Fists in the Pocket

Morricone was already one of Italy’s leading film music composers by the time the young Marco Bellocchio managed to snag him for this, his astonishing directorial debut. The first of two Morricone collaborations, Fists in the Pocket follows a twisted, tormented young man, who takes drastic measures to rid his dysfunctional family of its various afflictions. With its coolly assured style, shocking perversity, and savage gallows humour, the film was a gleaming ice pick in the eye of bourgeois family values and Catholic morality – a unique work that continues to rank as one of the great achievements of Italian cinema – with Morricone contributing a ‘modern, mocking score…  a funereal undertone as it melds the dirge ‘Dies irae’ from the Catholic mass for the dead, with ringing bells and atonal cacophonies.’ (Deborah Young, sleeve notes from the Criterion DVD.)