Silence

“Silence”- Allison Crowe from the sylvan castle on Salt Spring Island, Canada:
http://music.allisoncrowe.com/track/silence-sh

Crowe’s musical performance is paired with an excerpt from “Ménilmontant”, the 1925 silent film from auteur, director, Dimitri Kirsanoff and starring his collaborator Nadia Sibirskaia and Yolande Beaulieu as sisters.

Silence from Allison Crowe on Vimeo.

A treasure of cinema’s avant-garde, you can find the full (38 minute) movie in the Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/details/menilmontant1924-25 with commentary by David Badagnani, who notes:

“Its story is told entirely in images, without the use of explanatory intertitles; Kirsanoff was among the very rare filmmakers of the silent era to attempt this. The film makes use of techniques such as montage, hand-held camera, ultra-rapid montage, and superposition to achieve the elusive, transcendent quality of ‘photogenie’ so sought after by the French impressionist film directors of the era. Ménilmontant, thus, comes closer to poetry than to narrative prose.”

“Sylvan Hour is truly a masterpiece” says pioneering culture blog Muruch. (http://www.muruch.com/2015/05/allisoncrowe-sylvanhour.html)

How Long + Romance Sentimentale (excerpt)

A Canadian and Soviet power-play – not on the rink, but in the arena of imagination. Allison Crowe’s music scores with assists from captains of film history, Grigori Aleksandrov and Sergei Eisenstein.

Crayon and Ink + Destino (excerpt)

One of Allison Crowe’s much-loved, “early”, songs on-stream with animation begun in the 1940s by Salvador Dali and realized by succeeding generations of Disney studio animators.

Secrets (That Aren't My Own) + Ménilmontant (excerpt)

Allison Crowe’s voice and piano come together with the vision of silent film era lovers and collaborators Dimitri Kirsanoff and Nadia Sibirskaia.