20 | ARTICLE
ICFF 2022
ENNIO MORRICONE "HE COULD MAKE AN AVERAGE MOVIE INTO A MUST-SEE, A GOOD MOVIE INTO ART, AND A GREAT MOVIE INTO LEGEND.“ - E WRIGHT, DIRECTOR By Tonia Serrao Soppelsa
Ennio Morricone is himself, the legend. He left us a legacy of compositions that have become timeless masterpieces. From the Italian “spaghetti westerns“ by director Sergio Leone, to his Oscar nominations like “Days of Heaven“, “The Mission“, “The Untouchables“, and “The Hateful Eight“,— for which he won an Oscar— to “Once Upon A Time“ in America and “Cinema Paradiso“, his compositions set a new standard in cinematic musical scores; not simply complementing a film, but overwhelming it. In 2007 he was belatedly awarded an honourary Academy Award. Morricone’s scores added a new dimension to movies. His was not the subtle sound that fills the empty space in a film and guides an audience’s emotional response to the story. Most film composers write music that blends into the scenery or offers tasteful subtlety. Not Morricone. His was an in-your-face and exquisitely crafted music that added layers of perspective and tones and hues to the moving image. His scores were expressive, grandiose, and undeniably audacious. And, what’s more, he successfully adapted his work for many different styles of cinema. “I am disturbed when people think about me as a specialist for Westerns,“ he once said. This association irked him because he was in fact a multifaceted composer who wrote scores for more than 500 films and tv shows for many different cinema genres, not just Westerns. He had a genius for composition: scoring, conducting, and mixing his own soundtracks; and often mixed elements of classical music, jazz, and the avant-garde. Morricone’s work for Sergio Leone’s
THERE WAS A THEFT! BUT, OF COURSE, IF IT WAS UP TO ME, EVERY TWO YEARS I WOULD WIN AN OSCAR.
