Antonio Pérez Olea como compositor y director de documentales (1963-1973)

Antonio Perez Olea (Madrid, 1923-2005) is an atypical author among the cinematographic composers of the New Spanish Cinema. He combined his musical studies with studies of photography and sound in the School of Cinematography of Madrid, in addition to other national and international centers. In his musical production, during more than three decades since 1960, it is necessary to emphasize his participation in films of representative directors of the Madrilenian cinema and of the Barcelona’s School, like Jorge Grau, Mario Camus, Vicente Aranda, Manuel Summers or Luis Garcia Berlanga. Perez Olea developed a prolific work, which includes music for more than forty films and eighty documentaries in different format. In this article we will focus on a selection of documentaries by Perez Olea, in which the author worked as composer and director of photography, following previous research on his 1960 films, in which he developed this dual role. The genre of documentary has special value in the work of Perez Olea, as a way for experimentation. We will analyze the short documentaries in which Perez Olea was also in charge of directing from 1963 to 1973, highlighting works such as El rio que no cesa (1967), La luz y la sombra (1971), La Vejez Luminosa (1971), El camino a la musica contemporanea (1973). Thus, we will study how the sound discourse is articulated in relation to the image and the script, to elaborate the messages that underlie Perez Olea’s proposals, seeking common procedures that can identify the author's audiovisual work.