Il Monaco

Music by Piero Piccioni

 

 

 

 

 

Il Monaco (1972), supernatural drama (or a horror drama) set in a monastery joined a line of movies that got popular appeal after the famous La Monaca di Monza (1969).

The subgenre yielded a series of cult flicks, the nun-exploitation. Well, in Il Monaco, with script by Buñuel and Jean Claude Carriere based on medieval book, Franco Nero is Father Ambrose, the monk tormented by delusions and moral issues. “Torment” is a perfect term to define what the soundtrack emphasizes in Ambrose´s drama. The acoustic organ is the main instrument, and his natural weight and aural presence sets the tone to the film. The instrument never mentions spirituality or the elevation usually related to organ pieces and sacred music. In many passages, derived from the main theme, the sound clusters fall into descendants clusters notes as a musical condemnation. The suggestion of humanity (or spirituality) appears occasionally in delicate flute solos, as in Tra Il Bene and Il Male. The dulcimer solo in Ambrosio and Mathilde is a sound refuge in the set and L'Ombra Della Bestia would fit on a horror film for his macabre atmosphere. Dramatic and heavy is a score that parallels with other works of the composer as Lo Straniero for its emotional density. The score was so striking that the composer would be escalated to other works in the genre "convent drama" as Le Monache Di Sant´Arcangelo also released by Digitmovies.