LDV118

27 JEAN-MARC LUISADA Some of your choices are surprising, such as the improbable appearance of Mozart’s Fantasia in D minor in the middle of John Huston’s Western The Unforgiven . How do you view the use of this piece? ‘Improbable’ is the right word for this of all pieces of music in this quintessential Hollywood film, which I saw in the cinema with my parents. I’m prepared to admit it’s not John Huston’s finest film, despite a fantastic cast. The hero (Burt Lancaster) gives his mother (Lillian Gish) a piano that arrives on a wagon in the middle of the desert, the middle of nowhere. She plays an excerpt from the D minor Fantasia at a very slow tempo – which is actually the one I chose in my turn. It’s a moment of grace in a film of great cruelty.