SXSWORLD

Instincts and Imagination Key to Gustavo Santaolalla's Award-Winning Film Scores By Lissette Corsa of the most compelling film score com- posers in Hollywood, plus he fronts his own electro-tango fusion band and over- sees his own music label (not to mention being a father and a husband and staying true to his Latin American heritage). Santaolalla refers to all this as a col- orful life filled with moments of danger and magic. "I don't know how I do it, but it helps A nything is possible in Gustavo world. He's an in-demand music producer and one Santaolalla's over 13 years that explored the landscape of Argentinean folk music. It caught the ear of director Michael Mann, who ended up using one of the tracks in his film The Insider. Mexican director Alejandro González ning film score composer for his work on Brokeback Mountain and Babel, Santaolalla first made a name for him- self as a teenager in the Argentine rock band Arco Iris. His breakthrough in the United States came many years after he tapped into the rock en español scene in Mexico, where he produced albums for seminal bands such as Maldita Vecindad and Cafe Tacuba. By his own estimate, he has produced more than 100 records, including everything from Colombian heartthrob Juanes and Mexican Latin- alternative songstress Julieta Venegas to the Kronos Quartet and Mexican rap-punk outfit, Molotov. Santaolalla began playing guitar at age five in his native Argentina. that I surround myself with people that I trust and people that I think are great individuals," said Santaolalla from his home in Los Angeles. "And I'm always involved in the process of whatever it is I'm doing. I've always been true to my identity; it's one of the aspects that to me is very important to nurture and to keep alive." A two-time Academy Award win- " I don't know how I do it, but it helps that I surround myself with people that I trust and people that I think are great individuals." By age 10, he was composing, making his first record at 16. A film lover ("Movies are something that have always fascinated me since I was a kid," he says), he dreamed of enrolling in his country's institute of cinematography before the right-wing military junta shut it down. In 1978, Santaolalla fled Argentina and settled in L.A. He finally got the chance to marry his love of making music with his Iñárritu heard the record and invited Santaolalla to score the films Amores Perros and 21 Grams. Santaolalla also wrote music for Walter Salles' The Motorcycle Diaries, and soon he became known for his minimalist and culturally eclectic approach to composing film scores. "Even if I'm doing a movie like Brokeback Mountain, you would never think ... I mean it's funny because it's a piece of Americana directed by a Chinese director, the director of photography is a Mexican guy and the guy that created the music an Argentinean," Santaolalla said. "But even in that music, I can still hear things like Atahualpa Yupanqui and people that have influenced me from where I come from. Sometimes I'm looking for an instrument that will carry me in the journey of seeing the movie. In the case of Babel, I used the oud; it's an instrument of Arabic origin. Sometimes there's something that could perfectly work in different worlds— in this case the Moroccan story with the Mexican-Los Angeles story." Despite a nearly 40-year career, love of film in the 1980 movie She Dances Alone, a little-known film directed by Robert Domhelm that was never distributed. It would take another record unrelated to the film world for Santaolalla to get noticed as a film composer. In 1998, encouraged by some of the traditional artists he had recorded, he released Ronroco, an album made up of mostly solo pieces recorded 32 SXSW ORLD / F EBRUAR Y 2010 him more freedom that results in a stronger symbiosis between cinema and music. "I like the abstraction of reading the script and working with my rela- tionship with the characters and how I imagine that," Santaolalla relates. "Just by a having a few good conversations with the director. I'd rather work from that. I think of myself not as a film composer; I come from a different angle. I think there's great film music done with orchestras and more symphonic stuff, and I admire and love that, but I also think it's not the only way to compose music for film." n Santaolalla does not read or write sheet music, and he records by instinct before even a single scene has been shot. In this way, he is more invested in the film's creative process, he explains. It also gives "A Conversation with Gustavo Santaolalla," moderated by Doreen Ringer-Ross of BMI, will take place at the SXSW Film Conference. Santaolalla's band, Bajofondo will perform during the SXSW Music Festival on Thursday, March 18, at the Lady Bird Lake Stage on Auditorium Shores. See my.sxsw.com for details.

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