Fil(m)harmonic presents two great film classics!
For the fourth season in a row, Zagreb Film Festival and Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra are preparing an unforgettable experience for all the lovers of film and classical music, as well as all the others in need of audiovisual sensations that can be experienced only on very rare occasions!
Among of the greatest film classics from the silent film era, The General by Buster Keaton and The Kid by Charlie Chaplin, will be presented at 14 screenings during the upcoming autumn and winter, with the music score performed by the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Krešimir Batinić.
Premieres are scheduled for 5, 6 and 7 November, with reruns on 22 December, 26 January, 24 February and 23 March. One screening of The Kid (at 18:30) and one of The General (at 20:30) is scheduled for each date.
The film called by great Orson Welles ‘the greatest comedy, the best film about the Civil War, and possibly the greatest film ever made’, also Keaton’s favourite – The General – has enjoyed a legendary status and is mentioned on almost every list of all-time best films. The story about an accidental southern hero, a train driver who is suddenly caught in train chase during the American Civil War, is an adaptation of a real episode from the Civil War history. It contains a scene where a real train engine falls off a burning bridge, and the film is also known as one of the most expensive films of the time. Buster Keaton, alongside Charlie Chaplin, the greatest American silent film envoy, popularly called ‘The Great Stone Face’ because of his recognisably expressionless face devoid of mimic, personally performed most of the demanding and dangerous scenes.
The Kid by Charlie Chaplin, one of the most successful combinations of slapstick comedy and emotionally charged action, is the first feature-length film in which this great comedian appears as the writer, director, producer and, later, composer of the original score (1971), as well as the main protagonist. The film follows a Tramp, probably the most famous celluloid tape character ever, whose countless endeavours we see in most Chaplin’s films, who this time takes care of a small abandoned boy. As the boy grows up, the Tramp acquaints him with the tips and tricks of street life, all until at the age of five he becomes just as successful in petty thefts and frauds, and the Tramp’s business associate. The boy is brilliantly performed by little Jackie Coogan, who became a true child film star after this role. After its premiere in February 1921, the film became a huge hit and many consider it the greatest triumph of Chaplin’s career.
The Fil(m)harmonic programme has, from the very beginning, been attracting a great interest from the audience filling the theatre to the maximum at every spectacular performance of film meeting music. So far, at 21 screenings, attended by almost 10 000 visitors, three great silent films were shown: Nosferatu by F.W. Murnau from 1922 (season 2012/2013), Battleship Potemkin by Sergei Eisenstein from 1925 (season 2013/2014), and Charlie Chaplin’s Circus from 1928 (season 2014/2015). The mission of bringing the most significant and famous feature-length classics made in the dawn of world cinema to the screen of Zagreb’s legendary cinema in Varšavska 3 was carried out by Zagreb Film Festival and Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra with the aim of presenting these titles to the audience in the most complete possible way, by connecting two arts – film and music!
The programme is co-funded by the City of Zagreb Office for Education, Culture and Sport.