Film Season: Soundtrack at HOME, Manchester
Tom Grieve, Cinema Editor
The story goes that musician and composer Barry Adamson thought that somebody was having him on when he first received the call from American director, David Lynch (Blue Velvet, Mulholland Drive) asking if he’d like to work on the score for Lost Highway. Lynch, who’d apparently been listening to Adamson’s music for ten hours straight, was deadly serious however, and the resulting collaboration helped to endow the surreal thriller with its pervasive sense of otherworldly menace.
This month, Manchester-born Adamson, whose impressive CV also boasts both a successful solo career and stints with The Buzzcocks, Magazine and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, joins HOME’s Artistic Director of Film, Jason Wood, to curate Soundtrack: a season of films celebrating the art of composition. Having kicked off earlier this month with a screening of Lost Highway, the diverse season continues through to the end of August with three great films still to come.
First up, on Friday 26th August, HOME have Hitchcock’s genre-defining, horror masterpiece, Psycho. Marion Crane’s visit to Bates Motel is etched deeply into film history, but more than fifty years on from its controversial release this deeply atmospheric film still packs a punch – thanks in large part to that memorable, driving score from legendary composer Bernard Hermann.
Hermann also wrote the score for the 1962 version of psychological thriller Cape Fear, which was remade in 1992 by Martin Scorsese. In an unusual move, the New York director had composer Elmer Bernstein meticulously copy Hermann’s score note for note — you can judge the results for yourself on Monday 29th August. With regular Scorsese collaborator Robert DeNiro starring, this underseen work is a must for fans of the likes of Goodfellas and Taxi Driver.
Wrapping up the season on Wednesday 31st August is Shadows, the energetic, 1959 directorial debut from John Cassavettes. Centring on three black siblings – two of whom have much lighter skin than the other – living in Manhattan, the film explores interracial relationships and the politics of ‘passing’. Filmed on location in New York with a largely improvised script, Shadows is an influential landmark of American independent cinema and features a terrific, bluesy score from Charles Mingus which more than justifies its selection here.
