Avant garde filmmaker Harry Smith once said “any film can go with any music.” This Saturday, as part of the Block Cinema series, the Chicago band Califone will try to validate Mr. Smith’s seemingly-absurd claim with a performance that combines live music with experimental film making.

The show is broken into two parts: the first has Califone improvising with experimental filmmakers Carolyn Faber and Jeff Economy, and the second sees the band accompanying “Mascot,” a puppet movie from the 1930s. Califone singer/guitarist Tim Rutili says the movie features “a stiffed puppy, the devil, a sick little girl, an orange and a lot of garbage coming to life.”

Rutili & Co. began exploring the relationship of film and music after they were asked to improvise a soundtrack to Beat-era film pioneer Smith’s “Early Abstractions” for the Images Film Festival earlier this year. Rutili says Califone’s brand of “American folk music (combined) with electronic and ambient elements” meshes well with film.

“The music is all about evoking moods and pictures for the listener,” he explains. “When combined with film it is either going to enhance it, or it is going to suck. The risk involved is one of the things that is going to make the show fun.”

In the first set, says Rutili, improvisation and instinct are key because “the filmmakers are going to be reacting to the music with their film loops and projectors and we will be reacting to the images that they are throwing at us.”

So whether you are a fan of cinema, music or classic puppets, Califone’s latest experiment has much to offer. Is this the birth of a new art form that can take both music and movies to heights once thought unreachable? All Tim Rutili knows is that patrons can expect to see “some great films with music that they have never heard before.” In short, they can expect to be entertained. nyou