ShakesTheGround sent me this terrific article about Gustavo! Thanks you SO much!! --LynneSpeaking Volumes with his Sound of Silence
Ed Morales
February 4, 2007
For Gustavo Santaolalla, who has just been nominated for an Academy Award for best original music score for "Babel," the most beautiful thing about a film score can be the sound of silence. "When I see a bad movie," Santaolalla said, "I have an image of the director and the editor sitting in the editing room and looking at a scene where nothing is happening and saying, 'let's pump up the music.' That's exactly what I don't like. I only put in music when there's really an emotional need for it. I love the concept of silence ... it leaves space for the dramatic action to take place."
Santaolalla emigrated to Los Angeles from Buenos Aires in 1978, fleeing a repressive regime that had closed down a film school he was attending. He also left an influential band, Arco Iris, and a vibrant rock scene. In L.A., the guitarist-producer toiled for bands such as the Plugz, and eventually became the most influential producer in the Latin alternative genre, working with Caifanes, Café Tacuba, Molotov and Juanes. Then, in 2000, he got a call from the music supervisor of a Mexican film called "Amores Perros."
"I thought we wouldn't be able to do it because there was no time," Santaolalla said. "But in the middle of the night I woke up and said 'How am I going to say no to something that I haven't even read the script for? So Alejandro came over, showed me the movie, and after the first 10 minutes, I said, 'I'm in!' Once we started working together we had a great chemistry, and developed a code between us that has been in effect since that film."
Since "Amores Perros," Santaolalla and director González Iñárritu have worked together on "21 Grams" and "Babel." Santaolalla also did the score for Walter Salles' "The Motorcycle Diaries," and last year won the Academy Award for his score for Ang Lee's "Brokeback Mountain." The trajectory of his career, which created a global audience for Latin alternative, has informed his approach to making soundtracks.
"I feel very much in tune with a global vision from a Hispanic perspective," Santaolalla said. "In 'Brokeback Mountain,' I can hear Argentine troubadour Atahualpa Yupanqui in the things I play. I know most people here don't know who he is, or can't think of him in a Western, but there he is."
The soundtrack to "Babel" features music that sounds exotic, but is difficult to pinpoint. "Because the action takes place in different geographic locations, we created a global sounding score that actually didn't have a direct reference to any particular place."
Santaolalla is working on new albums by Café Tacuba and Juanes, and just produced a track for Calle 13's upcoming album "Tango del Pecado." A new album, "Mar Dulce," by Santaolalla's tango electronica group Bajofondo Tango Club, featuring guest appearances by Nelly Furtado, Gustavo Cerati and La Mala Rodríguez, is set to come out in April.
http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/music/ny-fflatin5075022feb04,0,7386203.story?coll=ny-music-headlines
