Ennio Morricone(1928-2020)
- Composer
- Music Department
- Actor
A classmate of director Sergio Leone with whom he would form one of the
great director/composer partnerships (right up there with Eisenstein &
Prokofiev, Hitchcock & Herrmann, Fellini & Rota), Ennio Morricone
studied at Rome's Santa Cecilia Conservatory, where he specialized in
trumpet. His first film scores were relatively undistinguished, but he
was hired by Leone for Một Nắm Đô La (1964) on the strength of some of his song
arrangements. His score for that film, with its sparse arrangements,
unorthodox instrumentation (bells, electric guitars, harmonicas, the
distinctive twang of the jew's harp) and memorable tunes,
revolutionized the way music would be used in Westerns, and it is hard
to think of a post-Morricone Western score that doesn't in some way
reflect his influence. Although his name will always be synonymous with
the spaghetti Western, Morricone has also contributed to a huge range
of other film genres: comedies, dramas, thrillers, horror films,
romances, art movies, exploitation movies - making him one of the film
world's most versatile artists. He has written nearly 400 film scores,
so a brief summary is impossible, but his most memorable work includes
the Leone films, Gillo Pontecorvo's Cuộc Chiến Giành Độc Lập (1966) , Roland Joffé's Sứ Mệnh (1986), Brian De Palma's
Không Thể Mua Chuộc (1987) and Giuseppe Tornatore's Rạp Chiếu Bóng Thiên Đường (1988), plus a rare example of sung opening
credits for Pier Paolo Pasolini's Uccellacci e uccellini (1966).