the silent era; it is highly unlikely that it would have the same effect today. They agreed: �That is the other problem with using contemporary music for soundtracks for silent films: they have a short life span. When you are using
classical music, or a piano, you are still in a contemporary world, but placed in a timeless space.�

A Timeless Screening of Music and Image
So the use of artists like Adam Ant and Freddie Mercury on Moroder�s soundtrack fixes it in time. The soundtrack stays while the world moves on culturally and musically. Classical music on the contrary gives proof against dating. In contrast to Moroder, we can watch Metropolis with the original 1927 orchestral score by Gottfried Huppertz, performed at the film�s premiere at the UFA Palast am Zoo, Berlin on 10th January, 1927 (This is available on the Master of Cinema DVD) as many describe this soundtrack as an extension of the wonderful �visual symphony� that Metropolis remains today. And after eighty years, it is still fresh and can still convey the emotion of the 1927 film to audiences in the 21st century, thanks to the use of the classical musical form.

So with a classical score, we can feel that nothing has really changed, whether the audience are watching a silent film in the 20s or today. Of course the cultures of two eras can be made to clash for positive effect. An example is a performance in 2005 of Buster Keaton�s The Cameraman (Edward Sedgwick, 1928) at the Barbican Theatre, London. Buster tries to impress the girl he loves (Marceline Day) by diving off the board into the swimming pool. Not only does Buster fail in a precision dive, but in the process, loses his oversized swimming costume. In search of a solution to his predicament, he spots a large lady in an elaborate Edwardian-style swimming suit, and sets off in determined pursuit with only his eyes peeking above the surface of the swimming pool, hoping to save his embarrassment. Neil Brand, accompanying the film, cut in a quotation from John Williams� theme from Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1975). The audience expressed with delighted approval of a joke which positively depended on anachronism.

Sound Effects of Silence
I now come to Sam Wood�s Beyond the Rocks, in which, instead of playing a live accompaniment the Giornate had decided to play the film with its already completed and recorded soundtrack. And while the film was originally projected at 16-16 frames per second it had had been �stretched� so that it could run at the conventional sound speed of 24 frames per second. The sound track itself consisted of a specially commissioned score by the Dutch composer Henry Vrienten, who had also arranged a sound effect track, which continued throughout the film with the sounds of seagulls; gravel underfoot; rustling newspapers, slit-open envelopes, car doors slamming and motorised machinery, including cars and trains. The intention of the sound is a conscious attempt to reflect the atmosphere of the world surrounding the non-speaking characters played by Valentino and Swanson. There was, of course a number of comments made about this decision to screen such a film with such a soundtrack and it was not surprising that this was not the first time that such a subject had arisen.
As early as 1912, Fredrick A. Talbot commented, �Opinion appears to be divided about this practice [the use of sound effects with silent cinema]. Some more cultivated motion photography lovers are opposed to it, on the grounds that unless every motion is given its distinctive sound, none at all should be audible; others contend that sound imports an additional realism to the scene� [1912]. In either case, the use of sound effects cannot convey atmospheric realism. However exactly all the detail of sound effects is achieved, the sense of reality collapses when we, the audience, realize that the characters cannot speak and interact aurally with the rest of their cinematic world. Of course there are ways in which sound effects can be used with positive effect. An example is the
scene in Charles Chaplin�s Sunnyside (1919) when Farm Handyman (Charlie) tries his hand at playing the piano with the Village Belle (Edna Purviance). While doing this, without their knowledge, a baby goat enters the room and hides behind the piano. The moment Charlie starts to playing, the kid bursts into song. Charlie tries the offending note again, and all is normal. As he continues, though, the kid joins in again. Meanwhile the kid�s place behind the piano has been taken by an adult goat. When Charlie resumes his playing the effect is even more startling. He gets up, looks behind the piano and finds the explanation of the mystery as the goat peeks up at him.

The film was, of course, originally silent, and the joke would work without sound effects. But the sound effects � the kid�s bleat and the goat�s much deeper tones - greatly enrich the comic effect, as did Neil Brand�s use of William�s Jaws theme.

A Soundtrack with No Audience?
I return once again to Beyond the Rocks and an early scene found in the film has a car waiting outside a cottage, with a path leading from the cottage to the car. The sound effects are already heard, with the background noise of the sea and seagulls; and to establish that we are seeing a car in front of us we have the added sound of a motor vehicle�s engine. The cottage door opens, and at the same time as we see it opening and closing, we hear the appropriate sounds. As people stroll down the garden path, we hear the pebbles crunching underfoot; and the sound of laughter and voices. Sound accompanies the opening and closing of the garden gate, the opening of the car door, and the creak as the car leans to one side.

Finally the car moves off, with the accompanying sound. In this sequence, lasting no more than 40 seconds, we have two primary (background and atmospheric) sounds (the sea and the seagulls) and no less than twelve secondary (incidental) sounds. As the film continues, we notice that the track, with its incidental sounds, is actually distancing the viewer, who is distracted by trying to identify the source of each particular imposed sound from the action on the screen. Above all, the presence of so much sound emphasizes, as an anomaly, the fact that the protagonists, played by Swanson and Valentino, lack voices. This sound treatment of Beyond the Rocks (which has happily also been restored in a conventional sound version) fails its audience. We are asked to interpret the images from 1922 and also the sound dating from eighty years later. Inevitably the response is, �Well, if we can hear everything around them, why cannot we hear the characters talk? What is wrong with them?� This is an attempt to use a sound-track to make a silent film accessible to a 21st-century audience, which fails both to find an audience of to respect the idiom of silent cinema.

At the subsequent Collegium meeting about the film and the use of the sound track, it was surprising to learn from the representative of the Nederlands Filmmusem that the restoration team themselves were not sure of the rationale of the track: they had left the outcome of the score and soundtrack entirely to the composer; and in the outcome were as surprised as everyone else that Henry Vrienten had added in a sound effect track.
To my own question, �Didn�t you discuss with the composer at all about the soundtrack? Not even to ask him why he had added sound effects?� I received the simple answer, �No�. The Museum were happy with the score (with which I could agree) and the sound effects (with which I could not) as they found it a very successful attempt to introduce new audiences to silent cinema. Other speakers in the meeting questioned whether the film itself even merited so much trouble and expense, pointing out that Beyond the Rocks � adapted from a novel by the best-selling early 20th century novelist Elinor Glyn, is a rather inferior melodrama, with inferior performances by Swanson and
Valentino � a view with which I would strongly disagree.

Back at my ruminative caf� table, I speculated on the effect of this presentation on an audience unaccustomed to silent cinema. Even though they might enjoy the screening, for the novelty, the story, and the exotic players, it would give them a false impression of how silent films looked � and sounded. While some silent films have been given sound tracks with the occasional sound effect � the Moroder Metropolis and Chaplin�s Sunnyside - they are not as heavy-handed, incessant and literal as this treatment of Beyond the Rocks.

At the same time, as the Giornate reaction suggested, people accustomed to watching silent cinema may well have a negative response to the method. So we might conclude that soundtrack used for Beyond the Rocks is a soundtrack without an audience. With its heavy use of sound effects, Vrienten�s soundtrack is either going to mislead a new audience or alienate the veterans. The right music as we have seen provides a unique three-way relationship of image, sound and viewer: the wrong sound effects can intrude upon this precious relationship and prejudice our love and respect for one of cinema�s most golden ages.

Many thanks to David Robinson and everyone at the Pordenone Silent Film Festival as it was a fantastic experience and a great opportunity to see some great films. My thanks also goes to Mark Fuller and David Wyatt for their support; and finally, I would like to thank Chris Daniels and everyone at Bristol Silents as without them I would not have been able to start this great adventure in the history of cinema.