Marc Ribot recently sat down with Flavorwire to talk about his score for Charlie Chaplin’s The Kid, which he will be performing this Sunday at LPR:
I did not use Charlie Chaplin’s score [which he created in 1971] as a reference. I admire his score greatly, and his writing greatly, but I did not want to use that as a reference because my interest in this, as with everything else, comes from doing a particular reading. And my particular reading of this film is as a contemporary film. This is kind of striking to me. When I first saw the film as a kid — like 45 years ago — it seemed really old. It seemed ancient. It was kind of walled off in this ghetto of the past. So much so that the content of the film seemed funny even when the characters weren’t being intentionally funny. It seemed inherently funny for something to be that old. Whereas, when I look at it now, I don’t see old. I see a contemporary story about a single father in economically really hard conditions. And I don’t think it’s only that I’ve changed. And it certainly isn’t the film that’s changed. It’s the same film. Perhaps it’s partly me that’s changed. [Laughs].
Get tickets to Sunday night’s performance here!