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QuickTake:
A touring show called “Right in the Eye” is coming to the WOW Hall in Eugene this week. The idea, says musician Jean-François Alcoléa, was to create a “symbiosis” between his score, which is performed live, and the pioneering films of Georges Méliès.
Georges Méliès is one of the most important filmmakers that, outside of an academic film context, most Americans have never heard of.
Méliès, a turn-of-the-century magician and toymaker, was a pioneer who used time-lapse photography, hand-painted frames, and other tricks to create early special effects. His work also includes some of the first science fiction and fantasy stories on film — like his famous 1909 “A Trip to the Moon,” with fantastical set design and prop work building magical worlds.
French composer and musician Jean-François Alcoléa wanted to bring Méliès and his work to modern audiences, sparking the idea for “Right in the Eye,” a screening of Méliès work accompanied by Alcoléa’s live score that is coming to Eugene’s WOW Hall on Thursday, Feb. 12.
“Méliès is kind of the father of cinema, according to me. He’s the one who created special effects, animated films, science fiction films, everything we are using nowadays in cinema,” Alcoléa said. “I wanted to show these very old movies from a contemporary way, because all the time it seems to be dusty. People are like, ‘boring.’”
Alcoléa said he was familiar with Méliès’ work, but hadn’t taken in his entire filmography before working on “Right in the Eye,” which first premiered in 2014 and has been touring since, with more than 700 performances globally.
He watched 400 of the silent shorts just to take in the work. Modern audiences may be less keen to take in extended periods of silent film, but there’s no need to worry — “Right in the Eye” includes 12 films, not the full slate of 400.
Putting music to Méliès
Alcoléa did not want “Right in the Eye” to be a traditional live score experience, where the music is mere accompaniment, with direct, didactic cues from screen to sound. He said his approach was more like a composer writing an opera.
“There is a booklet and the music, and the idea is to create a whole piece, a whole show, in the kind of symbiosis between the music and the screen,” he said.
Alcoléa’s score has four musicians, including him, playing more than 50 instruments. That includes traditional ones like piano, guitar and percussion, as well as oddities like the theremin and a set of crystal glasses.
Another key sound animating the performance: people in the audience, who veer between silence, laughter and oohing and aahing, both to the music and to watching Méliès’ film tricks on screen. (Children, he’s noticed, take particular delight in watching the tricks.)
Singalongs can break out, no words necessary.
“There is a part of improvisation at the beginning of a piece, and I’m using different kinds of sounds,” Alcoléa said. “I remember one time people were singing out loud the sound I was creating. It was incredible.”
It’s reminiscent of the setting where Méliès first unveiled his short films more than a century ago: a rowdy magic show audience at a playhouse, enthralled by what cinema can do.
How to see it
“Right in the Eye” will be performed in Eugene on Thursday, Feb. 12, at Eugene’s WOW Hall, 291 W. Eighth Ave. Doors open at 6:30 p.m.
Tickets are $24.50 in advance, $29.50 on the day of the show and $34.50 for seats in the first two rows.
