Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion

The second of six collaborations with Ennio Morricone, Italian provocateur Elio Petri’s internationally best-known film – which also won the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar® – is a disturbing, compelling, absurdist/realist study of a Roman police inspector, sent to investigate a hideous crime that he himself has committed. Morricone knew from reading the script (from which, rather than seeing the finished film, he wrote his ‘sinister and bouncy’ score) that he needed “the music of the grotesque”, electing to use ‘folk’ instruments that may not be very well known. Conversely, it is perhaps his best-known score in Italy; indeed, one suspects the main theme is well known by significantly more people than know where it actually comes from!