The Oscar-winning director of Cinema Paradiso explores the life and work of one of cinema’s greatest composers, Ennio Morricone.
It’s impossible to overstate the impact Morricone has had on the filmgoing experience of audiences around the world over the course of the last 60 years. From his eccentric accompaniments to Sergio Leone’s Spaghetti Westerns and haunting elegies for the director’s epic Once Upon a Time in America, to the pan-pipe melodies of The Mission, the tense arrangements that underscore The Untouchables, the unbearably taut minimalism of his music for The Thing and Oscar-winning (finally!) contribution to Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight, Morricone has helped elevate so many films.
Giuseppe Tornatore is perfectly placed to document this life – all but one of his 11 features and a number of his other projects have been scored by Morricone. And as an Italian he understands the culture and environment the prolific composer came out of. With over 500 film and television credits, alongside numerous classical compositions, theatre work and arrangements for pop songs, Morricone’s career has been fuller than most. Tornatore covers much of it, with contributions by some of the world’s greatest filmmakers along the way. It’s a fitting epitaph to an extraordinary artist.
