Screening of "War Work: 8 Songs with Film" at Cinema Nuovo - Capolona (IT)

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War Work: 8 Songs With Film is an audio-visual work, directed and composed by Michael Nyman, and edited by Max Pugh. The work is derived from various visual, poetic and musical archives. Eight Songs form a song cycle and are influenced by a series by French poet Gaston de Ruyter titled Chansons Vieilles Sue D’Autres Airs; Old Songs To Other Tunes. They include lyrics from First World War poets including David Bomberg, Isaac Rosenberg and Alfred Lichtenstein. Film from French, German and US World War One film archives has been compiled to create a work reminiscent of Nyman’s silent film compositions and thematically linked to works which have a utilitarian perspective on the body such as The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat and Facing Goya. This innovative song cycle combines texts from European poets, archival visual excerpts, and fragments of World World I-era musical motifs, in which Michael Nyman evokes everything erased from our memory: the unknown soldiers - those who have never been found or have lost their lives.

Duration: 63 minutes with a new synchronised soundtrack recorded by the Michael Nyman Band.