Predictably, there’s a generous smattering of gothy types in the audience, but in fairness, the demographic for this event is as broad as it gets. The film – the 1932 (almost) silent movie ‘Vampyr’, directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer and based on the 1872 short story collection ‘In a Glass Darkly’ by Sheridan le Fanu – is certified PG. Consequently, there are even a handful of children in with their parents, while the adults range from students to septuagenarians, and the broad appeal of this event is evident in the turnout: if it isn’t sold out, it can’t be far off.
Some background: the film has in recent years acquired a ‘cult classic’ status after a poor reception on release and subsequently languishing with the status as the low point in Dreyer’s career. Originally shot silently and then overdubbed in German, French and English, the English version has been lost, but 1998 saw the film restored using the remaining two versions. Severin has scored sountracks to a substantial number of films now, and with ‘Vampyr’, he is touring cinemas and performing his musical composition as the film screens.
Ominous rumblings begin to stir unsettling vibes the moment the film begins to roll, with layers of dark ambience drifting through the auditorium. The temperature drops very quickly, and the tense atmosphere is sustained for the duration of the movie.
I’ll not question just how ‘live’ a performance from a laptop is, as from my vantage point I could see Severin manipulating the sound in real-time, and instead focus on the important questions pertinent to any soundtrack: does it enhance the viewer’s experience of the film? Does it stand up on its own? It’s a resounding yes on both counts. Severin’s score adds layers of rich and ominous atmosphere to a film that’s already rich in sense-heightening tension, on account of the use of washed-out lighting, dream-like soft focus and deep shadows that hold the attention even when the plot becomes difficult to follow, as it does on occasion.
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By repeating certain passages, Severin creates an effect that’s at once orientating and disorientating: when the soft pipe sound resumes during the lulls between dramatic scenes, which coincide with the ebb of the sonic passages that register in the way classic ‘fear’ chords so, one feels both momentarily safe and equally unsettled, the repetition inspiring a strange sense of deja-vu (or perhaps, more accurately, deja ecoute).
The film builds to a dramatic climax; Severin takes a short round of applause, and is gone. The fact he doesn’t make a big deal of his presence is admirable, in that it doesn’t detract from the fact that the show is, essentially, the film.
Steven is already in the foyer selling and signing CDs by the time I make it out of the auditorium. Seeing that a cluster of fans were already around him, I elected not to linger: I didn’t have any cash for merch and often struggle for opening gambits. I couldn’t consider myself to be any more than a casual fan of the Banshees, and despite being published alongside Severin in the first issue of Paraphilia Magazine, I didn’t feel comfortable approaching him... and what was I going to say, ‘loving your work’? On reflection, maybe I should have. It would have been true, after all.
Steven Severin Online
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