Event

Silent Classics: The Unknown

Live piano score composed and performed by Ben Model.

Tod Browning is best remembered for Dracula (1931) and Freaks (1932). Yet prior to both he made a remarkable series of films with the extraordinary Man of a Thousand Faces, Lon Chaney, of which The Unknown (1927) is the pinnacle. This delirious, outrageous l'amour fou - a chilling, genuinely disturbing and haunting melodrama - is one of silent cinemas most unsettling masterworks. Alonzo (Chaney) is a three-thumbed criminal eluding Spanish police detection by hiding in a gypsy circus as an armless knife thrower. His female assistant, Nanon (Joan Crawford), lives in fear of the embrace of men. The weight lifter, unaware of Nanon's fear, pursues her with the knowing encouragement of Alonzo. These advances push Nanon into Alonzo's arms. Driven insane with love, Alonzo resorts to desperate measures The Unknown is a truly horrifying film that takes us into the darkest recesses of the human psyche. Michael Koller

USA, 1927, 63 min., b/w, silent

For over two decades Ben Model has served as resident silent film accompanist for The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). Ben composes and improvises all his own scores and performs in a style that both evokes the silent era and reflects a contemporary (and younger) audience's appreciation of music and film scoring

www.benmodel.com