An all time classic, King Vidor’s silent film The Crowd, was screened with the accompaniment of live music composed for the occasion by The Prefabricated Quartet band, on Wednesday, November 18 at the packed John Cassavetes theatre, in the framework of the 50th Thessaloniki Film Festival. Present at the screening was TIFF director Despina Mouzaki.
This film, one the first selected for preservation in the United States Film Registry, narrates the crumbling of the American dream, through the perspective of an ordinary man, who gets lost in the crowds of a big metropolis. The special screening of TIFF’s Independence Days section rightfully attracted the intense interest of cinema enthusiasts, resulting in a packed John Cassavetes theatre.
Following the example of last year’s successful screening of Victor Sjostrom’ The Phantom Carriage, King Vidor’s The Crowd was accompanied by live music performed by The Prefabricated Quartet. The band “dressed” the black and white shots of the film with music, thus creating a mystic mood which ideally combined the old with the new, the classic with the modern. The audience was captivated by the agonies and passions of the film’s protagonists, participating in a unique cinema experience.
