A Winning Throw Of Dice

The movie is a collaborative venture dating all the way back to 1929. Called A Throw of Dice, it had been produced by German Franz Osten and directed by Himanshu Rai. And now, in 1996, another cultural tie is being forged: Indian and German musicians are providing a live background score to the silent movie.

Called Schicksalswurfel in German, the film was something of an extrava-

ganza with over 10,000 extras, 1,000 horses and 50 elephants. The cast was all-Indian, with the director himself playing the villain's role.

The idea first occurred to Suresh Chhabria, director of the National Film Archives, Pune. The film heritage section at the international film festival held in Mumbai in January last year had Murnau's Tartuffe being screened with the original music score adapted and performed by three musicians from Germany calling themselves the TrioFilmPalast. In the Indian segment were Dada Phalke's Kaliya Mardan and G P Pawar's Diler Jigar for which Dr Kshama Vaidya had composed the music. What better confluence of cultures could be dreamed of than having these two groups provide live music for a film that was itself a joint venture between the two countries, was Chhabria's thought. And the idea met with an enthusiastic response from Max Mueller Bhavan, only too keen to promote such a unique cultural collaboration.

 

Neither of the groups providing live musical support are strangers to playing scores for silent films. As the credits roll on, the call of the clarinet is supported with a bass from the cello, occasionally punctuated by heavy piano strokes.

A chain of chance circumstances brought together the German trio who constitute the TrioFilmPlast. Each member has a different leaning, but playing background scores for silent films brings them together. And for silent movie projects they have travelled widely across the globe.

Pierre Oser, the pianist, is particularly keen on contemporary music and has composed many musical scores for German theatre. Raimund Ritz has been an experimentalist of sorts. He has composed music for a swimming pool choir