Huntsville’s Old Town Theatre presents “Right in the
Eye” a movie-concert by Jean Francois Alcoléa based on several Georges Méliès
films.
Méliès was a French illusionist and film director in
early 1900s. His films led to many technical and narrative developments in
early days of cinema that are still prevalent today.
When Méliè’s films made their debuts, people became
bored quickly and the films were lost. Alcoléa wanted to bring them back with
composed music and sounds to narrate the films in a movie concert.
Alcoléa is a pianist, composer, improviser and
scenographer. His shows consist of many visual aspects that help bring his
music to life.
“The films I chose are not the most new, but they are
the most interesting for me,” Alcoléa said. “They are a representation of
Georges’ creativeness.”
The band used many different objects to make sounds to
narrate the films. They used inexpensive objects such as wine glasses with
water to more expensive instruments like the waterphone.
“These films were a challenge because instead of
making picture for music, we made music for picture,” Alcoléa said.
Alcoléa found his passion for the combination of music
and film at a young age, but started taking it to the next level almost a
decade ago.
“I started music when I was younger and started to
work on my projects about 20 years ago,” Alcoléa said. “I started putting music
to film eight years ago.”
Alcoléa picked up a mirror, set it on the staircase,
picked up a smaller mirror and spun it on top of the bigger mirror to make a
sound effect of spinning. Creativity is all there is to it, according to
Alcoléa.
Alcoléa and his crew toured around Europe and are now
bringing their concert to North America. Old Town Theatre is one of just eight
theaters in the United States to host this performance.
“We developed this project in 2013,” Alcoléa said. “We
worked on it for one and a half years and worked on making it fit all together
for two months.”
They showed several of Méliès’ films including “The
Four Troublesome Heads” (1898), “A Trip to the Moon” (1902) and “The Kingdom of
the Fairies” (1903).
“The films had a lot of special effects,” attendee
Audra Whitaker said. “Of course, in 1903, special effects are watching pictures
move.”
“Right in the Eye” was creatively intelligent. All the
sounds and music brought Georges Méliès’ films to life. Alcoléa helped showcase
the talent and imagination that Méliès put in to each film he created.