ABSTRACT
In recent years, cinema has seen the phenomenon of musicians providing live music for silent films, converting them into singular and often special events. Indeed, silent cinema is more prominent now than it has been since the 1920s. Festivals and archival showings abound and silent films are now part of education, entertainment and art. 1 Where there are silent films, there are almost always musical accompaniments. However, there is a smaller fragment of this where early sound films have their soundtracks masked and are treated in effect as silent films to be accompanied by live and often new music. A fine example of this is British Sea Power’s new score for Robert Flaherty’s celebrated documentary Man of Aran (1934). This English rock group has provided distinctive new music for this landmark film, which resembles their own musical output rather than traditional film music. They have since provided a score for Penny Woolcock’s From the Sea to the Land Beyond (2012) and a new score (a replacement) for the Romanian film Out of the Present (originally released in 1999 and directed by Andrei Ujica), both of which are also documentary films. 2 Initially, British Sea Power’s Man of Aran was a live performance at the film’s screening at the British Film Institute in April 2009, followed by the CD and DVD release in May. So, how far is this new Man of Aran more a musical event than a film? It seems crucial that the DVD comes free with the CD. 3 Music changes the psychological and emotional landscape of films. Therefore, I would argue that different music yields a different film, and that the new version of Man of Aran illustrates this well.
