Live music scores perfectly with film

By GINA VIVINETTO

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 19, 2000

ST. PETERSBURG -- It was like a scene out of Andy Warhol's Factory in the 1960s Monday night at the Globe Coffee Lounge. An arty affair indeed. More than 80 patrons pulled up folding chairs and pillows, gathering around a large video screen to view the classic German Expressionist horror film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, presented by the local Movies That Move film series.

Two-thirds of Jon Todd, an experimental instrumental band from Jacksonville, played live a film score it has been composing for several weeks. It was Jon Todd's fourth such gig in Florida. The audience was enraptured.

Percussionist Damian Lee coaxed eerie, often hypnotic rhythms from tom-toms with timpani mallets. Set to the black and white film's skewed, angular sets and geometric figures, Lee's beats added tension and an element of claustrophobia. Lee shimmied cymbals to coincide with the ghoulish expressions of the 58-minute film's demented characters, many dramatically made up with pallid complexions and exaggerated dark circles under their eyes.

Stow, Jon Todd's one-named guitarist, used elegant restraint and minimalism, letting creepy notes ebb and flow with the film's erratic action. The story of a murderous somnambulist, Caligari is rife with a sense of danger and evil. The duo did not exploit the obviousness of the film's psychosis, but rather suggested it through their playing, which they said was largely improvised.

The film's dialogue, crisply typed in black and white text between frames, was accented through the music.

"How long do I have to live?" a frightened character asks.

Stow's guitar blasted the response: "Till dawn, tomorrow."

Margaret Murray, organizer of the Movies That Move series, which has showcased eight avant garde films at various venues around Tampa Bay, said she has planned such an event for months.

"It's something I've wanted to do for a long time." Murray said. "I had seen bands play to classic movies in other countries and I wanted to try it here."

The packed coffee house and enthusiastic applause at the film's end proved it was a success.

The next Movies That Move film is The Target That Shoots First, a 1999 humorous documentary about the music business, to be shown Aug. 27 at the State Theater in St. Petersburg.

- To contact Gina Vivinetto, e-mail gina@sptimes.com.