On music, memory, and why the same image can tell a completely different story.
A solitary woman in a black tuxedo stands inside a softly lit Parisian room at night, beside an abandoned cello. Framed from outside through a large open window, the image feels cinematic, suspended and quietly surreal — somewhere between fashion photography, music and memory.
We tend to think music accompanies an image.
I think it changes it.
A woman walks alone through a city at night.
With a piano, perhaps she is remembering someone.
With an electronic pulse, she seems to be going somewhere.
Make the music darker and suddenly we wonder what is behind her.
The image hasn’t changed.
But somehow, everything has.
MUSIC DOESN’T ACCOMPANY THE IMAGE. IT CHANGES IT.
Music is invisible direction
When I imagine a film, I see colour, movement, clothes, light and atmosphere.
I’m a visual person.
Andrea, who composes music for our films, thinks in sound.
I might imagine something nostalgic and he introduces a rock sound where I expected a softer melody.
Suddenly the scene has another energy.
I love those contrasts.
Music can change the rhythm of a movement, create tension where there was none, or make us stay with an image a little longer.
And sometimes it happens in reverse.
I hear a piece of music and immediately begin to see a film.
Never Fade Away
When Andrea started composing Never Fade Away for Cursed, he hadn’t seen the finished film.
He knew the concept and had seen the first images I was creating.
The story was about a love that had ended but continued to exist in memory.
He didn’t want sadness to overwhelm it. The music followed the man through ordinary moments while the woman he had lost remained present in his mind.
While I was building the visual world, Andrea was building its sound.
We understand each other quickly, but we don’t always agree immediately.
Sometimes I hear a composition and feel the film needs something else. He goes back, changes direction, and we listen again.
We’re not looking for music that is simply beautiful.
We’re looking for the sound that belongs to that world.
What stays with us
I can remember a film because of a face, a colour or the way someone moved through a room.
But a few notes can bring an entire scene back too.
That is what fascinates me about music and images.
They don’t always tell us the same thing.
Sometimes music contradicts what we see.
Sometimes it reveals what the image leaves unsaid.
And sometimes, long after the details are gone, the music brings back exactly how the film made us feel.
Alessia Moccia
Photographer & Creative Director
E-uphoria Studio
Cursed — Arabiyat Prestige
Original music “Never Fade Away” by Andrea Angioli.
