Conference ‘Music, the invisible script of cinema’ with Roque Baños – ARTICLE
On February 20th, Roque Baños was the protagonist of the meeting “La música, guion invisible del cine/ Music, the invisible script of cinema”, held at the CCCC – Centre del Carme Cultura Contemporània in Valencia, Spain, where he revealed the keys to his art led by Luis Ivars (read more).
Our colleague Frederic Torres attended the event and offers us this exclusive article for SoundTrackFest.
NOTE: The article contains a link to the full video of the conference.
CONFERENCE ROQUE BAÑOS CCCC-CLAVES DE CINE. CENTRE DEL CARMEN CULTURA CONTEMPORÀNIA, VALENCIA, 20-02-2025
Last Thursday, February 20, was the closing day of the first edition of CCCC-Claves para el Cine, a series of educational meetings aimed at the professional sector (there was a large presence of producers, actors and some composers, such as the Valencian Vicente Ortiz Gimeno), but open to the public with essential of Spanish cinema, organized by Rafael Maluenda, veteran director of the Cinema Jove festival, with a conference and colloquium on film music by Roque Baños, seconded by Luis Ivars from Alicante as a luxury moderator.
For almost a year, this edition has been attended by such well-known figures as actor and director Santiago Segura, cinematographer José Luís Alcaine, director Gracia Querejeta, and directors Rodrigo Cortés, Paco Plaza, and Fernando Colomo, as well as Félix Murcia, artistic director, being Baños, in the good company of Ivars, the only representatives of their profession, composers.
The Jumilla-born composer, known for his association with popular Hispanic directors such as Emilio Martínez-Lázaro (El Otro Lado de la Cama, Las 13 Rosas -for which he won the Goya for best music in 2007-), Álex de la Iglesia (800 balas, Los Crímenes de Oxford -for which he also won the Goya for best score in 2008-), Daniel Monzón (El Corazón del Guerrero, Celda 211), and Segura himself (director of the popular Torrente saga, for which Baños has been entirely in charge), began his dissertation by orienting it towards the creation of leiv-motivs through which to articulate an emotional narration, parallel to that of the images of the film, seconded by Ivars, who affirmed that the task of composers could be defined as that of being the “psychologists of the film”, since they elaborate “emotional scripts”, considering music as the most emotional part of the whole set of cinematographic sections that make up the “whole” that results in a film.
In this sense, despite the enormous amount of work carried out by Baños since his debut at the end of the last century/millennium with Carreteras Secundarias (1997), by the aforementioned Martínez-Lázaro, before continuing with the first installment of Torrente, el Brazo Tonto de la Ley (1998), the smash hit that catapulted its actor/director to fame, all the examples he presented were taken from his international projects. Such was the case of Evil Dead (2013), the horror film directed by Uruguayan director Fede Álvarez, in which Baños explained how he used a series of sounds provoked by unusual objects, including a pencil hitting on a keyboard, or a horn with a “screeching” sound. Similarly, Baños commented on various specific moments of Risen (2016), a film by Kevin Reynolds starring Joseph Fiennes, about the resurrection of Christ, recreating the moment when the character of the Roman Clavius, played by Fiennes, becomes aware of what is really happening to the crucified Jesus.
The same happened with Terry Gilliam’s film, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (2018), in which the ex-Monty Phyton finally managed to carry out his adaptation of Cervantes’ immortal novel, from which the attack of the Knight of the Sad Figure on the windmills, considered by him as giants, was selected. Finally, Ron Howard’s film In the Heart of the Sea (2015) was also chosen, selecting the lyrical sequence in which Chris Hemsworth, who plays the harpooner Owen Chase, decides not to stick his harpoon into the supposedly monstrous whale that besieges them.
Baños also used the piano, prepared for the occasion in the hall, when interpreting some examples in a direct and personal way, something that the audience enjoyed, confirming the composers’ statements about the considered “Classical Music of the 21st Century”. As Ivars tried to explain, it would have replaced it (predicting that it will be more and more demanded) in concert halls given the direction of the so-called contemporary music, devoid of tonality, and from which in principle emotions are more absent, given the “immediacy” provided by film music.
However, in spite of this, both declared themselves followers of that minority audience that goes to theaters to listen to that atonal music, even commenting on the circumstance of having to face several works in which producers/directors have expressly requested the absence of melodies in order not to distract the viewer from the action of the images. This was an issue that was later expanded in the question and answer session, extending the talk to two and a half hours, where interesting topics were raised such as the current trend about the preferences of part of the industry for a textural and non-tonal music, due to the great demand for productions to fill the content of the catalog of the various and multiple television platforms, which supposedly would have generated some homogenization in audiovisual music. Other questions directly related to the recording editions also arose, such as the maximum entity of film music outside the screen, beyond the narrative functions that it implies, as well as the disappearance of these, caused by the production companies, who are the holders of the music rights, and who do not wish, for whatever reason (probably, economic criteria have a lot to do with it) to release the corresponding compact disc, as they have been doing so far.
In short, an extensive interactive conference that was attended by a large and varied audience, to whom Maluenda thanked for their presence in this and previous calls, becoming a magnificent finishing touch with which to culminate a more than interesting initiative dedicated to the world of cinema. After the conference, Baños and Ivars, had the courtesy to attend to part of the public at the door of the CCCC Centre del Carme Cultura Contemporània, an old restored convent that has become one of the most emblematic cultural spaces of the capital of the Turia (beyond the controversial and opaque political decisions taken to govern the destinies of the Center by the Valencian autonomous rulers), and which is the headquarters of the Consortium of Museums of the Valencian Community. Both composers were photographed with the fans who attended the event, in addition to signing the occasional cover of the discs in physical format that the most faithful followers of film music still insist on acquiring from the (few) existing specialized labels. All a metaphor, this one of the formats, of the change of paradigm that is affecting the audiovisual music in its journey towards the virtual digital spaces, and that, seen what has been seen, appears in the distance as definitive and irreversible.
Article and pictures by Frederic Torres
NOTE: Full video of the conference – CCCC-CLAVES PARA EL CINE | Roque Baños (2h 21m):
