‘The Trail of ’98’ to be screened in Waterville Dec. 1

Mark Tipton and Les Sorciers Perdus to perform a live, newly-composed score to accompany “The Trail of ‘98.” Submitted photo

WATERVILLE – The Maine Film Center and the Colby College Museum of Art plan to hold a one-night-only event featuring a screening of the silent film “The Trail of ‘98” with a live, and original, accompaniment by Mark Tipton and Les Sorciers Perdus.

Free and open to all, this event is set for 7 p.m. Friday, Dec. 1, at the 93 Main St. center as a part of December’s Downtown Waterville First Friday celebrations.

Trumpeter, composer, and educator Tipton has toured the U.S and Europe extensively with his jazz stylings. He is pursuing his Doctorate in Musical Arts degree in jazz studies at the New England Conservatory of Music.

“My original score for Clarence Brown’s 1928 silent film, ‘The Trail of ’98,’ offers a blend of vintage and contemporary jazz, classical, and folk music sonorities, as well as sound signifiers, to convey the struggle encountered by the Klondike Gold Rush prospectors,” said Tipton, according to a news release from the center. “The film’s narrative includes romance, adventure, aspiration, defeat, and betrayal, so there is no shortage of variety in the requisite musical themes that I composed.”

“The Trail of ’98,” one of the last great films of the Silent Era, is based on the 1910 novel of the same name written by Robert W. Service. Featuring Harry Carey and Dolores del Río as fortune hunters seeking to strike it big in the Klondike Gold Rush, the film was shot in part on location in Alaska at heights of 11,600 feet and in temperatures of 60 degrees below zero.

“Fans of the Maine International Film Festival will certainly recognize the tremendous and immersive productions that Mark Tipton and Les Sorciers Perdus bring to a silent film screening,” said Mike Perreault, executive director of the Maine Film Center. “They are truly anything but silent, with Tipton’s compositions totally transforming classic films into fully satisfying new experiences.”

Ticket reservations are recommended. The film has a runtime of one hour and 27 minutes and is unrated.

For more information, visit mainefilmcenter.org.