I recently attended the 40th Il Cinema Ritrovato Film Festival in Bologna and picked up some fascinating insights into Timothy Brock’s new scores for three major restorations: two Chaplin shorts, A Dog’s Life and Shoulder Arms, and F.W. Murnau’s Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans. What emerged was a surprisingly intricate story about how silent films were originally made, how they survive, and how music interacts with versions of a film that may differ more than audiences realise.
During the silent era, many films were shot with at least two cameras running simultaneously. Each camera produced its own negative, and because analogue film lost quality with every duplication, studios used these multiple negatives strategically. One negative (A) was edited and printed for English‑speaking markets, while the B negative was used for foreign releases, especially in Europe. When restorers work today, they search for the least damaged surviving material, which means a restored film might contain a mixture of A and B negatives resulting in alternate takes, slightly different angles, or subtle variations in performance, when compared to the original release.
Charlie Chaplin complicated this practice even further. For A Dog’s Life and Shoulder Arms, he used four cameras, producing A, B, C, and D negatives. Chaplin’s perfectionism meant he wanted multiple angles and options for every gag, gesture, and emotional beat. These variations matter enormously when comparing the films audiences saw in 1918 with the versions Chaplin re‑released decades later.
Chaplin originally released A Dog’s Life and Shoulder Arms in 1918 through First National Pictures. But in 1959, during his retrospective phase, he re‑released them—along with The Pilgrim—as The Chaplin Review, complete with new scores he composed himself. The catch is that the 1959 versions were assembled from the C and D negatives, not the originals. Chaplin likely didn’t have access to the A and B negatives by that point as he was living in Switzerland, barred from the United States during the McCarthy era. So he may have relied on whatever materials he had.
The new restorations, produced by MoMA in collaboration with the Chaplin Estate, return to the A and B negatives—the versions audiences saw in 1918. Their goal is to honour Chaplin’s original intentions rather than the compromised versions he assembled later in life.
This leads to one of the most intriguing discoveries Timothy Brock shared during his Bologna presentation. Chaplin’s 1959 music actually fits the 1918 versions better than the 1959 versions he scored for. It’s a strange paradox: Chaplin composed music for one set of negatives, yet the music aligns more naturally with the originals. Could this be down to Chaplin’s remarkable memory—or access a home movie print of the original? The truth remains uncertain.
For Brock’s new adaptations, the Chaplin Estate granted him unrestricted access to Chaplin’s original manuscripts. These scores differ from Chaplin’s earlier work on films like The Gold Rush or Modern Times. They use less “Mickey‑Mousing”—the technique of underscoring every action—and rely more on steady tempos and ambient textures. It’s as if Chaplin wanted the films to speak for themselves, letting the music support rather than dominate. Brock’s reworked scores polish Chaplin’s ideas without overshadowing them.
The restoration of Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927), led by the San Francisco Film Preserve, also premiered at this year’s festival with Brock’s new original score. Although the original American negative was destroyed in the 1937 Fox vault fire, the film’s international popularity meant prints survived worldwide. These became essential building blocks for the new restoration. For the original Movietone soundtrack, the team located an excellent surviving print at the British Film Institute. Rob Byrne of San Francisco Film Preserve told me they plan to release a Blu‑ray offering both the Movietone track and Brock’s new score.
Brock first scored Sunrise in the 1980s, but he withdrew that version and never reused its themes. For this new score, he kept only some of the original spotting—the synchronisation points where cues begin and end. Everything else is newly composed. This time, Brock leans into a lush, classical symphonic palette with sweeping strings, bold brass, intricate woodwinds, and expressive percussion. He also incorporates period‑appropriate jazz elements, especially in the city scenes and in moments involving the femme fatale who tempts the protagonist into murder.
The result is a score that feels both historically grounded and dramatically expansive. It beautifully complements Murnau’s visuals, and it’s hard not to hear echoes of Bernard Herrmann in a slightly Hitchcockian style. Of course, if you know your Hitchcock you will know that Murnau, was one of the pioneers of German Expressionism. The similarities to Hitchcock are therefore not a coincidence as Hitchcock learned German Expressionism in Germany and this style certainly influenced his early films, if not all his films. In terms of the aesthetic of “Sunrise”, both the visual aesthetic and Tim Brock’s musical aesthetic, there is a lot of resemblance to Hermann’s scores for films like “Vertigo” and maybe even “North by Northwest”, with strong textures that build and swell and that suddenly explode in a big cacophony of sound and colour. Brock’s score taps into that shared aesthetic heritage, amplifying the film’s emotional and visual power.
Brock’s new scores for these new restorations highlight how silent cinema is never truly fixed. It’s a living, evolving art form shaped by surviving materials, historical memory, and the artistry of those who bring it back to life. The same is true for the accompanying music, and hearing Brock’s scores paired with these newly restored versions felt like rediscovering the films themselves.
To find out more about the film restorations, please check out my other blog: Charlie Nelson on Silent Screen.
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