By Justin Bigos, Vermont Standard Staff Writer
Riding a resurgent wave of music-focused films — from biopics of Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan to musicals such as “Wicked,” “Wonka,” and “In the Heights” — the Hop at Dartmouth has lined up 11 films old and new for its “Music and the Movies” series this winter. Kicking off on Jan. 10 with “Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere,” directed by Scott Cooper and starring Jeremy Allen White, and ending on Feb. 20 with “The Testament of Ann Lee,” a musical exploring the Shaker movement in colonial America, the Hop’s winter film series will be packed with movies singing and dancing their way into audience’s hearts and minds.
“It just so happens there were a ton of movies coming out this Oscar season that all related to music in the movies,” Johanna Evans, director of programming initiatives at the Hop, told the Standard about her inspiration for this season’s film series. “Movies about other art forms, and especially movies about movie-making, is a popular theme that artists keep coming back to, because they’re writing what they know, things that they can relate to — finding your own voice and creative expression and ambition.” Even while these themes may be particular to the artists’ writing and making these movies, larger audiences, too, can obviously relate to these creative life journeys, which helps make these musical films so popular.
A second reason for curating a film series around a theme was to honor the 75th anniversary of the Dartmouth Film Society, which is an organization that was founded in 1949 and helps provide input to Evans, who oversees the curation of the visiting artists and the film programming at the Hop, but also collaborates with colleagues, faculty, and students. “As part of this 75th anniversary, we wanted to bring back a lot of the traditions that made the film society really beloved in our area. So part of that is bringing back a themed series that ties together at least eight or nine films in the term, a mix of new and old cinema,” said Evans.
Top Left: “Omoiyari,” a “song film” by Kishi Bashi, is a musical journey exploring bicultural identity through the retrospective lens of the incarceration of Japanese Americans during WWII. Bottom left: Buster Keaton’s silent film classic “The General” will be shown in 35-millimeter film at the Hop on Feb. 15. Right: The classic 1952 musical “Singin’ in the Rain” will be shown in 35-millimeter film at the Hop on Jan. 15. Photos Courtesy of the Hopkins Center for the Arts
An added bonus to this season’s film lineup is the chance to see a classic, silent film with live musical accompaniment — just as an audience would have experienced it in the early 20th century. The 1926 film “The General” by Buster Keaton will be screened in collaboration with the husband-and-wife team of Donald Sosin and Joana Seaton. “Donald Sosin — who is the silent film accompanist at the Telluride Film Festival — is a friend that we’ve had at the Hop before, and we were looking forward to bringing him back. Tying that aspect of music’s relationship with film, dating back to the very beginning of cinema, was something we wanted to include,” said Evans.
“I think ‘The General’ in particular is an interesting film to revisit right now, just thinking about how certain politicians are interested in us having a revisionist view of history, and to sort of think about how even as early as the ‘20s, in the silent cinema depictions [of] the world that ‘The General’ lives in — that version of the Civil War is not necessarily the real version of what was [happening]. It’s a comedy playing off of Civil War history, but it’s interesting to think about how depictions of that time period have altered our understanding of what kind of history we want to remember, and how long we’ve been trying to remember it differently,” said Evans.
“I think silent cinema is having kind of a comeback,” added Evans. “’We had almost 400 people at ‘Nosferatu’ this past fall. I mean, playing ‘Nosferatu’ around Halloween is sort of a slam dunk, but I do hope that means people are more interested in revisiting early cinema, especially these films that are family-friendly slapstick comedies like Buster Keaton’s films are, but are maybe a little less manic than the SpongeBob SquarePants movie.”
Aside from Keaton’s silent-film masterpiece, other American classics that will be screened include the Beatlemania singalong slapstick “A Hard Day’s Night” (1964) and the timeless, beloved musical “Singin’ in the Rain” (1952), starring Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, and Donald O’Connor — with both of those films being presented in 35mm film. Aside from American cinema, the Hop will also screen what they have titled a “Bollywood Mystery Movie Singalong” on Feb. 12. With a purposefully withheld movie title, the audience will show up ready for a surprise. The Hop’s website says, “Do you love epic stories, spontaneous singing and massive dance numbers? Or maybe you’ve always been curious about Bollywood musicals, but have never seen one. This surprise movie night promises fun, adventure, forbidden love, betrayal, vengeance…or probably at least three of those things!”
Another series film offering a kind of international perspective is the 2022 political documentary and musical tapestry “Omoiyari: A Song Film by Kishi Bashi,” directed by Justin Taylor and Kaoru Ishibashi, with artist Bashi scheduled to attend the screening and discuss it with the audience afterwards. The movie explores the link between the US immigration crisis along the Mexican border and the incarceration of Japanese-American people during WWII. The Hop’s website says about the film, “Ishibashi goes on a journey to learn about this history and its relevance. Along the way, he improvises and writes music in an effort to better understand his own identity as a bi-cultural American. Using never-before-seen archival footage from the camps, mixed with breathtaking visual storytelling, Kaoru weaves a story using history, music, and current events to create a portrait of America from the perspective of someone caught between two worlds.”
Evans added, “The film tackles the immigration policies during Donald Trump’s first term, comparing the incarceration of children at the border to the incarceration of Japanese Americans around WWII. And Kishi Bashi is using music as a way of bringing people into that history and finding ways to process it with empathy and joy. It’s an uplifting film about a difficult topic. I’m really excited that he’s going to be there in person to talk about the album that is a companion with the film. And I hope people will also go see his concert on February 7.”
Tickets are available at hop.dartmouth.edu.
Also, on Jan. 22, Professor Desiree Garcia, who teaches in Dartmouth’s departments of Film Studies and Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies — and who this spring semester is teaching a course on the musical — will present the lecture “Everybody Sing and Dance: The Pleasures and Perils of Studying Musical Film” at the Hood Museum of Art. This is yet another opportunity for area residents to attend not only curated films centered on music, but to experience and interact with experts and artists in the field of cinema.
Showtimes
Jan. 10, “Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere,” 4 p.m.
Jan. 15, “Singin’ in the Rain” (in 35mm), 7 p.m.
Jan. 31, “Wicked — Double Feature,” 2 p.m., free to public
Feb. 1, “A Hard Day’s Night” (in 35mm), 4 p.m.
Feb. 6, “Omoiyari: A Sing Film by Kishi Bashi,” 7 p.m., with the artist in person, $12+
Feb. 7, “The Wiz,” 7 p.m., free to public
Feb. 12, “Bollywood Mystery Movie Singalong,” 7 p.m., $5+
Feb. 14, “The History of Sound,” 2 p.m.
Feb. 15, “The General” (in 35mm), 2 p.m., with live accompaniment by Donald Sosin
Feb. 20, “The Testament of Ann Lee,” 7 p.m.