The Book of Vision

The emerging composer delivers an emotionally charged soundtrack in Carlo Hintermann's directorial debut.

Composer Hanan Townshend’s new score for The Book of Vision is now available on Amazon. The Terrence Malick production marks swiss documentarian Carlo Hintermann’s directorial debut.

'This film faces the reality of life and death, our hopes and fears, and inspires us to live life to the fullest,' says Townshend of the mind-bending journey.

Hintermann describes The Book of Vision as “a game of mirrors between two dimensions, inspired by the type of storytelling in video games.”

The production's international cast includes Charles Dance (“Game of Thrones”), Lotte Verbeek (“Outlander,” “The Borgias”), Sverrir Gudnason (“Borg vs. McEnroe”), Isolda Dychauk (“The Borgias,” “Faust”) and Italian actor Filippo Nigro.

Far from a traditional scientific perspective, the book, written by Dr. Anmuth, contains the hopes, fears, and dreams of over 1800 patients. It’s also a manuscript that takes past and present and hurls them into an unexpected psychological vortex.

The haunting soundtrack interlaces pre-recorded arrangements and improvisations to transport ake audiences through a profoundly emotional musical experience that flutters between realms. Townshend’s musical mosaic of old, new, and futuristic sounds beautifully compliments Hinterman’s time jumping journey.

According to Townshend, the score is built around the saxophone, often riffing off inspiring classical pieces from music luminaries like Brahms and Liszt.

“Compositionally, the original work is an extension of this world, blending clarinet, saxophone ensemble, and strings to enhance the woody soundscape. Federico Pascucci’s musical additions also bring a lovely romantic heartbeat,' says the Seattle based composer known for scoring Terrence Malick’s Knight of Cups, To the Wonder, and Sound to Sound.

The full score, composed of 22 tracks, is a collaboration between Townshend, Errichetta Underground, and the Bulgarian National Radio Symphony Orchestra.

The release of Hintermann’s theatrical debut is a significant milestone for the young composer. This project, which recently debuted at the Venice International Film Critics’ Week in Italy, is a testament to the soft-spoken musician’s musical and professional advancement. In The Book of Vision, Townshend takes his spellbinding arrangements and injects raw and poignant accents that make up a genuinely original sonic kaleidoscope.

This year, the in-demand musician also became a significant contender in the commercial music sector by scoring music for global iconic brands like Google, Nike, American Express, and Apple, among others.

Townshend is currently scoring On The Line, the true story of a Mexican orphanage, Casa Hogar, struggling to survive after Hurricane Odile hit in 2014.

For more information on Hanan, please visit www.hanantownshend.com.

More info at: Hanan Townshend

Plaza Mayor Company presents the official soundtrack album for the drama The Book of Vision. The album contains the music composed and performed by Hanan Townshend with Errichetta Underground and Federico Pascucci.

Plaza Mayor Company presents the official soundtrack album for the drama The Book of Vision. The album contains the music composed and performed by Hanan Townshend with Errichetta Underground and Federico Pascucci.

The soundtrack is available digitally on September 1, 2020 on Amazon and all major digital music stores.

The Book of Vision is directed by Carlo Hintermann with Charles Dance, Lotte Verbeek, Sverrir Gudnason, Isolda Dychauk, Rocco Gottlieb, Justin Korovkin and Filippo Nigro.

Eva, a promising young doctor, leaves her brilliant career to study History of Medicine in a remote university. Now is the time for her to call everything into question: her nature, her body, her illness, and her sealed fate.

Johan Anmuth is an 18th-century Prussian physician in perpetual conflict between the rise of rationalism and ancient forms of animism. The Book of Vision is a manuscript that sweeps these two existences up, blending them into a never-ending vortex. Far from a proper scientific text, the book contains the hopes, fears, and dreams of more than 1800 patients. Dr. Anmuth truly knew how to listen to his patients, whose spirits still wander through the pages, life and death, merging in a continuous flow. The story of Anmuth and his patients inspire Eva to live her life to the fullest.

Nothing expires in its time. Only what you desire is real, not merely what happens.

“The possibility of traveling through time has always fascinated me and it may be why I fell in love with cinema. It allows us to leap into different dimensions of time and space. In The Book of Vision, the time travel is a source of strength, both visually and narratively. I grew up with fantasy films of the ‘80s and ‘90s, such as The Goonies, Labyrinth, The Neverending Story and Back to the Future. The mechanism in these films is almost always the same: a door is opened onto an unexpected fantastic dimension. From a visual point of view, both the contemporary part and the past always take into account this ‘door’: every place, every object, every action has an ambiguous value, poised between two dimensions” says director Carl S. Hintermann.

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