on Saturday August 28 at 4pm and 8pm. The Opéra de Lausanne will host two screenings of The Navigator, the pinnacle of burlesque art created by Buster Keaton and Donald Crisp in 1924. The Jardins Musicaux Orchestra and its conductor Valentin Reymond will accompany the film with a live performance of music specially composed for the event by the British composer Martin Pring and co-produced by the Swiss Film Archive.
Organized in collaboration with the RTS and the children’s film club La Lanterne Magique, these screenings are free for children under 16.
The Navigator
Following an unfortunate set of circumstances, two rich heirs start drifting on their liner in the Atlantic Ocean, until they see an island in the distance that seems to be uninhabited… With The Navigator, Buster Keaton and Donald Crisp create a burlesque comedy, full of misappropriated objects that give rise to situations that are as absurd as they are inventive.
“Keaton is the marriage of the most implacable logic and the most fantastic poetry, of gag and metaphysics. One does not have time to say ‘wow’, to breathe, and one finds oneself carried away by the inexorable machinery of his comedy, transported into a parallel universe where the elements obey the will of a being over whom nothing and no one has any hold” (Alain Rémond, Dictionnaire mondial des films).
The Jardins Musicaux
Under the direction of Valentin Reymond, the Jardins Musicaux Orchestra performs premieres, key works from the 20th and 21st centuries and, on occasion, pieces from the romantic repertoire. Composed of 70 musicians, it meets every summer at the Festival Les Jardins Musicaux, as well as on tour. In the field of cinema, the orchestra has given about 100 performances of Chaplin’s films for which the filmmaker wrote the music. In 2018, it began a cycle around Buster Keaton with first Steamboat Bill, Jr. which was screened at the Capitole, then, in 2019, The General, both accompanied by new music composed by Martin Pring and commissioned by the Opéra Décentralisé Neuchâtel. In 2021, a new commission is given to the English composer for The Navigator.
