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I actually only feel manipulated by a score when the film is bad. If the film is effective, the music enhances the emotion and it doesn't feel like manipulation. But if the film stinks and you find yourself wandering, a bad scene is 2,000 times worse if it's got over-the-top sap music attached to it (Patch Adams and K-19 come to mind).
Though on occasion, the music is too intense in an otherwise good film. I still think Kamen's score for What Dreams May Come was terribly too strong and forced, and at times it was almost grating and made me squint.
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Film by it's very essence has to manipulate the viewer to be effective.
The same goes for film music.
Manipulation is not always a bad thing though.
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We could outright say that claim is, in Joyce Davenport's immortal phrase
"a crock of the well-known article" - and she'd be correct - but we'll try and levitate onto a higher road of reflection.
Since it's a convenient and snobbish accusation hurled across many creative borders, our favorite Art History professor once put that nitwit notion into its proper perspective when he stated that "All art is, by its very nature, ART-IFICIAL."
That being the cumulative and irreversible (let alone incontestable) case: each and every instance of each and every play, film, book, artwork, poem, dance (oh, and music) you ever hear, see or are exposed to is trying to evoke an emotion outta you in whatever//however/whenever and whichever medium is its message.
As that famous philosopher around these here parts bashfully puts it:
... 
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Music in theatrical films whether it be drama or comedy is an important element in the development of the scene. Yes it manipulates but so is acting and camera movement and film directing. The only time I personally feel music should not be used (and it is used frequently in this format) is documentaries or news packages. If an important but polarizing event is shown in the news, some will add music to manipulate a person's opinion - such as a politician's biography during a political campaign. The worse and most effective use of music in any visual medium.
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I don't think the problem is that it's manipulative - the problem is that people don't like to admit that they like being manipulated.
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Of course music is manipulative.
If film music is not supposed to "do something" then why would it exist?
And if it *is* supposed to "do something", what is that thing it's supposed to do?
It's to help the film stimulate your emotions, your intellect and your ability to recognize patterns / connect dots — and it has deliberate intent at doing so.
Notice, I said 'help'. 'Cos, yeah, the film itself is doing the same.
Those people who watch a movie from a "meta" position and chortle about the fact they can see what the film is doing are claiming the "see how clever I am" prize. That's the booby prize. "So when you disengage from the movie you can see what the music is doing? So f***ing what?"
Cheers
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I think where people go wrong with the word "manipulate" is they confuse it with "control" and then get all moral about it.
Music, films, books, etc, all manipulate in that they stimulate your thinking and emotions with deliberate intent.
But that doesn't mean your mind is being "controlled" or that you lack all choice.
Films, music, etc, can be more or less 'leading' about where they want your thinking and emotions to go, but it's all still out to stimiulate with intent.
Cheers
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