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| The Golem |
The 2007 Festival of Jewish Cinema is delighted to present the internationally acclaimed New York guitar virtuoso, Gary Lucas, performing his original musical score for a rare Australian screening of the classic silent film,
The Golem.
Monstrous as it may seem, the literary creation of Frankenstein is a mere baby compared with the ancient Jewish legend of the Golem, a shambling, soulless creature mystically created by Rabbi Loew of Prague from clay, to save the beleaguered Jews of the city from expulsion.
This famous mediæval tale has been filmed several times, but this 1920 silent version is the finest treatment of the original story and is indeed one of the most outstanding of all silent films.
Extraordinary lighting and enormous sets inspired by the mediæval architecture of Prague add to the innovative Expressionist nature of the production. When the film was re-released in Germany with recorded music in the 1930s, Adolf Hitler is said to have ordered all copies of it to be burnt, so that Jews would not feel empowered by this reminder of an ancient story.
Garry LucasDescribed as "a legend" by
Rolling Stone magazine and as "one of rock's most original guitarists" by
The New York Times, Gary Lucas has been a regular fixture on the New York music scene for more than two decades, both as a solo performer and in league with such luminaries as Captain Beefheart, Jeff Buckely, Joan Osborne, Allen Ginsberg and Lou Reed. Lucas has performed his score for
The Golem in over 15 countries - from New York and London to Moscow, St Petersburg and Prague itself, the home of the Golem - and in contexts as varied as the Biennale in Venice to London's Meltdown Festival. Lucas reinterprets Jewish melodies both ancient and modern with an array of musical strategies, fusing traditional folk tunes with famous melodies into a spectacular fantasia of otherworldly sounds that ricochet around the auditorium.
