美国国家公共电台 NPR Gary Lucas Uses Film Music 'To Shed Light On Obscure Corners Of Culture'

 

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Now let's hear about the man The New Yorker magazine calls, quote, "the thinking man's guitar hero," unquote. Gary Lucas has played just about everywhere with just about everyone from Captain Beefheart to DJ Spooky to John Sebastian. But Lucas is also a huge movie fan, and Rick Karr reports that the guitarist's career embraces both passions, music and movies.

RICK KARR, BYLINE¹: Gary Lucas' best-known work may be his collaborations with the lead singer and songwriter Jeff Buckley.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GRACE")

JEFF BUCKLEY: (Singing) My fading voice sings of love, but she cries to the clicking of time, oh, time.

KARR: Movies were Lucas' first love as a kid growing up in Syracuse, N.Y., monster movies. He screened them for neighbor kids in his parents' basement.

GARY LUCAS: Eight-millimeter versions of classic Universal horror films such as "Frankenstein" and "Dracula" and "The Mummy."

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE MUMMY")

BORIS KARLOFF: (As Imhotep) A nameless grave. The slaves were killed so that none should know. The soldiers who killed them were also slain² so no friend could creep to the desert with funeral offerings for my condemned³ spirit.

KARR: Movies had to compete with music after his father gave him a Fender Stratocaster as a bar mitzvah present. Lucas went to Yale and started a horror film series there. Movies took a backseat when he became Captain Beefheart's guitarist and manager. In 1989, the Brooklyn Academy of Music commissioned Lucas to collaborate⁴ on a live score for a silent film. He remembered stills he'd seen in a film magazine as a kid. They came from a German expressionist film based on a Jewish legend called "The Golem."

LUCAS: So I arranged for a private screening. And I came out of that, like, this is the film for me. This should be better known. It's just an incredible film.

(SOUNDBITE OF GARY LUCAS' "MUSIC FOR 'THE GOLEM' - MAIN TITLE - RABBI LOEW CONSULTS THE STAR - THE DECREE")

KARR: Lucas performed the scored screenings around the world, and film music became a major focus of his career. He's composed 11 live scores, including one for a Spanish-language version of "Dracula" and another for a silent Chinese melodrama⁵ called "The Goddess." Film archivist and curator Andrew Lampert says Lucas' love of cinema comes through in his music.

ANDREW LAMPERT: I think that Gary has a very sort of narrative⁶ style in his guitar playing. You know, he doesn't just, like, drop in and do a solo. There's a lot of structure to what he's doing. It is, like, almost visual.

(SOUNDBITE OF GARY LUCAS' "TOO MUCH JOHNSON")

KARR: Lucas' most recent live score is for a 1938 silent slapstick comedy directed by Orson Welles. The filmmaker planned for it to be projected between acts of a play he was directing, a revival⁷ of an 1890s farce⁸ called "Too Much Johnson."

(SOUNDBITE OF GARY LUCAS' "TOO MUCH JOHNSON")

KARR: Welles abandoned the film before he finished editing it and the original footage was presumed lost until a work print was discovered in Italy about a decade ago. Gary Lucas wrote the score the way he's written others, by watching the film again and again.

LUCAS: I look at the film with guitar in hand many, many times. I get to know it intimately. And I try various things and then try and time them to the sequences.

(SOUNDBITE OF GARY LUCAS' "TOO MUCH JOHNSON")

KARR: "Too Much Johnson" differs from the other films Gary Lucas has scored because it's a work print, not a finished film. It's made up of multiple takes of the same scenes shot from different angles.

LUCAS: The multiple takes enhance, if anything, this film. It's just like a further kaleidoscopic⁹ funhouse effect. It's like the end of "Lady From Shanghai." It's like seeing Welles through more mirrors.

(SOUNDBITE OF GARY LUCAS' "TOO MUCH JOHNSON")

KARR: Lucas sees himself as an evangelist for the films he scores, attracting new audiences with his live accompaniments. He does it for the same reason he continues to play the music of his mentor¹⁰, Captain Beefheart.

LUCAS: I am trying to shed light on obscure corners of culture that I think more people should know about. I think if you are very excited about something that most people might not have heard about, you would do worse in a karmic sense to try and, like, turn people on to that thing. I feel it's like in a Jewish tradition - it's a mitzvah.

KARR: Gary Lucas' last album was an effort to turn people on to music from cartoons by Fleischer Studios, which created "Popeye" and "Betty Boop." His next album will be all Beefheart material recorded with singer Nona Hendryx. For NPR News, I'm Rick Karr in New York.

1 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

2 slain   

杀死，宰杀，杀戮( slay的过去分词 )； (slay的过去分词)

参考例句：

• The soldiers slain in the battle were burried that night. 在那天夜晚埋葬了在战斗中牺牲了的战士。
• His boy was dead, slain by the hand of the false Amulius. 他的儿子被奸诈的阿缪利乌斯杀死了。

3 condemned   

adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• He condemned the hypocrisy of those politicians who do one thing and say another. 他谴责了那些说一套做一套的政客的虚伪。
• The policy has been condemned as a regressive step. 这项政策被认为是一种倒退而受到谴责。

4 collaborate   

vi.协作，合作；协调

参考例句：

• The work gets done more quickly when we collaborate.我们一旦合作，工作做起来就更快了。
• I would ask you to collaborate with us in this work.我们愿意请你们在这项工作中和我们合作。

5 melodrama   

n.音乐剧；情节剧

参考例句：

• We really don't need all this ridiculous melodrama!别跟我们来这套荒唐的情节剧表演！
• White Haired Woman was a melodrama,but in certain spots it was deliberately funny.《白毛女》是一出悲剧性的歌剧，但也有不少插科打诨。

6 narrative   

n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的

参考例句：

• He was a writer of great narrative power.他是一位颇有记述能力的作家。
• Neither author was very strong on narrative.两个作者都不是很善于讲故事。

7 revival   

n.复兴，复苏，（精力、活力等的）重振

参考例句：

• The period saw a great revival in the wine trade.这一时期葡萄酒业出现了很大的复苏。
• He claimed the housing market was showing signs of a revival.他指出房地产市场正出现复苏的迹象。

8 farce   

n.闹剧，笑剧，滑稽戏；胡闹

参考例句：

• They played a shameful role in this farce.他们在这场闹剧中扮演了可耻的角色。
• The audience roared at the farce.闹剧使观众哄堂大笑。

9 kaleidoscopic   

adj.千变万化的

参考例句：

• London is a kaleidoscopic world.伦敦是个天花筒般的世界。
• The transfer of administrative personnel in that colony was so frequent as to create kaleidoscopic effect.在那个殖民地，官员调动频繁，就象走马灯似的。

10 mentor   

n.指导者，良师益友；v.指导

参考例句：

• He fed on the great ideas of his mentor.他以他导师的伟大思想为支撑。
• He had mentored scores of younger doctors.他指导过许多更年轻的医生。