Arts

‘Man with a Movie Camera,’ featuring a new soundtrack, to be screened in Williamsville Hall

WILLIAMSVILLE — The Williamsville Hall on Dover Road in Williamsville will present the renowned silent film, Man with a Movie Camera, featuring an original soundtrack composed and performed by Dan Dewalt, on Friday, Feb. 28, and Saturday, Feb. 29, at 7:30 p.m. Entry is by donation.

In the past, Dewalt, who has electrified audiences with his masterful piano accompaniments for other silent films, such as Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times and Carl Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc, also plays jazz, salsa, and other musical genres in numerous groups throughout Southern Vermont and Western Massachusetts.

Named one of the greatest documentaries of all time by Sight & Sound, Dziga Vertov's feature film from 1929, as Wikipedia notes: “was produced by the film studio VUFKU, presents urban life in the Soviet cities of Kiev, Kharkov, Moscow and Odessa. It has no actors. From dawn to dusk Soviet citizens are shown at work and at play, and interacting with the machinery of modern life. To the extent that it can be said to have 'characters,' they are the cameramen of the title, the film editor, and the modern Soviet Union they discover and present in the film.

Man with a Movie Camera is famous for the range of cinematic techniques Vertov invented, employed, or developed, such as multiple exposure, fast motion, slow motion, freeze frames, match cuts, jump cuts, split screens, Dutch angles, extreme close-ups, tracking shots, reversed footage, stop motion animations, and self-reflexive visuals (at one point it features a split-screen tracking shot; the sides have opposite Dutch angles).”

For more information, call 802-348-7807 or email [email protected].

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