By Cathy Jackson
Pianist William O’Meara knows he is doing his job well when the audience stops paying attention to him.
“I think the best compliment I can get is if they forget I’m there,” he says.
The Ottawa-born musician has made a career as a living movie soundtrack. At events like the Ottawa International Silent Film Festival, his piano playing adds to an authentic silent film experience.
Watching a movie in this setting “is exactly what it would have been like to go see a film in 1915,” says Tom McSorley, director of the Canadian Film Institute.
Two years ago, McSorley started the Ottawa festival as a celebration of early cinema. This year it includes Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton comedies, rarely-screened films from Canada and the Soviet Union, and a selection of early animation – all silent, of course.
“It’s almost impossible to see these kinds of films anymore,” McSorley says.
The rare movies are shown in their original format – not copied to videotape or DVDs – and are accompanied by live music, just as they were when moviemaking was young.
“It’s always an exciting moment when the audience and me and the music and the film all come together as one. It’s hard to describe, but you can feel it,” O’Meara says.
After a show, he often talks to audience members who have never seen a silent film before. They are always amazed at the experience, he says, and they don’t miss the dialogue.
Movie directors in the silent era were great because they could convey a lot of information without words, says O’Meara. They activate your imagination in a different way than a regular sound film, he says.
“A lot of contemporary films are little more than illustrated radio,” says Mark Langer, a film studies professor at Carleton University. “You can close your eyes and still know what’s going on.”
More than just entertainment, silent films are valuable historical records that provide a glimpse into the past, he says. People are interested in movies from the early days of film now that the art form is more than 100 years old, O’Meara says. These works are incredibly sophisticated when you consider the technology directors had to work with back then, he says. Their camera work and visual style are “amazingly beautiful,” says Langer.
Ottawa residents will get a chance to screen these films at the Ottawa International Silent Film Festival. The event is part of the Canadian Film Institute’s efforts to promote cinema appreciation, McSorley says, but it also makes people aware of how important it is to preserve rare films.
“There’s no other way to make people excited about them than to show them,” he says.
Once people experience the films, they come back for more, McSorley says.
The festival gets a little bigger each year.
“To have even a small festival like this in our own backyard is a terrific privilege,” Langer says. It’s fantastic to see silent films on the big screen with a musical accompaniment, the way they were meant to be seen, he says. “Also, they are just really good films.”
The festival is being held in the auditorium of the Library and Archives of Canada on Wellington Street from Oct. 27 to 29.