Silent film accompanist and composer Stephen Horne has already composed for or accompanied a couple of his five multinational picks for 1912. But besides discussing the general aesthetic pleasures of his selections, he also ruminates on how he could approach playing for both these grounded features and short trick films (they were still hanging in there!).

Stephen is a house musician at London’s BFI Southbank. He released Silent Sirens, an album of solo piano pieces based on his silent film compositions, and has scored Stella Dallas, The Manxman, and many more films.

Films mentioned:

• The Gardener (1912) - Victor Sjöström
• How a Mosquito Operates (1912) - Winsor McCay
• The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912) - D.W. Griffith
• The Cameraman’s Revenge (1912) - Wladyslaw Starewicz
• The Conquest of the Pole (1912) - Georges Méliès
• The Golem: How He Came into the World (1920) - Paul Wegener and Carl Boese
• The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) - Carl Theodor Dreyer
• L’Inferno (1911) - Francesco Bertolini, Giuseppe de Liguoro, and Adolfo Padovan
• Oliver Twist (1912) - Thomas Bentley
• The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) - Robert Wiene
• A Ruined Life (1912) - Victor Sjöström
• The Abyss (1910) - Urban Gad
• The Phantom Carriage (1921) - Victor Sjöström
• The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973) - Gordon Hessler
• The Mascot (1933) - Wladyslaw Starewicz
• A Trip to the Moon (1902) - Georges Méliès
• It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) - Stanley Kramer
• Barbie (2023) - Greta Gerwig
• Metropolis (1927) - Fritz Lang