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The Official Ennio Morricone Thread


Muad'Dib

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19 minutes ago, publicist said:

On his Oscar win for 'Hateful 8' (all modesty as any proud italian):

 

 

I think it's funny that he has the same opinion of his Hateful Eight Oscar win as that score's detractors do.

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He has the same unhealthy attitude toward the Oscars as many people here do.  Expecting a huge body of industry insiders to have the same attitudes and values toward film music that you do.  Basically, continuing to bemoan what the Oscars are not nor have ever been.

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9 minutes ago, Stefancos said:

Morricone has been shafted by Hollywood for years. They paid him far far less then composers of lesser stature then him were making. It's why he stopped doing American movies. You can't blame him for feeling conned.

Yup.

 

Karol

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9 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

He has the same unhealthy attitude toward the Oscars as many people here do.  Expecting a huge body of industry insiders to have the same attitudes and values toward film music that you do.  Basically, continuing to bemoan what the Oscars are not nor have ever been.

This is one of the rare times I disagree with your take. You make it sound like the oscars are NOT supposed to be rewarding the best work of the year. Many of the folks on this forum would qualify as experts in film music, so if they disagree with how the best score trophies are handed out, it might well mean there’s some dissonance between what the award purports to represent and what the “insiders” actually make it represent.

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28 minutes ago, Iron_Giant said:

This is one of the rare times I disagree with your take. You make it sound like the oscars are NOT supposed to be rewarding the best work of the year. Many of the folks on this forum would qualify as experts in film music, so if they disagree with how the best score trophies are handed out, it might well mean there’s some dissonance between what the award purports to represent and what the “insiders” actually make it represent.

 

The Oscars reward what the Los Angeles film industry sees as most deserving of awards.  I find it interesting to see what the group sees as worthy of celebration and analyze the industry's view of itself, and I have fun picking what I would vote for if I could vote.  But I don't think in terms of snubs and that kind of thing.  I used to.  It's more fun if you don't take it so seriously.

 

Don't forget, it's mostly just a bunch of actors voting for the winners.

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As someone in that industry, of course he can take it seriously.  I find his comment and lack of graciousness beyond distasteful.  "I'm amazing, Herbie Hancock's not as great as ME, I deserve the award."  There are many composers who would be worthy of the award, and did not win, that don't talk like self-centered prigs.

 

But again, it's mostly actors voting for it.  Is it their opinion that he should really be valuing?

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1 hour ago, publicist said:

On his Oscar win for 'Hateful 8' (all modesty as any proud italian):

 

 

 

I had already heard many times his (right) complaint about Mission not winning, as well as his opinion about Tarantino and his use of music in movies, in tones that were only slightly softer than these. However, I wonder whether the translator from Italian to German did spice it up a bit!  

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15 minutes ago, Score said:

 

I had already heard many times his (right) complaint about Mission not winning, as well as his opinion about Tarantino and his use of music in movies, in tones that were only slightly softer than these. However, I wonder whether the translator from Italian to German did spice it up a bit!  

 

My first thought was if the "stupid" in "stupid Tarantino flick" could have had a different meaning. Like "silly" or something.

 

Would definitely not be so quick to judge Ennio's character. Remembering those "John Williams has never seen a Star Wars movie" articles that made him sound all bitter and dismissive of his career lol.

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11 minutes ago, mrbellamy said:

 

My first thought was if the "stupid" in "stupid Tarantino flick" could have had a different meaning. Like "silly" or something.

 

Would definitely not be so quick to judge Ennio's character. Remembering those "John Williams has never seen a Star Wars movie" articles that made him sound all bitter and dismissive of his career lol.

 

It is a fact that Morricone tends to have strong opinions, and sometimes he voices them out using strong words, that he later tries to soften (not always). However, if he really used the word "stupid" for the Tarantino movie, it really seems a bit too much, even for him. And I'm sure the title of the article is exaggerated! He cannot have said that.

 

 

 

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Is it so difficult to adopt the cut of a movie to the music? I did plenty of hobby films, where I inserted Williams, Goldsmith or Morricone music and it wasn't that difficult to create a rough cut, insert the music and then adopt the cut to the music.

 

Most people in Hollywood don't know how much better their films could get with a great score! Film scores will never get as popular as they used to be, if nobody dares nothing. One single courageous man could set a new trend and make a shitload of money with it!

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Or that your goody two-shoes persona just cannot adopt to the more outrageous personalities among us. 

3 hours ago, Brundlefly said:

Seriously, Morricone is an incredibly talented idiot! He is telling some truth, but his black 'n' white perspective is embarrassing!

 

@publicist, can you show us the rest of the interview?

 

German FB.

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5 hours ago, Disco Stu said:

Turns out, Morricone is the Trump of film composers!  A gigantic ego, shunned by the elites, nursing personal grievances.

 

Hey, Morricone can actually turn out! 

2 hours ago, publicist said:

Or that your goody two-shoes persona just cannot adopt to the more outrageous personalities among us. 

 

German FB.

 

Uh, any chance you could share the, uh, the whole issue? You know, in case the Playboy editors accidentally placed a page or two in the wrong section?

 

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9 minutes ago, Quintus said:

At 90 Morricone can say whatever the hell he wants. Keep these gems coming Ennio.

 

Some of the faux outrage and offence in this thread is hilarious.

 

You're allowed to say my name if you want to make fun of me, I know I'm an over-emotional idiot sometimes.  It was really mostly because he implicitly insulted Herbie Hancock, a personal idol of mine, that it rubbed me the wrong way in the first place.  The score for 'Round Midnight is awesome and a perfectly reasonable choice to give an Oscar to.

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It's probably why Williams has arguably outlasted those others in Hollywood prestige and reverence during his lifetime. 

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I doubt that. He was as affected as his colleagues from careless placement of his music, losing out big time in the dubbing room or getting incomplete cuts that made the writing not come easy (even with Spielberg, to a lesser degree). It's one thing to have billion $ franchises to your name, if they turn out like the prequels (or 7YiT, for that matter) that's not a big consolation.

 

PS: Morricone did a 90° turnaround in his interview with german paper 'Die Zeit' (Google translate!). Maybe his back hurt less when this interview was conducted...?😎

 

ZEIT ONLINE: Maestro, is it true that in the future you do not want to compose soundtracks, but only independent orchestral works and chamber music?

Ennio Morricone: Yes, that's true. I'll finish the music for Kim Burdon's animated film The Canterville Ghost and maybe score for Giuseppe Tornatera's next project, but that's it with the soundtrack.

ZEIT ONLINE: Why?

Morricone: I do not want to be ungrateful. I owe my fame to composing film music, but it is a very stressful work. Remember, I'll be 90! If I concentrate on pure orchestral music, I can work independently of the cinema and feel freer again. And hopefully, when listening, pictures will also be created in the mind of the audience.

ZEIT ONLINE: For a nearly 90-year-olds, you seem extremely sprightly.

Morricone: Inwardly, I feel young and still have many musical ideas that just have to come out of me. But sometimes I am very exhausted, even after conducting my works. That's why my current tour will actually be my last one.

ZEIT ONLINE: Do you operate as a film music composer actually a lonely business or exchange with colleagues sometimes synonymous?

Morricone: Everyone does his thing. And actually, I prefer to compose at home, with my main residence here in Rome quite spacious, as you can see. Of course I have contacts to other film music composers. We talk to each other, but rarely specifically about music. I had a very friendly relationship with Maurice Jarre, who died in 2009, whose monumental score for the David Lean films Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago and Journey to India I have always admired. But of course I have the closest contact with composers to my son Andrea, who began his career in 1991 at my side with the film music for Cinema Paradiso. That was also a wonderful collaboration for me. From the younger generation of film music composers I appreciate Alexandre Desplat because he is very versatile. Well, he's 57 already!
ZEIT ONLINE: In 2015, 40 years after Nobody's the biggest, you once again wrote the full score for a western, namely Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight, which in 2016 gave you your first "regular" Oscar after a previous life's work. Does this soundtrack therefore have a special significance for you?

Morricone: Of course, I was really happy about the Academy Award. Quentin Tarantino convinced me with his enthusiasm to compose again for a Western. But I have deliberately used no spaghetti western sounds, but rather part brute, partly filigree film noir or thriller elements, such as those found in French films of the seventies. Furthermore grotesque-comic moments that correspond with Tarantino's deconstructionist style. I think that gives the score something special. Working with Tarantino was not easy. He is adorable, but totally chaotic, so that without recognizable solid concept of him, unfortunately, everything could be finished only at the last minute.

ZEIT ONLINE: Your cooperation with him was puzzling after you had been disappointed with Django Unchained's use of your old songs as well as the only newly composed one.

Morricone: Five years ago, my comments to students in Rome were misquoted by many media. Django Unchained was sometimes too cruel for me, although I've composed for some not-so-shabby films like Gillo Pontecorvo's Queimada - Isle of Secrets starring Marlon Brando or Sergio Sollima's Brutal City with Charles Bronson, by the way, a fabulous taciturn "Harmonica" in Sergio Leone's play I embodied the song of death. Violence for its own sake just scares me off. Today I would not write the score anymore for a movie like Pier Paolo Pasolini's The 120 Days of Sodom. At the time, I did it only because he wanted to unmask the fascism of the upper class with these terrible murder orgies. Nevertheless, I like Tarantino and I am honored that he always wants to use my music in his films. I almost wrote the full score for his bitter Third Reich phantasmagoric Inglourious Basterds. But I would have had just under two months to do that because I had to tackle the music of Giuseppe Tornatores Baarìa. Tarantino is a big guy in today's cinema, even though he borrowed a lot from other films, let's say, in a friendly way. However, I stand by my statement that his approach to accommodate different pieces of music of different composers or pop groups in a movie, sometimes not always happy. Only one could do it perfectly: Stanley Kubrick.

ZEIT ONLINE: At our first meeting in December 2013, you told me that you should originally write the soundtrack to Uhrwerk Orange. Why did not the cooperation come about at that time?

Morricone: Contact with Kubrick came to me in the early 1970s from his costume designer Milena Canonero. She had asked me if I could mimic a music of mine from an earlier movie for Kubrick. I do not usually do that. But since I think Kubrick is an excellent director, I would have made an exception here. Although there was the problem that Kubrick did not like traveling because of his fear of flying, yet I could have recorded the music in Rome. Even the fee was already clear. And then Kubrick suddenly refused a kind of courtesy.

TIME ONLINE: Out of courtesy?
Morricone: He called Sergio Leone and asked, "Do you think Morricone will be fine with me?" I did not understand why he just had to call him. And Sergio also truthfully said, "Of course, although he's quite overworked, as he's currently writing the music for my new movie Death Melody." That was the end of my collaboration with Kubrick, before she really got started. And after all these decades this is still a big grief for me. Clockwork Orange is a grand plea for the free will of man, who should decide for himself whether he acts good or evil. The selection of the soundtrack was also congenial - from the synthetic Henry Purcell references of a Walter Carlos (Wendy Carlos since 1979) to the classical repertoire of Beethoven, Rimsky-Korsakov and Elgar. But rest assured, I would have come up with something suitable.

ZEIT ONLINE: Are there any other films for which you would like to have composed the music?

Morricone: Oh yes, there was 1966 John Huston's 70mm Todd AO epic The Bible, which was the first movie ever made with an extremely wide-angle 150-degree lens. Especially for the start with the Genesis I had good ideas, but the producer Dino De Laurentiis displeased. He then relied on the also very experimental and downright adventurous composer Toshiro Mayuzumi, who admittedly did a pretty good job. At least 28 years later, for the 13-part Italian-German television series The Bible, I was able to contribute my musical contribution to the Genesis sequel.

ZEIT ONLINE: With the director Henri Verneuil you had a very successful alliance, especially with the mafia epic The clan of the Sicilians, the action-craze fear over the city and the political thriller I like Icarus. Why did he keep putting on you?

Morricone: Henri Verneuil had fundamental confidence in my compositional skills and has always accepted everything I have suggested to him. Also as weird things as the theme music to the clan of the Sicilians, is whistled at the beginning and then the e-guitar riff a motive of Johann Sebastian Bach varies, the whole thing is thwarted with sassy strings and stoic Jew's Harp even more. So maybe he understood something about music, because conservative directors would probably have fled from me screaming in front of me.

ZEIT ONLINE: You also composed for Giuseppe Tornatore, most recently in 2016 at La corrispondenza. Could it be said that he is exactly the type of film that makes you feel best in composition?

Morricone: Of course, I would watch movies by Tornatore if I did not compose the music for him. I was also very happy that he made a documentary, Lo sguardo della musica, about me. The only one of his films that I had problems with a scene was Baarìa. In order to get around the Italian animal welfare law, he shot in Tunisia and in the scene he had a cow with an awl cut off in front of the camera, because he wanted to authentically show an old Sicilian custom.

ZEIT ONLINE: Your farewell tour with the Czech National Symphony Orchestra takes you to Berlin on January 21st. What kind of repertoire will you conduct?

Morricone: In 63 years I composed more than 600 works. Of these, only five percent were spaghetti westerns, with whom I am generally identified. As part of the tour, I will play as a concession to my loyal audience known pieces like The Ecstasy of Gold from Sergio Leone's Two Glorious Badgers or Gabriel's Oboe from Roland Joffé's The Mission. Of course, The Hateful 8, too. Since the wonderful Edda Dell'Orso, who sang the Song of Death in 1968, feels too old for her now 83 years old, the no less talented Dulce Ponte will be back next to me Stand on stage. But this time it is still a different concert than in the years before. There are also some non-film music titles of my Musica Assoluta, the Absolute Music, and a suite of tracks that I composed for seven different films that won all the Oscars. And finally, there will also be songs for Leone movies that I have never performed live before. For me it will certainly be a farewell to the film music concert stage with a laughing and a crying eye.

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