The Pet Shop Boys will present a new soundtrack for "Battleship Potemkin" in London's Trafalgar Square.
By Anna Malpas Published: July 30, 2004
At the 1925 premiere of Sergei Eisenstein's silent film "Battleship Potemkin," the angular shots of brutish Cossacks and screaming crowds unfolded to strains of Ludwig Van Beethoven and Pyotr Tchaikovsky. This summer, though, British pop duo the Pet Shop Boys will perform a new interpretation of the revolutionary classic.
Known for 1980s hits "West End Girls" and "Always On My Mind," the band recently completed a new soundtrack to Eisenstein's film, which will be performed at a gala screening in London's Trafalgar Square in September. The idea came from Philip Dodd, head of the city's Institute of Contemporary Arts, who admitted that he chose the Pet Shop Boys "at one level because they're not the obvious people to ask."
"I liked the idea of staging a film that was absolutely political -- 'Potemkin' -- with a pop group who, when you mention their name, you do not think of politics," Dodd said last week.
"I asked the Pet Shop Boys if they would be interested in doing the soundtrack, [and] within three or four days they got very excited about doing the project," he recalled.
The free screening on Sept. 12 is funded by the Greater London Authority for the annual Summer in the Square festival of music and live theater. The events, which run for three months each year, are part of Mayor Ken Livingstone's strategy to make Trafalgar Square a more attractive destination. Other recent measures have included a ban on feeding the local pigeons.
The Pet Shop Boys have already finished the soundtrack to Eisenstein's 75-minute film about an abortive 1905 uprising in southern Russia. Their classical and electronic music sounds "like nothing on earth," Dodd said, calling it "extraordinary and modern and moving." German composer Torsten Rasch is currently recording his orchestration of the score, which will be performed live by the Dresdner Sinfoniker orchestra.
In an e-mail last week, Rasch described the music as going "more in the direction of the Pet Shop Boys-style pop music." As well as long instrumental pieces, the soundtrack includes three songs, which are "quite haunting," he said. A recording of the music will be released later this year, after the live performance.
"Battleship Potemkin," which Dodd described as "one of the most extraordinary films in European history," was banned in Britain until 1954, when it was released with an adults-only X certificate. Even now, the art-house staple retains its power to shock, Dodd believes. "I think if you watch it today, it raises questions about authenticity, about history, about revolt, about gender."
"I had for a long time wanted to do this event with 'Potemkin' ... because Trafalgar Square is the home of political dissent in London," he said. Violent crowds used the space to protest in 1990 against the newly introduced poll tax, while anti-apartheid protestors parked themselves outside the South African Embassy on the east side for many decades. More recently, campaigners against the war in Iraq have also gathered on the square.
Yet ironically, the screening only confirms the public square's new status as a trendy arts venue, Dodd admitted. "It has been turned into a European piazza, and my view is that, despite the anti-war protests, it's passing out of its traditional role as a place of politics."
Although the Pet Shop Boys are little known for their political convictions, Dodd named their sexual politics -- vocalist Neil Tennant publicly declared his homosexuality in 1994, and the duo headlined London's Gay Pride festival three years later -- as one of the reasons he chose the band to compose the soundtrack. "Eisenstein was gay, like the Pet Shop Boys are gay," he said.
While Tennant and keyboard player Chris Lowe's songs "It's a Sin" and "The Survivors" touch on their gay identity, Eisenstein kept his sexuality under wraps -- an understandable decision in a country where homosexuality was an imprisonable offence.
"Battleship Potemkin," Eisenstein's third film, is loosely based on historical events. A crew of sailors is given soup made from maggot-infested meat, and when several of them refuse to eat it, they are sentenced to be shot. A mutiny breaks out, and the ship is commandeered by revolutionaries. Meanwhile, in the nearby port city of Odessa, the local people rise up in sympathy, leading to a massacre by Cossack supporters of the tsar.
The director saw his film screened to several different soundtracks. The Soviet premiere at the Bolshoi Theater featured excerpts from Tchaikovsky, Beethoven and Henry Litolff. A year later, the first showing in Berlin was accompanied by an original soundtrack from Austrian-born composer Edmund Meisel. Later versions of the film used music culled from different works by Dmitry Shostakovich.
>From Trafalgar Square, the event is set to come to
Berlin and Moscow next spring or summer, Dodd said.
Asked if the movie might be shown in Red Square, he
said, "That's my dream."
"Battleship Potemkin" will be shown Sept. 12 at 8:30 p.m. on Trafalgar Square, in London.
The Moscow Times
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail is new and improved - Check it out! http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail