Filmmaker brings new life to silent films by adding a rock music soundtrack

By Lisa Hughes

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    BOSTON (WBZ) — A Texas filmmaker is creating the ultimate mashup, resurrecting silent cinema with a new twist, and you will soon be able to see it here in Boston.

With Silents Synced, Josh Frank has taken the 1922 silent film “Nosferatu” and added rock music.

“I always had a fascination with, is there something that can be done with these great silent films that people just don’t watch anymore regularly,” said Frank. “How can I make that exciting and how can I do it independently?”

The F.W. Murnau film now also has amped up visuals and a full soundtrack of Radiohead albums “Kid A” and “Amnesiac.”

“Towards the end of the pandemic, I was messing around with silent movies, and of course I had my headphones on as a gen Xer, I’m listening to alt rock,” explained Frank. Then he thought, “Wow some of these songs really work well with these great classics.”

The idea was also inspired by pre-internet uses of classic rock, like a Pink Floyd laser show or the band’s “Dark Side of the Moon” matching up with the “Wizard of Oz.”

“The idea of sort of these subversive underground pairings that got the cool kids to go out at night.”

Frank also owns a small drive-in theater in Austin called the Blue Starlite which holds up to thirty cars per showing.

And he admits much of this was also done to give struggling independent cinemas something that sets them apart.

He hopes moviegoers will be just as in sync with the vibe of this project as he as he was.

“As the ship’s coming into port with Nosferatu, having the National Anthem from Kid A plays,” Frank says. “It’s very powerful the way it connects. When I first did it in my work room at my home, I got goosebumps watching that. And I was like, I cannot wait to be sitting in a theater and get those goosebumps again and know that some of my audience is getting it too.”

“Nosferatu” will be out in 150 movie theaters in the weeks to come, including many in the Boston area. The next silent movie on Frank’s list is Buster Keaton’s “Sherlock Junior.” That will be paired up with R.E.M. songs from their “Monster” and “New Adventures in Hi Fi” albums and is set to come out in February 2025.

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