A CHRISTMAS CAROL + OLIVER TWIST w/ Organ Score by Peter Krasinski

Name: A CHRISTMAS CAROL + OLIVER TWIST w/ Organ Score by Peter Krasinski
Start: 2024-12-15T19:00:00-05:00
Location: Epsilon Spires

Schedule

Sun Dec 15 2024 at 07:00 pm

UTC-05:00

Location

Epsilon Spires | Brattleboro, VT

This Holiday Season we offer two silent film adaptations of Charles Dickens classics with live music performed on our Historic Estey pipe organ! A Christmas Carol (1910) and Oliver Twist (1922) starring "the man of a thousand faces" Lon Chaney and Jackie Coogan from Charlie Chaplin's "The Kid"
A Christmas Carol (13 mins) restored with new inter-titles. This rare version of the holiday classic was groundbreaking and ambitious at its debut in 1910. The film demonstrates one of the earliest uses of visual effects and trick photography, including double exposure to superimpose the ghosts into the same frame as Ebenezer Scrooge.
Directed by J. Searle Dawley and produced at Thomas Edison Studios in The Bronx, this film was the second oldest surviving screen adaptation of Charles Dicken’s beloved 1843 novella (preceded by the British film “Scrooge or Marley’s Ghost” from 1901). It features Marc McDermott as Ebenezer Scrooge and Charles Ogle as Bob Cratchit.
Oliver Twist (1922, 74 mins)
Oliver Twist is brought up in the workhouse along with all the other orphans - until the day he asks for more gruel. An outraged Mr Bumble takes Oliver out into the street to be sold, beginning an adventure that will take Oliver to the depths of London's criminal underworld and the heights of wealthy London society. Charles Dickens's novel is brought to vivid life in this 1922 version starring Jackie Coogan (fresh from his success the year before in Charlie Chaplin's The Kid), and the great Lon Chaney, the man of a thousand faces, as Fagin. With his portrayal of the young orphan, 7-year-old child actor Coogan's Oliver is endearingly innocent yet spirited, whilst Chaney’s Fagin is relatively restrained in its depiction of Dickens’ problematic literary characterisation, and ultimately sympathetic. Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy's Progress, is the second novel by English author Charles Dickens. It was originally published as a serial from 1837 to 1839 and as a three-volume book in 1838. Thought lost for decades, this faithful film adaptation is a spectacular silent film gem rediscovered in Yugoslavia in the 1970s.
PETER EDWIN KRASINSKI is broadly recognized as a motivating consultant for the pipe organ community, and as a conductor, organist, and music educator, whose imaginative and energetic performances elevate and inform diverse audiences. Well respected in both the secular and sacred genres of his field, he has taught the enchantment of music to both public and private institutions in the greater Boston area for many years. His Bach interpretations have been hailed in print as "sublimely spiritual.” and his improvisations have been critically acclaimed in the press as "stunning,” "seamless,” and “brilliant.” His silent film performances have been called “a great marriage of movie and music.” He consistently receives rave reviews about his “compositions in real time.” “Krasinski’s musicianship and command of the organ were matched by his intuition and keen sense of dramatic sensitivity.” “It was remarkable and seamless, and yes—no modern movie could out do it… It was as if Krasinski became one with the elements.” This will be his 3rd time performing on our historic Estey organ after soundtracking Metropolis, and Flesh And The Devil at Epsilon Spires!