Q&A: Ken Winokur of Alloy Orchestra

If you have attended one of the world-renowned Alloy Orchestra’s performances at the Wex in the past, then you well remember their one-of-kind musical cacophony of metallic banging and clanging to such world classics as Metropolis (1927), The General (1926), Man with a Movie Camera (1929), and more. The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based trio, comprised of Ken Winokur, Terry Donahue, and Roger Miller, returns October 16 with a film that is a departure in style and tone. 

Fresh off the world premiere at August’s Telluride Film Festival, the Alloy will accompany a new restoration of Jean Epstein’s Coeur fidèle (1923), an unconventional melodrama set on the docks of Marseille. Epstein was an influential film critic, theorist, and filmmaker, and this is a wonderful opportunity to see one of his masterpieces on the big screen with a live score.

I asked Alloy’s Ken Winokur a few questions about the film in anticipation of their visit.

Dave: The films that I have seen you accompany and the films that you have performed with at the Wexner Center—Metropolis, The General, Man with a Movie Camera—have tended to be more canonical, for lack of a better word. While Jean Epstein is a well-known filmmaker, Coeur fidèle is not terribly well known. What attracted you to this film in particular?

Ken: This one was a commission. We were asked to compose a new score for this film specifically by Tom Luddy and Paolo Cherchi Usai for this year’s Telluride Film Festival. Roger, Terry and I were taken with it right away. It’s a beautiful film. The restoration by the Cinémathèque Française is striking.

"We thought of ourselves as a French bistro band, more accordion, more clarinet, more prominent musical saw."

D: Epstein is perhaps most associated with The Fall of the House of Usher (1928). But this earlier film is quite different.

K: Right. Usher is a bit more surreal, more visually dramatic. Many consider Coeur fidèle to be an avant garde film, but it’s a fairly conventional love story or love triangle. Yet, at the same time, it’s a very gritty depiction of the lower class set amidst the docks of Marseille. Epstein uses a graphic style to tell what is otherwise a simple story—lots of superimpositions and double-exposures, for example—and this is one of the first films to really tell the story through close-ups. It has a completely different feel than a Hollywood film, for example, from the same period.

D: Again, it’s quite different from the films that I’ve seen you accompany in the past. What were the challenges in approaching a film like this?

K: It’s true, this is a much quieter film than to what we’re accustomed. We’re known for clanging and banging and a louder metal sound. We love fights, and chases and revolutions. We love a good revolution. For Coeur fidèle, we had to create a more balanced score, quieter, more contemplative. We thought of ourselves as a French bistro band, more accordion, more clarinet, more prominent musical saw. Our keyboardist Roger Miller is really front-and-center for this film, he has a larger role in creating that French bistro feel. And I’m a lifelong percussionist and came to the clarinet relatively late. It’s a real workout. It’s athletics of the lip. While everyone was at the beach this summer, I was getting my mouth in shape to get ready for this film. Creating this score presented some challenges, but no matter the film we have to come up with an original score so it was no different in that regard.

Image: Alloy Orchestra (L to R) Roger Miller, Ken Winokur, and Terry Donohue, photo by Ivan Singer.