Imperfect Orchestra's scoring of Sergei Eisenstein's 'Battleship Potemkin' at Plymouth University

Never been so unnerved, disturbed, and frightened by a piece of music or cinema before so this is definitely a first - and I loved it!

By definition, a silent movie is just that: silent. This makes whatever happens, especially if it’s a horror film, all the more surprising. Sergei Eisenstein’s Soviet Kinema piece, “Battleship Potemkin” did not, initially, strike me as having the potential to be horrifying, set as it was on a battleship. So, when faced with Imperfect Orchestra’s scoring of the film, I felt secure in the knowledge that what surprises there might be could be anticipated with the appropriate musical warnings. Oh, how wrong I was. Each turn of events in the film was so sudden, and at times violent, that without the music I would’ve been suitably surprised, but with it, the entire mood did a complete 180 turn, the tone of the music switching in the same instant.

Working with the director’s wish that the film should be rescored every generation, contemporary electrical instruments like synthesisers, found sounds, and electric guitars were permitted to join the orchestra, creating a much more surreal, unsettling, and energetic vibe. This worked well with the cultural background against which the film was set, namingly the era of Russian Constructivism and Italian Futurism, which sought the artistic freedom and experimentation of ‘making it new’. Thus, electric guitars were made to sound as if they screamed, violins mourned death, pianos crept by in the background in anticipation of death, drums pounded ominously, cymbals rattled jarringly, and voices chanted or shouted through a distorted megaphone. Every musical choice served to intensify the action seen in black and white on the screen behind the orchestra, to the point that, at times, I felt genuine fear. As the civilians reacted to the Soviet attack, so too did the orchestra, in a fashion which unnerved me until I was glued to the screen in uneasy anticipation of the first death. Of course, what made this a truly shocking film was the momentary emphasis it placed on the female and infant casualties of the Russian Revolution as a young boy was trampled in the panic, a young mother was shot as she clutched her baby’s pram, her falling body pushing the child down the steps, and an elderly woman was wounded in the eye. This series of events was montaged and alternated with shots of the advancing Soviets, and civilians fighting below, escalating the tension still further. Only when the final raising of the big guns, pointed directly at the screen, is called off, can the bubble of fear finally burst, the music become jubilant, and the monster of war slink back into the shadows.

I can’t say I have ever been a particularly big fan of silent theatre – or politics, for that matter – but while the latter remains a reluctant subject for me, if all silent movies were scored in such a way, I might be inclined to seek more out. The applause lasted for a considerable time once the credits rolled, and rightly so, as the collective passion and effort of Imperfect Orchestra had produced one of the finest collaborations of cinema and music I have ever had the good fortune to experience.