CENTERblog

Anchorage Symphony Orchestra presents The General
By Woodruff Laputka - University of Alaska Anchorage

After watching Buster Keaton’s, “The General” tracked live by the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra, it is easy to see why the age old quote, “sound came to film 10 years too early” still stands. The concept of taking a classic film and tracking it live is something that’s done occasionally and in novelty, either as an experiment or as a study, and usually lacks the sincerity that a live, fully assembled orchestra carries with it. Considering logistics, man power and the over-all time needed for something that will impress the thousand some odd patrons who will be attending, while still appeasing to the promised many art snobs and film fanatics of the community, the project of revisiting the old movie theater style in a modern day concert hall, under the flag of delivering a good show, is ambitious at the very least. However, the Anchorage Symphony’s attempt to do this, if anything, has not only proven it to be possible, but that perhaps that age old saying about sound coming too early to film is quite correct.

Rendall Craig Fleischer (Music Director) and the Anchorage Symphony were able to revisit the lost era of silent film in such an effective manner that everyone not only applauded. but I cannot say I have yet been to a show at the PAC that incited a triple doosey of standing applause, yells for an encore and even whistling, not because the film was particularly special, nor because the soundtrack was particularly striking, but because the ASQ was able to make the two mesh so effectively that is was easy to forget a live, full orchestra was even present, allowing the crowd to be captured into the clever, slapstick antics and risky action packed stunts of Buster Keaton, while being enveloped in the most effective form of musical presentation: the live concert.

To catch you up, The Generals simple yet clever story, Buster Keaton is an everyday train engineer whose’ cold, solid face matches his otherwise cold, solid life, with the only two, warm elements being his train, notably dubbed, “General”, and his sweet-heart, the lovely Annabelle Lee, played by Marian Mack. The two have a good thing going with Buster visiting when ever his General stops through the quaint little southern town of Annabelle’s when war breaks out, and by war, I mean the Civil War. Buster tries to enlist with everyone else, but because he’s an engineer he’s just too useful to the South in trains without being on the front lines getting shot at. How does the wonderful Annabelle relate to this? Not very well, you might expect, especially with Buster being painted as a coward by Annabelle’s father and brother who also go to enlist for the sake of States rights. Buster finds his way in a funny predicament though as, a year later, his general is stolen by ruthless, blood thirsty Union spies and proceeds to lead him on an action packed, slapstick rail road rampage that, while watching, you almost think would be impossible to do without modern digital technology. Still, the film pulls it off and permits the simple Buster to develop into the hero of the day, crossing into enemy lines to find that his beloved Annabelle has been kidnapped, and fooling the Union troops at every turn as he races back to the confederacy to warm them of an eminent invasion. For this, the simple, stone faced engineer is not only enlisted into the Confederate army, but as a Lieutenant, first class, winning the girl and saving the day for the South, who, as we all know, will eventually lose anyway.

But, the story isn’t about that. It’s about wise cracking antics while hot on the trail of locomotive after soldier toting, fire blazing, death defying stunt portraying locomotive. The film even shoots a train falling through a burning bridge. A whole engine! How did the crowd react to this? Well, with the climatic, “you know its coming” drum roll from the orchestra and the even more anticipated clash of symbols and eruption of music, it only celebrated in amazement at this still standing marvel of cinematic special effects. And, whether your Buster Keaton or Spielberg, that’s still a pretty cool thing to pull off. And, with the climatic effect that this scene and every other had with its live symphony accompaniment, the crowd only shouted in cheer as our Buster road his engine “General” to victory, getting the girl and saving the day for us wanna-be Southerners.

The overall air of this project was one of fun and great effort, where you could tell just by listening to the music that the Symphony not only had to have practiced intensely to get the music and mood just right, not to mention trying to match the original soundtracks mood perfectly, but that they were also enjoying it, laughing at whatever silly slapstick or death-defying stunt Buster through at us again. It allowed the music to mesh with its live presentation so well that you almost felt like a community had formed, living and breathing as we were all brought together by the live power of a symphony orchestra pursuing the very beginning of the film production medium. If this promises a testimony to the art of live theater/film production as it did in the day of your grandparents, the question left to be answered is, with the effect that the Anchorage Symphony had with Buster Keaton, does film really need to have its own soundtrack at all? Could it survive if it reverted back to the classic style of theater going, with live music and intermissions? Truly, would that not refine the art form of filmmaking as it has worked for theater? Frankly, the audience from the AQR’s performance of Buster Keaton’s, The General, surely knows this answer.

ASO Silent Film: Buster Keaton's The General
Anchorage Symphony Orchestra
January 31, 2009 at 8:00 P.M.
Alaska Center for the Performing Arts, Atwood Concert Hall