I remember a dear friend of mine expressing his anger towards Ennio Morricone: ”I don’t understand why he always tells us when and how to feel. There is no free interpretation of the content, and the emotions are induced and manufactured”. I could understand his perspective, and I can also appreciate the kind of realist cinema he personally cherishes. What I could not understand is why be mad at one of the most powerful ‘formalist’ forces (to use a word dear to him) available in the filmmakers toolset?

In a way, I then knew I was not the only person having felt tricked and betrayed by the power of music, feeling strong emotions towards a narrative and visual content that would probably have left me indifferent if it was not for the score. Years ago, this obsession for music in film, and the filmmaking process,