[Thor Joachim Haga]

I was thinking more about directors who rarely use music in their films at all. Like Haneke, who I mentioned earlier, or his compatriot Ulrich Seidl. It’s fairly common in “arthouse cinema”. Celine Sciamma rarely has a lot of music in her films. Or Ken Loach. And I remember I attended Cannes in 2016, and many of the buzz titles in the competition programme had very little to no original score. Like GRADUATION, THE SALESMAN, SIERANEVADA,TONI ERDMANN, THE UNKNOWN GIRL and so on. And of course the classic example that everyone thinks about when the topic is films with no music – Hitchcock’s THE BIRDS.

I used to hold the opinion that these films needed music, because I think music in film is so important. But over the years, I’ve found the approach refreshing. Often results in more ambigous storytelling.