I’ve seen many, many live scores at Cinefamily over the last couple years, but none were anywhere near as strange, hilarious, and brilliant as Stephen Merritt’s score for Stuart Paton’s 1916 silent film version of Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. This tale of dramatic undersea adventure is rarely screened, and the Cinefamily presented the only two screenings of the film with its new score in Los Angeles on Sunday night. Cinefamily sold out two shows with tickets ranging from $35-$180, which is pretty impressive given their audience generally pays $10-$14 a show. $35 to see the L.A. premiere of a brand new film score by the man responsible for some of the greatest pop records in the last twenty years seems pretty great to me. He has a fantastic sense of humor too.

Originally commissioned by the San Francisco Film Society, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was a perfect fit for Merritt. The film itself wasn’t all that interesting; the undersea photography and full-scale “Nautilus” ship set were probably awe-inspiring in 1916, but unlikely to stir a modern audience, and translated as an unintentional comedy. Merritt’s score played with the already ridiculous piece of film by throwing in absurd and funny dialogues, old timey and nautical themed melodies, and unusual electronic sounds engineered by ingenious cousins Brian and Leon Dewan.

Merritt was joined by musicians Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket!) on accordion, Johnny Blood on tuba, and David Hegarty on organ, forming a mini-orchestral pit in front of the screen, with Merritt and his Dewanatron at the center. Merritt was surrounded by multicolored bell shaped lamps and megaphones for this entirely acoustic set, casting gorgeous shadows onto his instruments. Every detail of the score seemed meticulously calculated, and apparently it was. The score took a very long time to produce because Merritt tried to sync the music with the moving lips of the actors, and there’s quite a bit of dialogue, especially for a silent film. Merritt placed charming and witty dialogue in the mouths of all the male characters, while Handler provided piercing and occasionally excruciatingly loud yelps as the voice of the “native” woman on Mystery Island.

Most live scores I’ve seen by contemporary bands end up being ambient and atmospheric noise dumped on top of film. That can be great, but it’s rarely as memorable as The Magnetic Field’s front man Stephin Merritt singing “You can’t do that, I’m a Canadian citizen!” and deadpanning “This shoe is lined with lead” while working highly unusual, erratic, and oddly shaped electronics in the context of an epic underwater fantasy from the silent era.

—Lainna Fader (words + photos)

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