CLARE HANSSON - ACCOMPANIST FOR SILENT FILMS.

Clare Hansson has been chosen to create jazz-flavoured film scores for several silent films as part of the Brisbane International Film Festival, whose artistic director is Anne Demy-Geroe.  Russian filmmaker Yakov Protazanovone’s ‘Aelita: Queen of Mars’, one of the world’s earliest science fiction features, was her first involvement.  Next came Alfred Hitchcock’s second film, ‘The Ring’, which established Hitchcock’s place in British cinema history.  With its virtuoso camera moves, odd angles and ingenious narrative devices, this film was perfect for the syncopated rhythms and jagged rhythms of ragtime. The third was ‘The Crowd’, King Vidor’s best film and a masterpiece in its critique of the American dream.  The sounds and jazzy rhythms of Gershwin’s music, so evocative of New York City, brought the hope and pathos of this film to life.  Clare’s latest offering was the film ‘Piccadilly’, E.A. Dupont’s melodrama depicting the contrasts between a stylish club in Piccadilly and the seedy Limehouse district in London, amid the intrigue of romantic entanglements. The beautifully-restored print, complete with blue and amber tinting, reflected the racial tensions and eroticism of Jazz Age London.

Hansson, who has hundreds of Queensland fans, will accompany a 1923 Russian silent movie “Aelita”. ‘I’ve never done anything this challenging - adding musical dimensions of dramatic and harmonic colour to the action and emotional content.’

Des Partridge