Giovacchini’s
“The Golem”
Latest in
Long Line of Silent Film Adaptations
By Susie
Davidson
Advocate
Correspondent
CAMBRIDGE -
Musician, director and sound designer David Giovacchini will perform, along
with synthesist Joe Moreau, his new score for the 1920 film "The Golem:
How He Came Into the World," on Nov. 1 at Cambridge’s Zeitgeist
Gallery. The film, based on the Jewish legend of the Golem of Prague originally
produced by German director Paul Wegener (who also appeared as the Golem), will
be shown with the music at Providence’s AS220 on Nov. 13 as well.
Giovacchini,
who uses the stage name David Farewell, is a Sephardic Jew of Italian descent.
“The Golem” is one of a series of silent films with Judaic content
for which he has composed accompaniment. The recipient of an annual grant from
the Jewish Community Foundation of the North Shore, he has devoted himself to
this work for the past four years. Upcoming performances will include an Oct.
23 at 1 p.m. showing at the JCCNS of the comedy "The Rose and the
Shamrock", a silent film about intermarriage between an Irish and a Jewish
family which inspired the popular Kellys and the Cohens series, and an April 9,
2003 premiere at the Peabody-Essex Museum in Salem of his new score for the
classic film of life in the Lower East Side ghetto, "His People.”
“I
have been a professional musician for over 20 years,” explained Farewell,
43, who consults for the Peabody-Essex’s film program and is the music
director/sound designer for Man Mountain Video Productions, “and have
been involved in many different kinds of music. But I always find that the
music that means the most to me is that which has some Jewish content, where I
can express some of my Jewish soul, if you will.” Farewell’s wife
Lois is the executive director of the Jewish Federation of the North Shore, and
he credits her with returning him to the fold, following an assimilated
childhood life. “She's a very inspiring lady. The more I studied reform
Judaism the more I was inspired by its social message and commitment to putting
those beliefs into action, and I found there was room there for my spiritual
and mystical beliefs too.” They have two children: Lido, a boy of 10 and
Isabel, a girl of nine, and are
about to celebrate their 20th anniversary. “I have been given
many gifts in my life, but they are the best. I naturally tend toward the
darker, sadder, more pessimistic side of things, but they help me keep some
perspective, as does Lois.”
Farewell
has also performed music for the original silent 1927 "Ben-Hur,”
D.W. Griffith's "Judith of Bethulia,” and 1929’s "Oded
the Wanderer," the first feature film ever made in Israel.
“Oded” was the initial music-to-celluloid foray for Farewell.
“For
many years,” he recalled, “I was active in a Sephardic music group here
on the North Shore called Los Bilbilikos Cativos (the Captive Nightingales),
and it was through this group that I organized a musical showing of
‘Oded’ as a Yom ha-Atsma'ut celebration.”
The Oded
production was a laborious, authentic and technical undertaking. “This
film is totally unavailable,” he noted, “and I had to acquire a
copy directly from the director's son in Israel. From this I progressed to
scoring the films myself using my computer.”
Wegener's
Golem digresses slightly from the classic, historically chilling tale.
“It is interesting that what Wegener adds to the plot is an illicit love
affair between Rabbi Loew's daughter Miriam and a German knight Florian. The
film depicts Jews as exotic outsiders to German society, who are to be feared for
their sorcerous powers on the one hand (even the Emperor is cowed by Rabbi
Loew's Golem), and desired for their strange charms so different from those of
good Germans on the other. It is an interesting gauge of German public
sentiment five years before the rise of the Nazis.
“Wegener
is masterly in his use of the German expressionistic style, as seen in the
better known contemporaneous films like Murnau's ‘Nosferatu’, or
‘The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari’. It is a haunting film which
influenced James Whale's production of ‘Frankenstein’ in the same
way that the original Golem legend influenced Mary Shelley.”
Farewell
generally lets the movie determine the style he chooses. “Something like
‘The Golem,’ he said, "is best with a brooding electronic
ambient soundtrack, but a film like ‘Ben Hur’ required the full
Hollywood orchestral treatment, all done with computer.”
Another
Farewell project involved sampling the voices of notable cantors of the 1920s
and 30s and placing them over a new electronic setting. “I thought this
might be a way to encourage more, and younger people to hear these incredible
and unique singers," he said. “The results are available for
download from www.mp3.com/netzach. Netzach means eternity, and this is what I
hoped I was helping these voices survive until.”
Farewell
film music can also be downloaded at www.mp3.com/farewell23_fmp (FMP stands for
Film Music Project).
The
Zeitgeist Gallery is located at 1353 Cambridge St. in Inman Square, Cambridge.
For ticket information, visit www.zeitgeist-gallery.org or call 617-876-6060.
CDs of Farewell’s projects will be sold at the show.