On film music: "There are cases in which a film can stand on its own without music, but if music is used, it's better for it to touch the soul and create emotions that the rest of the film cannot do. Music should continue emotions where words finish. Unfortunately most films are flooded with music, due to mediocre scripts and to producers' and directors' lack of talent".

I think that is what film and art and music do; they can work as a map of sorts for your feelings.

When we experience a film, we consciously prime ourselves for illusion. Putting aside will and intellect, we make way for it in our imagination. The sequence of pictures plays directly on our feelings. Music works in the same fashion; I would say that there is no art form that has so much in common with film as music. Both affect our emotions directly, not via the intellect. And film is mainly rhythm; it is inhalation and exhalation in continuous sequence.

When we experience a film, we consciously prime ourselves for illusion. Putting aside will and intellect, we make way for it in our imagination. The sequence of pictures plays directly on our feelings. Music works in the same fashion; I would say that there is no art form that has so much in common with film as music. Both affect our emotions directly, not via the intellect. And film is mainly rhythm; it is inhalation and exhalation in continuous sequence. Ever since childhood, music has been my great source of recreation and stimulation, and I often experience a film or play musically.

Finally, the role of sound in these films is very important, and directors give it a lot of attention. We work hard, we try, it is not just enough to illustrate. We must build a character in its own music.

What’s really interesting about music and the audience, whether that’s a soundtrack audience or a listening audience… of course, we’re talking about soundtracks. My music was really designed very, very much to go to the image. I was never thinking about people listening to it without the image. There are some composers whose music really lends itself to pleasurable, interesting, listening, and sometimes, that music has been created and made listenable a little bit at the expense of the service of the movie; in other words, the ego of the composer. If you get in there and say, ‘Wow, this will sound so great with the orchestra and it’ll sound great on the soundtrack album,’ and maybe they can actually end up doing too much and writing ‘too many notes’ (laugh). I’ve always been surprised that people enjoy listening to my soundtracks, because I felt like I was part of a team – the filmmaking team. I always loved movies and I just happened to have the skill to create sounds and music and that’s just what got me on the team, but it was always about the movie. I think part of what makes a piece of music your favorite theme has so much to do with the movie and the impact it has, and of course, the synchronicities that occur.

Film as dream, film as music. No art passes our conscience in the way film does, and goes directly to our feelings, deep down into the dark rooms of our souls.

Film has dream, film has music. No form of art goes beyond ordinary consciousness as film does, straight to our emotions, deep into the twilight room of the soul. A little twitch in our optic nerve, a shock effect: twenty-four illuminated frames in a second, darkness in between, the optic nerve incapable of registering darkness. At the editing table, when I run the trip of film through, frame by frame, I still feel that dizzy sense of magic of my childhood: in the darkness of the wardrobe, I slowly wind one frame after another, see almost imperceptible changes, wind faster — a movement.