ENNIO (15)

ENNIO (15)

Director: Giuseppe Tornatore

Runtime: 156 mins

Cast: Ennio Morricone, Giuseppe Tornatore, Carlo Verdone, Clint Eastwood, Quentin Tarantino, Oliver Stone, Terrence Malick, Hans Zimmer, Barry Levinson, Dario Argento, Bernardo Bertolucci, Quincy Jones, Joan Baez, Bruce Springsteen, Lina Wertmüller, Marco Bellocchio, Vittorio Taviani, Zucchero Fornaciari, Laura Pausini, John Williams, Enzo G. Castellari, Roland Joffé

Synopsis: A definitive portrait of Ennio Morricone, the legendary composer responsible for some of the most memorable film scores of all time, featuring interviews with the man himself and some of his greatest collaborators, including Bernando Bertolucci, Wong Kar Wai, Quentin Tarantino and many more.

URL: https://youtu.be/y_sMAYADwCA

During the five years of filming ENNIO, director Giuseppe Tornatore [Cinema Paradiso (1988), The Legend of 1900 (1998)] travelled across the globe to interview over seventy renowned filmmakers and musicians about the life and work of Ennio Morricone [Born: November 10, 1928 in Rome, Lazio, Italy; Died: July 6, 2020 (age 91) in Rome, Lazio, Italy], from Wong Kar Wai, Bernardo Bertolucci, Quentin Tarantino, Clint Eastwood, John Williams, Hans Zimmer to Bruce Springsteen. These interviews are intercut with fragments of Morricone’s private life, recordings from Morricone’s acclaimed world concert tours, clips of classic films scored by Morricone, an assortment of stories from celebrated friends and colleagues and never-before-seen archival footage of places and scenes from a career that spanned over seventy years.

Born in 1928 in Rome, Ennio Morricone is one of the most influential composers in the history of cinema. His filmography includes over seventy award-winning films, including every film by Sergio Leone, Giuseppe Tornatore and decades of iconic films in Italy, France and Hollywood. Morricone scored some of the most memorable cinematics moments ever, throughout a glittering seven-decade career.

Morricone enjoyed a lifelong cinematic partnership with his former schoolmate, Sergio Leone, who hired him to score the first of Leone’s Spaghetti Westerns, A Fistful of Dollars, in 1964. Morricone’s soundtrack for the last of the “Dollars trilogy”, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) is widely considered one of the most influential film scores in cinema history and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2009.

Morricone has inspired many musicians from film scoring to rock bands, including Hans Zimmer, John Williams, Dire Straits, Muse, Metallica and Radiohead.

Morricone composed over five hundred scores in film and television, over one hundred classical works and sold over seventy million records over his seventy-year career. In 2007, he received the Academy Honorary Award “for his magnificent and multifaceted contributions to the art of film music.” He is one of only two composers to be awarded an honorary Oscar by the Academy. In 2016, Morricone received his first Academy Award for his score to Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight (2015).

Tornatore’s sublime, wholehearted tribute celebrates the life and legacy of Maestro Morricone, featuring never-before-seen archival footage and interviews with renowned filmmakers and musicians.

The maestro in selected interviews talks about what drove his famous innovative scores, while actors, directors and musical peers celebrate his original contribution to cinema.

Revered Italian filmmaker and director-screenwriter Giuseppe Tornatore particularly owes a great debt to the Maestro; Cinema Paradiso, without that most romantic nostalgic score, would have had a harder time becoming a global hit.

Ennio provides real insight into an endearing, self-effacing, elegant, enigmatic and complex character whose genius and creativity changed both his chosen field of ‘absolute music’ and film scoring, which he had entered only reluctantly. It also illuminates the forensic practicalities that account for the Maestro’s achievements across all genres of film and music.

As Hans Zimmer comments: ’A Morricone score can be recognised from the very first note’; and for Quentin Tarantino he is ranked above Beethoven and assured of immortality.

After viewing this wonderful documentary, the urge is to seek out or rewatch many of Maestro’s films and both the Glasgow Film Theatre https://glasgowfilm.org/ and Edinburgh Filmhouse https://www.filmhousecinema.com/are planning seasons celebrating Morricone’s finest film scores, recognising the – John Williams described – Grande Maestro’s profound effect and influence across the entire musical spectrum.

In Cinemas and Dogwoof On Demand

Images courtesy of: Dogwoof

Sergio Leone exhibition Museo dell’Ara Pacis Roma December 2019

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November 26, 2018 60 Years of Music Tour O2 London

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