Ghosts Before Breakfast and The Seashell and the Clergyman
Ghosts directed by Hans Richter
Germany, 1928
Seashell directed by Germaine Dulac
France, 1928
55 minutes; 16 mm
Two surreal classics, plus a short subject early trick film, Down in the Deep. Original score composed and performed by composer/cellist Lori Goldston.
“Goldston’s score for the Seashell and the Clergyman builds a dark and emotionally resonant motif that compliments the surrealsim of the film. Goldston’s cello, filtered through guitar pedals for this film, helps tropes of the silent film that could look melodramatic to a contemporary audience seem once again strange and otherworldy.”
–Christy LeMaster, Cinema Borealis, Chicago
The Seashell and the Clergyman is a Surrealist film, directed in 1928 by Germaine Dulac, from a screenplay by Antonin Artaud. At the time of its release the British Film Censors wrote “This film is apparently meaningless, but if it has any meaning it is doubtless objectionable.” Lori Goldston’s solo amplified live cello score taps into the hallucinatory dream-logic of the film.
Director Hans Richter described Ghosts Before Breakfast as “a rhythmical story of the rebellion of some objects (hats, neckties, coffee-cups, etc.) against their daily routine;” hats flee skyward, a hose coils itself. Goldston’s live score weaves and dodges through the film’s abstract, lyrical domestic landscape.
This program is available in 16mm.