It's strange to say this, but right from the start
I discovered how different he was.
When he arrived -
and Alfredo Bini's production manager was there...
Enzo Ocone -
for The Hawks and the Sparrows he brought a list of music
that I was supposed to incorporate into the film,
music that already existed.
I told him...
“I think you've got the wrong person.
You should get someone else.
I'm a composer who enjoys writing music.
I write music.
I don't tailor other people's music to a film.”
He wasn't taken aback at all.
He said very politely, “Then do as you think best.”
He's the only director who's ever told me that.
Others have told me, “Do this here.
Make it sound like Tchaikovsky," etc.
In those cases I either convinced them
not to imitate anyone, or I turned them down.
I turned most of them down and insulted a few as well.
But Pasolini showed the greatest respect
for other people's professions.
This was always true, up to the very last film.
It's not like, after we'd worked together,
he started getting more casual with me.
It was me who began to behave differently with him.
Because, although for The Hawks and the Sparrows he said...
“Do as you like...”
and asked for just one little thing,
which I realized was a bit of superstition on his part
held over from earlier films, The Gospel...
and the film before that - his first film -
He'd used Bach.
For The Hawks and the Sparrows, he asked me to include -
on a wind instrument, I think it was,
a little flute or an ocarina -
he wanted me to include a melody from Mozart.
I said fine. That was no problem.
I didn't have to imitate anyone.
You just take the Mozart melody and insert it
in the score of the musician who was to play it.
And that's what we did. There was no problem.
But...
after that...
from The Decameron
to The Canterbury Tales.
and Arabian Nights,
for my part...
I completely let go of any objections to his requests.
It was a sort of debt I owed him
for that initial politeness.
For Pasolini 's Trilogy of Life -
The Decameron, The Canterbury Tales,
and Arabian Nights -
we didn't set out to tie the music for all three together.
We talked about the music for each film,
and where it was already indicated in the screenplay,
that music had to be there,
so my hands were tied more and more, almost completely.
I didn't want to take credit for the music,
because essentially none of it was mine.
I didn 't want to take credit for the music
because, as I already said,
from The Decameron on, I'd given up control,
and it was necessary, when dealing
with someone so kind and polite,
so respectful toward my profession,
to incorporate the music he asked for,
which had been conceived along with the screenplay.
So he wasn't just spontaneously forcing things on me
to get back at me
for my professional decision
not to use or imitate other people's music.
So it worked well that way,
and I was also happy to go along
with what the screenplay clearly called for.
What I did was entirely in the service of the film,
a hundred percent.
I didn 't need to research anything.
Pasolini had already decided on everything.
I couldn't tell him no. He'd been too understanding,
too courteous, too respectful of my role.
He'd filmed these things...
and this was the music that was called for.
He wasn 't getting back at me for anything.
But for me it was partly about gradually surrendering to him.
I always composed the music for Pasolini's films afterward.
I remember that for The Canterbury Tales
I called in...
bagpipes to play,
because the screenplay itself
called for that.
So I really had to hoist
a white flag in terms of his requests.
I certainly felt a bit more free on the third film.
He gave me free rein.
Because it has original music of mine.
But there's also the Mozart quartet
in that very beautiful scene.
There you can see the progress he'd made
in terms of
positioning the camera
and choosing the best spots.
The scene with the Mozart quartet was beautiful.
And except for that scene, it was all original music,
real symphonic music.
I was free to choose anything else for the other pieces.
The fact the film was set in Yemen
didn 't influence the music in any way.
His style makes that clear too:
Whats a Mozart quartet got to do with a scene set in Yemen?
Yet it works wonderfully,
because it contrasts perfectly the poverty we see on-screen
with the richness implicit in Mozart's music.
So what seems like
a complete disconnect between music and image
actually highlights the distance
between the richness of Mozart and the poverty.
It greatly accentuates the poverty we see.
I made six films with him, I believe:
The Hawks and the Sparrows, Teorema, The Decameron,
The Canterbury Tales,
Arabian Nights, and Salo.
Once we'd met,
he always turned to me.
It was a great display of trust that he accorded me.
I remember very well:
He was very shy with me.
He was very shy with everyone.
It was a sad sort of shyness.
He always had a bit of a frown.
But that never kept him from being courteous and respectful.
But he was disheartened, sad...
so he didn't open up.
He couldn't open up
to the people around him.
He showed unwavering respect to everyone,
but he was closed up inside himself.