Who wouldn’t want to see a masterpiece in a masterpiece? The prospect had movie goers streaming into The Auditorium Saturday night to see Jordan Peele’s master work Get Out in the palatial splendor of one of the city’s most beautiful landmarks.
For almost a decade and across the country, screening movies with a live orchestra has been taking off in a big and lucrative way. They’re regularly held at the Hollywood Bowl and the New York Philharmonic routinely hosts them at Lincoln Center. Few, apart from perhaps Hollywood, can claim the distinction of having the composer of the movie’s score conduct the orchestra. Michael Abel, the composer for Get Out, (as well as for Peele’s latest movie Us), was on hand Saturday night to lead the Chicago Sinfonietta in the one night only performance. The Sinfonietta, a jewel in Chicago’s orchestral universe, makes diversity a cornerstone of their musical mission and proved the perfect match for the evening’s event.
Abel immediately put the audience at ease by encouraging it to ditch inhibitions and feel free express itself during the movie’s screening. There had already been an undercurrent of enthusiastic energy filling the hall. Abel’s remarks gave the cavernous room permission to give that energy voice and his declaration was greeted with laughter, cheers and applause.
A few people at the showing didn’t know what they were about to experience. One woman said she thought she was going to see a play and another confessed he was told he was coming to hear the Sinfonietta. Nobody mentioned there was a movie tied to it. And, from comments overheard during intermission, several people had never seen the movie until that night. They were the especially lucky ones.
Peele calls his groundbreaking movie a social thriller rather than a horror movie; the way it’s usually described. The term plays up the suspense component of the film and hints at the mental intrigue awash in this story about deception and racial vulnerability. Never in the history of American cinema has race been made the keystone in this genre of movie making. Watching Chris maneuver through his ordeal in the Auditorium’s opulent setting, with the man who wrote the movie’s music conducting a superb orchestra on the theater’s stage, gave the occasion a dreamlike cast. It also seemed to underscore the movie’s cultural significance.
When the Oscar-winning screenwriter went searching for someone to score Get Out, he knew he wanted a black composer to do have the job and was forced to resort to YouTube to find one. Regular channels had produced paltry results. A rapport quickly took hold after the two met and Peele quite specifically asked Abel to create a segment in the music that would relay “gospel horror”. That’s how the beautiful chorale piece with African-American vocalists singing warnings to the main character in Swahili was developed. Boisterous approval followed the live performance featuring local artists at the opening of the movie.
Live music adds a tangible depth to film. When he made the Get Out, Peele wanted the audience, black and white, to be able to empathize with Chris’s plight. It was essential that the music reflect that empathy as well as convey terror. Enveloped in a score that managed to be both sensitive and powerful, and thanks to the crucially important artistry displayed on harp and cello, the audience was at one with Get Out’s central character as he floated down to that “sunken place”. Galvanized by the characters, plot and perspective; it remained with him all the way through to the movie’s revolutionary ending.
If there was any regret following the evening’s performance, it’s that there wasn’t even more music.
Get Out
September 21, 2019
The Auditorium Theater
50 E. Ida B. Wells Drive
Chicago, IL 60605
www.auditoriumtheatre.com
