Willows. The silent film “The Freshman” with Harold Lloyd flickers across the screen in St. Josef. The film is accompanied musically by Alexander Pointner from Munich.
Alexander Pointner on the Eisenbarth organ. Photo: Helmut Kunz
The audience follows the adventures of “The Freshman” in a good mood. Photo: Helmut Kunz
Promoted as an enthusiastic newcomer to an American college Harold “Speedy” Lamb a tragic figure who is nothing but made fun of by her fellow students, who are supposedly interested in friendship. The silent film dates from 1925 and was the second most successful film of its year, after the first film version of Ben Hur and just before it Charlie Chaplins “Gold rush”. On Friday, the organ + cinema project showed “The Freshman” on the big screen in the Josefskirche. The young man with the glasses, who is looking for happiness and success, was played in a comedy by Harold Lloyd.
Watched the film twenty times
The Munich organist Alexander Pointner accompanied the adventurous story of the student at the Eisenbarth organ. He said he watched the film twenty times beforehand and developed the music for it. Roman Landgraf had translated the intertexts into German. “It was only available in English. And that was such a difficult American English because it was set in a college environment. You don’t understand that.” The team took care of everything else Thomas Kreuzer cared for. “All I had to do was sit down and play the organ.”
Next time Buster Keaton or Karl Valentin
Pointner explained that he incorporated themes into the film. The triumphal march by Verdi, folk songs such as “Regensburg auf der Kirchturmspitz” or the Siegfried motif by Richard Wagnerwhich he played in the scene where Harold Lamb thinks he’s a college hero. If he were to sit at the Eisenbarth organ again next year, he would like to provide the musical accompaniment to a Buster Keaton film. “Maybe Karl Valentin too.”
