BIFF has a long and much-enjoyed tradition of including live music as part of our annual celebration of cinema, and over the years, audiences’ enthusiasm for these shows has grown and grown. We’re very excited to up the scale of these events in 2012 with the long-awaited first ever gig in the North of the country by the Dodge Brothers, plus the UK’s foremost piano accompanist Neil Brand.
Playing piano, guitars, harmonica, banjo, double bass and a washboard, Brand and the Dodge Brothers will be performing a specially-composed live soundtrack to accompany the classic silent film Beggars of Life (1928) in our renowned Pictureville Cinema on 21 April 2012.
The Dodge Brothers are a country blues, rockabilly and skiffle four-piece who count esteemed film critic Mark Kermode among their members. Neil Brand is a celebrated silent film accompanist and composer who regularly performs to screenings at London’s BFI South Bank (formerly the National Film Theatre).
About Beggars of Life
Dir. William A. Wellman, USA, 1928. 100 mins. Adv. PG. Silent with live music. Digibeta
Cast: Wallace Beery, Louise Brooks, Richard Arlen, Blue Washington
Searching for food, a vagabond named Jim encounters young wastrel Nancy (Louise Brooks), who’s just that morning murdered her lecherous foster father at the breakfast table. Jim takes pity on her, and with Nancy disguised as a boy she and Jim team up for a train-hopping run from the law across the depression-era western United States towards Alberta.
Brooks’ performance, which forever hints at hidden depths, still has an incredible seductive power, and this is a luminous film from the last throes of the silent era.