Strike

The Coolidge is thrilled to host the return of the Alloy Orchestra! Alloy began their career here at the Coolidge with a new score for Metropolis in 1991. On Thursday, October 19, the Alloy Orchestra returns for a live performance of their score for Sergei M. Eisenstein's 1925 classic Strike.

Strike

One of the most auspicious directorial debuts of any filmmaker in history, Sergei Eisenstein's Strike (Stachka) is a dazzling and inventive film that blends political metaphor with radical technique as it dramatizes the genesis and violent consequences of a workers' revolt. A cinematic endeavor that applies some of the tactics of the avant garde theater group Proletkult, Strike combines radical theatrical conceits with constructivist graphics and filmic experiments to achieve its idealistic aim.

Yet Strike is anything but a cold experiment in film structure. Moving briskly from playful comedy to bitter tragedy to pulse-pounding exhilaration, it is a visual dynamo that demonstrates the cinema's power to capture the imagination, dazzle the senses, and ignite political and artistic revolutions.

Synopsis courtesy of Kino Lorber.

Alloy Orchestra

Alloy Orchestra is a three man musical ensemble, writing and performing live accompaniment to classic silent films. Working with an outrageous assemblage of peculiar objects, they thrash and grind soulful music from unlikely sources.

Performing at prestigious film festivals and cultural centers in the US and abroad (The San Francisco Silent Film Festival, The Telluride Film Festival, The Louvre, Lincoln Center, The Academy of Motion Pictures, the National Gallery of Art and others), Alloy has helped revive some of the great masterpieces of the silent era.

An unusual combination of found percussion and state-of-the-art electronics gives the Orchestra the ability to create any sound imaginable.

Utilizing their famous “rack of junk” and electronic synthesizers, the group generates beautiful music in a spectacular variety of styles. They can conjure up a French symphony or a simple German bar band of the 20’s. The group can make the audience think it is being attacked by tigers, contacted by radio signals from Mars or swept up in the Russian Revolution.