Film screening- ‘The Silver Trumpet’ (1961), written and directed by Enrico Cocozza
Live soundtrack by Hawse (Gavin Laird, Raymond Prior and Mark Scanlan)
The former market town of Wishaw in North Lanarkshire is not often considered a hotbed of bohemian culture. Having never fully recovered since the closure of the Ravenscraig steelworks in 1992, the town may appear rather nondescript and even down-at-heel in some respects.
Scratch the surface, however, and the town reveals a hidden history of artistic endeavour that includes one of Scotland’s first punk/mod bands, The Jolt (whose excellent 1978 album is still easily available) and more recently, the adventurous ‘wonky hip-hop’ of Kobra Audio Labs.
More surprising, however, is the story of Enrico Cocozza, a Scots-Italian surrealist filmmaker who lived and worked above the family ice cream parlour/cafe at Wishaw Cross. Cocozza’s life story is worthy of a film in itself. Having studied with Jean Cocteau and King Vidor, Rico (as he was known to his friends) worked both in Italy and Lanarkshire, producing and directing 63 documentary films and a series of self-scripted surrealist works.
Cocozza used Wishaw and the surrounding area as the backdrop for his films and recruited amateur actors from the clientele of the cafe. One of the actors was young Gerry Scanlan, whose son Mark is the innovative experimental musician behind Kobra Audio Labs. Scanlan Jnr has long harboured a fascination with one of the films his father starred in, ‘The Silver Trumpet’ (1961), the last colour film that Cocozza shot.
The enigmatic filmmaker – once memorably described as “Wishaw’s David Lynch”- had the foresight to leave all his films to the Scottish Film Archive, having seemingly predicted the chip shop fire that would destroy his home and take his life two years later. For reasons unknown, the soundtrack (mostly instrumental, with some dialogue) has been lost, and so a perfect opportunity presented itself for Gerry Scanlan’s resourceful son to bridge two creative generations by devising a brand new soundtrack for ‘The Silver Trumpet’.
Mark Scanlan recruited two friends and fellow improvisational musicians, Raymond Prior and Gavin Laird (both ex-Telstar Ponies) and together they composed a series of musical pieces which were premiered at today’s performance under the band name ‘Hawse’. A multi-media community arts festival held in the heart of Easterhouse, Glasgow, Outskirts was an appropriately family-friendly event to launch the new soundtrack.
The auditorium at The Bridge in Easterhouse boasted a healthy attendance as the trio took to the stage, flanked by a large poster bearing Cocozza’s image. The next 40 minutes was increasingly absorbing and surreal, as Cocozza’s perplexing film unfolded, locations such as Wishaw’s Belhaven Park and Cleland Bridge instantly recognisable to many in the audience.
Seated directly in front of me was Gerry Scanlan, while on the screen his 15-year old self stood atop a craggy outcrop, blowing the eponymous silver trumpet, a mysterious and perhaps metaphysical object which had the power to reverse time and change outcomes. Over the course of the film, Scanlan’s character passed the trumpet to another boy, who seemed to take on angelic qualities whilst in possession of the artifact, later suffering some kind of brutal reacquaintance with mortal terrors when the trumpet was returned.
Cocozza’s film evoked a rush of emotions; at once poignant, puzzling, charming and – with the passing of time- elegiac, ‘The Silver Trumpet’ captured images of adolescence that shared similarities to those portrayed in key works contemporary to the next generation, Bill Forsyth’s ‘Gregory’s Girl’ and the early fiction of Ian McEwan and Iain Banks.
Rather beautifully, the Lanarkshire backdrop seemed at times to magically transmute into rural Italy, but perhaps this was more a function of Cocozza’s Symbolist vignettes, which had much in common with those of European filmmakers such as Spanish surrealist Luis Buñuel.
One striking scene of a young couple dancing to the accompaniment of the silver trumpet brought to mind the transcendentally beautiful dance scene in Carlos Saura’s ‘Cria Cuervos’ (1976), which seemed to symbolise a belief that people will find harmony naturally in the absence of authoritarian control.
This scene also featured a lyrical guitar solo by the remarkable Gavin Laird, a distinctly eloquent guitarist who appeared equally well-acquainted with the innovations of Sonny Sharrock, Lou Reed and Lanarkshire’s maverick sons, William Reid and Stuart Braithwaite. With Raymond Prior on bass and Mark Scanlan also on guitar, the trio displayed a sympatico sense of purpose, delivered with passion and sensitivity.
Without the original soundtrack and occasional dialogue, ‘The Silver Trumpet’ has become even more mysterious and open to interpretation then it was when it was first released in 1961. The new soundtrack by Hawse sought to “extend this mystery and invite the audience to make their own conclusions”. Utilising programmed beats with live guitars and bass, the three-piece purveyed a viscerally atmospheric sound, which combined the darker moments from the Velvet Underground’s early, John Cale-era albums with elements of Mogwai and Ennio Morricone.
Raymond Prior provided well-judged vocals on one piece, but otherwise the music was entirely instrumental, its funereal intensity heightening the cryptic drama of the film. It all made for a truly immersive experience, the audience’s attention being drawn hither and thither by the vigour of the music, the elusive nature of the film’s meaning and symbolism, and the richly evocative local locations.
It is to be hoped that Laird, Prior and Scanlan will perform the screening and live accompaniment on further occasions; the soundtrack is easily powerful enough to stand alone and demands to be documented in some form.
In ‘The Silver Trumpet’, Enrico Cocozza has gifted future generations a mystery of possibilities, which lingers long in the psyche after viewing. The new soundtrack’s three co-composers have succeeded in matching and deepening the evocative magical realism of the film. The resulting revival of this intriguing work serves as a window both to Lanarkshire’s past and its future. Hawse are planning further screenings and performances; miss them at your peril.
Kobra Audio Labs is on Facebook.
Enrico Cocozza filmography is online at the Scottish Screen Archive.
”Go on and blow, Gabriel, blow!” (Cole Porter).
(Photo: Dan Shay at Platform)