Within the movie, a journalist (voiced by Jeff Goldblum) is intrigued listening to an unfamiliar pianist on a Bossa Nova album, and goes down a rabbit gap of looking for out who Tenório Jr was, why he disappeared, and what actually occurred to him.
Initially it was deliberate as a documentary, with Trueba doing lots of of hours of interviews with jazz luminaries like Chico Buarque, João Donato, Edu Lobo, Gilberto Gil, Milton Nascimento, Toquinho, Caetano Veloso, and extra, however the documentary facet developed right into a stylized, creative animated characteristic which mirrors the colourful really feel of the music.
AllMusic spoke with Fernando Trueba in regards to the making of the movie, the analysis that went into it, and what he is engaged on subsequent.
AllMusic: Whereas on paper “They Shot the Piano Participant” could possibly be approached as a simple biopic (underappreciated musician is unearthed, the story is revealed, there’s a pleased decision), the movie itself is extra like a detective story—music author “Jeff Harris” makes use of connections, analysis, archived paperwork, and boots-on-the-ground interviews to unearth the story that was both hidden or misattributed for many years. How did you resolve on this partaking method?
Trueba: I wish to name it a musical-thriller-political-documentary. I take the choice of animation primarily based on my expertise within the meantime with my first animation characteristic, “Chico & Rita“.
A documentary would have been “one other” one a couple of “desaparecido” (lacking) individuals, with lots of shut ups of speaking heads remembering. A standard biopic with actors, I’d by no means imagine, so I believed that animation recreation can be the fairest technique to method Tenório, his music and his story.
AllMusic: This movie is a deep dive into the world of Bossa Nova and MPB, and music performed an enormous position in “Chico & Rita,” your different movie with artist Javier Mariscal. Is there one thing inherent in these musical kinds that leads itself to being represented by this distinctive type of stylized animation?
Trueba: We select very completely different kinds of animation, even when Mariscal’s model is variety recognizable. We needed on this one a much less “romantic” method, one thing extra “tough”. There are two historic components in “They Shot the Piano Participant.” There have been fully obligatory as a result of for understanding Tenório’s story it is best to know the context (musical principally) of his “look,” the musical revolution in Brazil on the finish of the ’50s and starting of the ’60s. And in addition, the historic and political context of this dying, the Argentinian coup d’etat and the Latin-American historical past of that interval. Can be a didactic film. I am positive only a few younger individuals know something about all that.
AllMusic: A lot of the analysis within the movie is spent poring over paperwork, whether or not it’s sheet music, information clippings, archival footage, or digging by liner notes on bodily media (LPs and CDs). How necessary do you’re feeling documenting the occasions “as they’re taking place” is to capturing moments for posterity/historical past?
Trueba: Essential. I filmed 135 interviews in Brazil, USA, Spain and France over 2-3 years. They had been the premise for the screenplay.
AllMusic: Did you run into lifeless ends the place you felt that the information that had been documented in textual content (liner notes, music essays, studio data, and many others) had been incomplete?
Trueba: On a regular basis. There have been holes all over the place—within the recollections of the individuals, in the actual information…by no means actually fully clear. There have been many alternative variations, generally contradictory ones.
AllMusic: Certainly one of my private highlights from the movie was when the music author Jeff Harris encountered a reputation on a recording he had by no means heard earlier than, and he went straight to AllMusic to dig deeper into this particular person’s credit. As a filmmaker, what made you consider AllMusic as a useful resource for getting extra data on this little-known jazz artist?
Trueba: That occurred to me after I was investigating for the story. On the time there was no technique to discover the report, and I discovered one in Tokyo, by eBay, in order that’s how I received it. It was later reprinted in Brazil, some years later. I am speaking about 2005!
AllMusic: What are you engaged on subsequent? Is it tied to music not directly?
Trueba: Sure, it’s. I simply completed BAJAÑÍ. Is my second “musical” after “Calle 54.” 100% music, no blablabla in any respect. It is the journey of a flamenco guitar(ist), Niño Josele, in three completely different musical universes: first Flamenco (shot in Spain), secondly Jazz (New York), and the third act in Brazil (São Paulo and Rio). Now we have visitor artists corresponding to Ron Carter, Kenny Barron, Artemis, Caetano Veloso, Rubén Blades, Marisa Monte, and many others… It was an unbelievable expertise for us, a dream made true. And I hope for the viewers will likely be too.
“They Shot the Piano Participant” is out there on Netflix and different streaming platforms.
