"Guitarist of 1000 Ideas" Gary Lucas accompanies 3 masterpieces of the early fantastic silent cinema with his original improvisational solo guitar scores in a program commissioned by the Film Society of Lincoln Center which he debuted at the Walter Reade Theater on Dec. 28th 2000. Since then he's gone on to sell out the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art and the James River Film Festival in Richmond Virginia with his heady brew of ghostly music and haunting images from a forgotten world...

The films:

Entr'acte

Rene Clair, France, 1924
Running time: 14 min.
"Entr'acte" is, on one level, just what its title says: a short work intended to be shown between live performances. The original occasion was an evening of Dadaism run amok, and Entr'acte held its own. The central event of the narrative is a funeral, but most of the participants, including the corpse, are dancers. The hearse is drawn by a camel. What a way to go!

Ballet Mecanique

Fernand Leger, France, 1924
Running time: 15 min.
The famous experimental short in which everyday images form abstract patterns. The only film by the legendary Cubist painter, it is a key to all subsequent surrealist experiments in cinema.

The Camerman's Revenge

Ladislaw Starewicz, Russia, 1912
Running time: 15 min.
An outlandishly humorous morality play involving 4 insects, two clandestine trysts, and one hell-bent-for-revenge photographer. Starewicz was one of the earliest and most unique pioneers of stop-motion animation. Bizarre and beautiful!

Check out an excerpt from "The Cameraman's Revenge" here with Gary Lucas' solo music for National steel guitar accompanying the action on the soundtrack.

Gary made the European premiere in Vienna at Porgy and Bess in September 2007 and the Canadian premiere at Pop Montreal in October 2007.

Read a rave review of Gary's Pop Montreal show of "Sounds of the Surreal" and "Monsters from the Id" from the Montreal Gazette here.

The full program runs 44 minutes.

For booking information, contact bookings@garylucas.com.

Gary plays his original score to Rene Clair's "Entr'acte" (1924) as part of his "Sounds of the Surreal" project, the Portugeuse Assocation (an old synagogue), Montreal, Canada, 10/7/07 photo by Pierre Richardson	Gary improvises to Bert I. Gordon's "Village of the Giants" (1965) as part of his "Monsters from the Id" project at Pop Montreal, the Portugeuse Assocation (an old synagogue), Montreal, Canada, 10/7/07 photo by Pierre Richardson
Gary improvises to Fernand Leger's "Ballet Mecanique" (1924) as part of his "Sounds of the Surreal" project at Pop Montreal, the Portugeuse Assocation (an old synagogue), Montreal, Canada, 10/7/07 photo by Valerie	Gary plays to Ladislaw Starewicz's 1912 animated film "The Cameraman's Revenge" as part of his "Sounds of the Surreal" project at Pop Montreal, the Portugeuse Assocation (an old synagogue), Montreal, Canada, 10/7/07 photo by Valerie