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“Gary Lucas’s project with ‘The Golem’ is one of the best combinations of live music with a silent film I’ve ever seen. He brings this historic story to life and makes the 90 minutes a very powerful and compelling performance piece.” — Knitting Factory founder Michael Dorf
“Hauntingly brilliant and meticulously timed.” — Village Voice
Grammy-nominated Gary Lucas, whom Rolling Stone calls “one of the best and most original guitarists in America”, comes to the Cinefamily to perform his time-honored solo live score to The Golem, the brilliant 1920 silent horror exemplar of German expressionism!
A baroque nightmare of fantastic imagery, The Golem is the only surviving film from actor/filmmaker Paul Wegener’s series based on the 16th Century Bohemian folk legend of Prague. Played by Wegener himself, the astounding titular monster is molded from clay and brought to life by the Hebrew incantations of a rabbi wishing to defend a Jewish ghetto facing exile. Steeped in 1920s controversy stemming from false accusations of occult endorsement and Weimar anti-Semitism, this dark, moody fable of a lumbering, lovelorn automaton became the inspiration for Boris Karloff’s portrayal of Frankenstein’s monster over a decade later.
Since debuting his live score in 1989, Gary has accompanied the film all across the globe in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Amsterdam, Berlin, Florence, Budapest, Toronto, St. Louis, Miami, Tel Aviv, Vienna, Krakow—and, of course, in Prague, home of The Golem.
7:30, doors open at 7:00. Tickets: $18.
http://garylucas.com/www/golem/
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(Gary was a schoolmate of mine at Yale, but don't hold that against him.)
