- For at least half a century, science fiction has been largely concerned with the ethical and dramatic questions posed by the future of technology. Jeff Mills and cinematic pioneer Fritz Lang share an attitude that predates this: the idea that scientific advancements will herald a golden future, followed closely by societal enlightenment. Seeing Mills soundtrack one of Lang's silent gems, 1929's Woman In The Moon, live at London's Coronet Theatre last week, it felt like I was watching the confluence of two great minds.
Mills has worked with Lang's films before, issuing an homage to the classic Metropolis in 2000. That one, like Woman In The Moon, was not made to be seen in silence. At the time, a pianist in the cinema would accompany the images, so Mills's all-seated Cine-Mix concept is essentially an update to the form—one of the last generation's great futurists soundtracked by one of our own.
For those unfamiliar with the story, Woman In The Moon concerns a love triangle played out over a search for gold on the moon. The villains are an evil clique of businessmen who spend their time blackmailing the scientist heroes. The plot, simpler and sillier than Metropolis, is rescued by Lang's gorgeous cinematography and its scientific accuracy—Lang worked closely with an astrophysicist and the film is credited with introducing many realities of space travel to the public. (The film's rocket was so similar to the Nazi's later V2 model that Adolf Hitler had the film banned for 12 years.)
While the story dragged at times—the film is roughly three-hours long—the mood was always engaging thanks to Mills's sinuous score. Bathed in blue light next to the screen, he operated an array of synths and samplers with practised ease, often checking the screen for cues. Musically, the performance was in keeping with much of his work from the last decade, a jungle of bristling percussion with few big kicks, often layered with gelatinous synths, off-kilter glockenspiel and the obligatory sci-fi bleeps and whistles. The addition of sweeping strings and resonant chords sometimes made for a surprisingly conventional soundtrack, but during its best moments the score added an extra dimension to the film's narrative. For example, the scenes with pantomime villain Mr. Turner and his Marilyn Manson hair were rendered genuinely sinister by Mills's threatening bass throbs and fluttering hi-hats.
The score rose to meet the film's most dramatic moments. Both lift-off and touchdown were accompanied by sudden bursts into sleek techno tracks with whip-crack basslines, eliciting roars of approval from the crowd. In the scene when the crew stop their squabbling to watch the sun rise from behind Earth—one of the film's loveliest moments—Mills brought in some strings and the burnt synths of a solar flare to gorgeous effect. But he didn't always judge the mood right: a few of the quieter emotional scenes were subjected to unnecessarily heavy arrangements.
When news of this event first surfaced, I was unsure of the premise. What was the point of having Mills there to score the film in real time? Why not just play the CD? In the end, though, the atmosphere in The Coronet convinced me otherwise. As the film approached its finale, Mills stopped playing altogether. The audience hesitated, a few started clapping. One man hoarsely cried out: "Thank you Jeff!" Mills shook his head—it wasn’t over yet. At the moment when Dr Helius realises that Friede hasn't left on the rocket back to Earth, Mills brought the film's most affecting melody back in, the glistening three-note theme "The Woman – The Moon – The End." The crowd held their collective breath. They were moved to silence.