The film *Blancanieves* is a silent, black-and-white film – and dates from 2012. Reflections on a phenomenon and an interview about the film’s score.
In the multi-award-winning silent film "Blancanieves" (2012), Spanish director Pablo Berger retells the fairy tale of Snow White in a poetic way: in impressive black and white images, the story takes us to archaic Spain in the 1920s. The seven dwarves become a troupe of diminutive toreros who provide bizarre entertainment at folk festivals, while Carmen - as Snow White is called here - rises to become a celebrated bullfighter. We are presenting this special film as part of the Film Symphony series as the crowning finale to our season.
"Blancanieves" is just one of many contemporary films in which directors use black and white shots, intertitles, overly clear facial expressions and powerful music to hark back to the beginnings of cinema and sensitise audiences once again to the power of pure visual language.
One important reason for this renaissance is nostalgia. Many filmmakers want to pay homage to the great silent film masters such as Charlie Chaplin, Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau and Fritz Lang. They see this genre not just as a historical curiosity, but as an art form in its own right, in which emotions, conflicts and stories are conveyed almost exclusively through images and music. At a time when films are often characterised by fast cuts, loud effects and non-stop dialogue, the deliberate renunciation of spoken language seems like an aesthetic countermovement.
The modern revival of silent film was particularly evident in the French-Belgian production "The Artist" from 2011. The film is shot in black and white, in historical picture format, silent except for a few moments - and combines this aesthetic with contemporary narrative art. It was enthusiastically received worldwide and honoured with numerous awards, including five Oscars.
Overall, the renaissance of silent film shows that great stories are not dependent on spoken words. The focus on image composition, body language and music opens up other approaches to emotions and themes. Current silent films or productions inspired by them prove that old forms can appear very lively and modern in a new guise. They combine historical memory with artistic experimentation and make it clear that silent film not only shapes the past, but also the present of cinema.
The flamenco musician and dancer Juan Gómez ‘Chicuelo’, born in Barcelona in 1968, played a key role in shaping the soundtrack to ‘Blancanieves’ and is now also singing in the Zurich production. Here he explains how the music came about.
It plays a fundamental role. The grandmother of Blancanieves dances flamenco, the mother is a flamenco singer and the father is a bullfighter. Although the mother dies at the very beginning of the film, Blancanieves always stays in touch with her through her recordings. She may be dead, but the recordings remain. Furthermore, there is a sort of family bound between flamenco and bullfighting. They have always walked hand-in-hand.
Well, that’s one of the things that I am most proud of: to have had the chance, thanks to this film, to express myself through a style of flamenco much older than the one I grew up with. I belong to a younger generation of flamenco musicians, but I have listened to flamenco down from its root, from the tradition. And this film demanded a traditional flamenco style, since the film takes us to Spain of the 1920s.
Exactly. You will find music for guitar and voice, but you will not hear the cajón because it did not exist back in the 1920s. The palmeros [hand clapping performers] are also very important, and they have to use their knuckle joints, too. That is how people used to accompany flamenco rhythms: using the counters of the bars and tabancos [street stalls] as percussion instruments. I adopted, therefore, a chameleon-like style based on this flamenco tradition from the beginning of the 20th century.
I use several types of palos, and each of them has a very distinctive character. The zapateado, which has a joyful quality, sounds when young Blancanieves is dancing, very happily, while the grandmother is sewing a dress for her. It is a very rhythmic palo, already in high spirits per se. The song “No te puedo encontrar” [“I can’t find you”] is a bulería, and it is also connected with a joyous scene in which Blancanieves dances with her grandmother. The grandmother wants Blancanieves to smile again, to recover from the death of her mother, but with such a twist of fate – the grandmother dies while she is dancing. It is so overwhelming! The bulería is quite energetic that you have to be careful … or it can end up being counterproductive. I also composed a seguiriya for the moment in which Blancanieves becomes famous and goes to the bullring arena of Seville. This palo is deep and serious, in tune with the severity of bullfighting itself. Finally, I also use a saeta, which is a palo with deep connotations of death. This is the palo that you would hear during Easter time in Spain. It is sung to honor the images of the Virgin and the crucified Christ during the Holy Week processions.
The experience is, at the very least, interesting. Your adrenaline rises when you wait for your entrance which is followed by sudden and very precise flamenco outbursts that need to be perfectly synchronized with the images. You always want to do it as flawlessly as possible, and the truth is that it is very difficult because you do not have a second chance! The film unfolds and you have to catch every scene right on time and play perfectly the music over it. This is only suitable for artists who welcome risk – as it is my case – because if you do not enjoy risk, then you can have a bad time! But, personally, I always have a lot of fun.
I think that it is very original. The Snow White story is well known, but Pablo Berger’s vision is unique. It is really a work of art. And it has a lot to do with us, with Spain – or at least with Andalusia. It is, truly, a film like no other.
The interview was conducted by Fernando Carmena of the European Film Philharmonic.
