The Crowd with Live Score from Matthew Bourne

King Vidor’s silent classic The Crowd is a landmark in realist filmmaking and a lacerating critique of the American dream. John Sims is a young man who travels to New York City in search of his fortune but ends up as a corporate drone in the cavernous empire of the Atlas Insurance Company. He falls in love with a beautiful young woman and they get married and have kids, but then tragedy strikes and everything starts to fall apart. Presented by Opera North with a live accompaniment by pianist Matthew Bourne. This event is ticketed by Opera North. Passes will not be able to be redeemed against this event. Please visit leedsfilm. com for more information.

‘I wanted to pick out one floor of a tall building, and one office, one window, and one desk and one man. But how do you go up to the 22nd floor, in those days before zoom lenses and before booms? We built the building lying down on the stage, and then with a bridgework for the perambulator, [the] camera could go up the building, and then when we tilted it down to that floor, we zoomed close to the window. We then went to a shot that was shot on a big empty stage with 200 desks, and 200 men sitting at the desks. Then [using an overhead rigging originally intended for lighting] we tracked across the room and settled on one man.’

King Vidor, Director, from the TV Series, The Men Who Made the Movies, 1973.