At 7 pm on Oct 20 at First Congregational Church in Kalamazoo, English organist David Briggs returns to improvise a live score to Alfred Hitchcock's silent thriller "The Lodger," presented by the Connecting Chords Music Festival. In a conversation with Cara Lieurance, Briggs says the film, now a century old, has lost none of its force.
"It really packs a punch," he says. "It's 100 years old, but it still feels new."
Briggs has accompanied the Lon Chaney "Phantom of the Opera" nearly 300 times, but this is only his third or fourth time with "The Lodger." The story follows a mysterious tenant suspected of being a serial killer in fog-bound 1920s London. Briggs says Hitchcock was influenced by German expressionism, and that the film's atmosphere gives him room to explore the organ's colors.
His goal is for the audience to forget the instrument entirely. "The best type of accompaniment, I think, should be like a mirror image of the movie," he says.
Briggs doesn't play in a 1920s cinema organ style. He describes his approach as "a kind of post-impressionist reaction to the film," drawing on composers he loves, including Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky and Bartók. Mood comes less from major or minor keys than from registration, the choice of organ stops.
He points to the famous scene in which the family hears the lodger's footsteps overhead. It shows the group looking through a transparent ceiling as the Lodger's shoe soles pace the floor above. "That's a golden opportunity for me to be very sort of mystical and sort of otherworldly," he says.
To prepare, Briggs watches the film several times in the 48 hours before the concert, making notes and sketching themes for the characters. The rest happens live. "I don't like to over-prepare it because, you know, it is an improvisation," he says. Still, he needs to know what's coming, so a dark, brooding passage doesn't collide with a sudden chase.
Briggs previously accompanied "Ben-Hur" and "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" in Kalamazoo; the 2024 "Jekyll" screening sold out. "I'm thrilled to be back in Kalamazoo," he says.
Silent But Deadly, a local silent film orchestra, will perform horror shorts prior to the screening, starting at 6:30 pm. Tickets for "The Lodger" are available on the Connecting Chords Music Festival website.
The interview was summarized by Claude AI and edited by the author.
