Buster Keaton’s 1924 classic, The Cameraman launches our weekend Keaton celebration. We are thrilled to announce that we will have LIVE ACCOMPANIMENT by Brad Cox and Jeff Harshbarger, who are composing a score to complement the film!
Following the screening, Dana Stevens, author of the acclaimed new biography, Camera Man: Buster Keaton, The Dawn of Cinema and the Invention of the Twentieth Century, will sign books and join in conversation with Vivien Jennings, founder of Rainy Day Books.
The cost of your THE CAMERAMAN SCREENING & BOOK EVENT ticket includes:
Film screening of Keaton's 1928’s classic, The Cameraman. (76 minutes) with live accompaniment.
The Restaurant at 1900 movie snacks and drinks.
Your copy of Camera Man: Buster Keaton, The Dawn of Cinema and the Invention of the Twentieth Century, personalized by the author.
Conversation with Dana Stevens and Vivien Jennings of Rainy Day Books.
BUSTER KEATON X 1900 BUILDING EVENTS
The Camera Man, The Restaurant at 1900’s cocktail homage to Buster, will be available at the cash bar.
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DANA STEVENS
In her recent book, Camera Man: Buster Keaton, The Dawn of Cinema and the Invention of the Twentieth Century, culture maven and movie critic Dana Stevens explores the unstoppably creative society that transformed early movies into the American film industry. Deftly directing a wide literary lens, Stevens views seven decades of cultural history through the constantly moving figure of vaudeville star, stunt person, movie actor, producer, director and camera man, Buster Keaton.
“In the showstopping montage of trick shots in Sherlock, Jr. (1924), Keaton’s hero, a film projectionist who’s fallen asleep on the job, climbs into the frame of a movie in progress. As the movie he’s entered cuts from one landscape to another, he’s suddenly stranded on a rock amid pounding surf. Diving in, he finds himself landing headfirst in a snowbank, which transforms in its turn into a bench in an elegant garden. This dizzying demonstration of the power of film editing seems to predict the not-yet-made work of Soviet Director Dziga Vertov, whose avant-garde documentaries used montage to explore how motion-picture technology was changing human perception.”
- Dana Stevens, an excerpt from Camera Man
BRAD COX
Brad is a composer, arranger, ensemble leader, and performing musician born in Pawhuska, OK, and based in Kansas City, MO. He studied composition with James Mobberly and Gerald Kemner at UMKC Conservatory of Music, and jazz arranging with Charles Grey at Portland State University. His compositional influences range from liturgical chant and traditional folkloric music to popular music and free jazz. Brad’s background in jazz music has given him a particular interest in the communal and collaborative aspects of music making, and he has dedicated much of his compositional effort to forming creative, collaborative relationships with musicians, and to writing music for those musicians. He utilizes a wide variety of compositional techniques in his music, including structured improvisation, chance elements, graphic notation, and Butch Morris-inspired Conduction. Brad has created compositions and arrangements for Paris-based singer and songwriter Krystle Warren, Sonny Classical recording artist Nathan Granner, Grammy Award-winning producers Russ Elevado and Ben Kane, and has created music for numerous dance, theater, film, and performance art pieces. He is co-founder of Owen/Cox Dance Group and founder and director of The People’s Liberation Big Band of Greater Kansas City and Brad Cox Octet.
JEFF HARSHBARGER
A prolific composer and bandleader in his own right, Jeff has recorded and performed across the globe with such varied groups as Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey, Bobby Watson, Curtis Fuller, Milt Abel, Tango Lorca, The People's Liberation Big Band, and Alaturka.