Film/Music
By Your Law/RM Hubbert
Hippodrome Silent Film Festival, Bo'ness
Teddy Jamieson
Four stars
SOVIET-era cinema meets Scottish sonic virtuosity? It must be the Hippodrome Silent Film Festival.
The main event on Saturday in Bo'ness was the world premiere of a new commission by guitarist RM Hubbert; a live soundtrack to accompany a screening of Po Zakonu (By the Law), director Lev Kuleshov's 1926 adaptation of a Jack London short story.
Set on the Yukon during the Gold Rush (though actually filmed near Moscow), Kuleshov's film is a febrile vision of violence and retribution, spelt out in stark, potent black and white imagery played against an almost sci-fi vista of snow and ice. At its heart is the film's star Aleksandra Khokhlova, all wild hair and avian bone structure, who makes for a compelling, angular screen presence.
The challenge for Hubbert was how to score the nervy intensity of Kuleshov's imagery. He began with a warm wash of guitar that then developed into circling themes that rose and fell adroitly and subtly. Rather than try to match the heady mania of Kuleshov's visuals, Hubbert's musical restraint helps ground them.
But when he needs to, Hubbert was more than capable of upping the ante. During the film's epic storm sequence the accompaniment becomes insistent, needling even, while the film's climax prompts an impressive sonic crescendo that suddenly breaks thrillingly.
The result? A fresh coat of paint on an old masterpiece.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here