A silent western from 1926 with live piano: Saturday in Arrecife, free

A hundred years ago, in 1926, John Ford shot Three Bad Men. Silent, of course: sound arrived the following year. In the cinemas of the day the silence was filled by a pianist, live, improvising as he watched the screen.

On Saturday 10 October in Arrecife it is done exactly that way.

Who plays

At the piano is Ernesto Alemán, from Lanzarote, trained at the island's conservatory. This is not background accompaniment: in a silent screening the musician sets the pace of what you see, when to hold your breath and when to let it go. As the culture councillor Abigail González puts it, here «the music shares the limelight with the film».

The film

It is a western of the Dakota land rush, shot by a Ford in his thirties who had not yet made Stagecoach. Anyone who knows only the Ford of the talkies will find it all here in embryo: the wide spaces, the wagon train, the grubby morality of outlaws who end up doing the right thing.

Where and when

Saturday 10 October, 20:00 — Casa de la Cultura Agustín de la Hoz, Arrecife.
Free entry while seats last: no booking, so come early.

It is part of the Tiempos Modernos festival, run by the Fundación Nino Díaz with Cultura Arrecife and the Cine Club Lanzarote.

If you read our piece on the Cine Buñuel, this is the same island that has spent forty years insisting on showing the cinema nobody else shows. Only this time, besides the projector, there is a piano.