Ennio Morricone Movies
A lifelong Rome resident and classically trained musician, Ennio Morricone began studying at the Conservatory of Santa Cecilia at age 12. Advised to study composition, Morricone also specialized in playing trumpet and supported himself by playing in a jazz band and working as an arranger for Italian radio and TV after he graduated. Morricone subsequently became a top studio arranger at RCA, working with such stars as Mario Lanza, Chet Baker, and the Beatles. Well-versed in a variety of musical idioms from his RCA experience, Morricone began composing film scores in the early '60s. Though his first films were undistinguished, Morricone's arrangement of an American folk song intrigued director (and former schoolmate) Sergio Leone. Leone hired Morricone and together they created a distinctive score to accompany Leone's different version of the Western, A Fistful of Dollars (1964). Rather than orchestral arrangements of Western standards à la John Ford, Morricone used gunshots, cracking whips, voices, Sicilian folk instruments, trumpets, and the new Fender electric guitar to punctuate and comically tweak the action, cluing in the audience to the taciturn man's ironic stance. Morricone's name became almost as well-known as Leone's when his more ambitious score for The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) yielded a Top Ten hit.Even more so than in the first two Dollars films, Morricone's scores for The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and Leone's epic Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) elevated the action to operatic heights. Reaching crescendos in The Good's famous graveyard shootout and West's showdown between Charles Bronson's Harmonica and Henry Fonda's Frank Booth, Morricone and Leone created set pieces that were as powerful musically as visually, placing music on a par with the image rather than subordinating it. Morricone's scores were so integral to Leone's Westerns that he had Morricone write and record Once Upon a Time in the West's main themes, and then played them during shooting so that the actors could move to the score's rhythms. Morricone and Leone repeated this for their equally effective collaboration on the gangster saga Once Upon a Time in America (1984).
Even as he was permanently changing the landscape of Western scores, the breadth of Morricone's talent became apparent as he took on more overtly "art" film projects. Morricone's music lent drama to Gillo Pontecorvo's highly regarded, documentary-style war film The Battle of Algiers (1966); that of Algiers and his score for Pontecorvo's Queimada! (1969) were two of Morricone's outstanding, non-Leone 1960s works. Morricone also delved into the remnants of Italian cinema's postwar heritage with Marco Bellochio's unsung, late neorealist film Fist in His Pocket (1965), Bernardo Bertolucci's neo-neorealist second film Before the Revolution (1964), and Pier Paolo Pasolini's parable/farewell to that legacy, Hawks and Sparrows (1966). Keeping pace with Bertolucci's and Pasolini's evolving styles and concerns, Morricone continued to collaborate with the directors into the 1970s. From the Godard-ian Partner (1968) to the coming of age story Luna (1979) and hostage drama Tragedy of a Ridiculous Man (1980), Morricone enhanced the emotion and drama of Bertolucci's increasingly stylized imagery, reaching an apex with the somber, grand, and celebratory compositions for Bertolucci's epic 1900 (1976).
Staying close to his genre film roots even as he advanced in art cinema, Morricone provided psychedelic accompaniment for Mario Bava's superhero romp Danger: Diabolik (1968), and crafted a series of evocative scores for Dario Argento's stylized thrillers, including The Bird With the Crystal Plumage (1969), The Cat O'Nine Tails (1971), and Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1974). Enhancing his international reputation from the 1970s onward, Morricone continued to compose for movies across the artistic spectrum as well as collaborating with an international constellation of directors and stars. Morricone finally received his first Oscar nomination for his magical, pastoral score for Terrence Malick's spectacularly beautiful Days of Heaven (1978).
Constantly working and easily shaking off such lows as a Razzie nomination for John Carpenter's remake of The Thing (1982), and the troubled fates of Sam Fuller's provocative race drama White Dog (1982) and Leone's Once Upon a Time in America (1984), Morricone hit another career peak in the mid-'80s with directors Roland Joffe and Brian DePalma. Merging Brazilian folk and European liturgical traditions through drums, flutes, oboes, chants, and arrangements of "Ave Maria" and "Te Deum," Morricone's majestic score for Joffe's award-winning epic The Mission (1986) garnered another Oscar nomination and became a soundtrack hit. One of Morricone's personal favorites (along with The Exorcist II), he has said of The Mission that it "represents me nearly completely." Morricone earned another Oscar nod the following year for his lushly orchestral, yet edgy, percussion-driven score for De Palma's popular big screen version of The Untouchables (1987). As with his durable associations with Leone, Bertolucci, and Pasolini, Morricone went on to score Joffe's Fat Man and Little Boy (1989), City of Joy (1992), and Vatel (2000), and De Palma's Casualties of War (1989) and Mission to Mars (2000).
Morricone entered into yet another fecund creative partnership in the late '80s with Giuseppe Tornatore's Cinema Paradiso (1988). A favorite of movie music fans, but not one of his Oscar nominations, Morricone's score struck the perfect balance of sentimental, bittersweet nostalgia to accompany Tornatore's paean to cinema. Morricone also scored Tornatore's more downbeat Everybody's Fine (1990), cinema love letter The Star Maker (1995), and earned kudos for his imaginative music for The Legend of 1900 (1998). His work on Tornatore's Malena (2000) earned Morricone his fifth Oscar nomination.
After excursions into Shakespeare with Franco Zeffirelli's version of Hamlet (1990) and the dark side of desire with Pedro Almodóvar's sex comedy Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (1990), Morricone garnered his fourth Oscar nod for his moody, period-tinged score for Barry Levinson's Bugsy (1991). As prolific in the 1990s as ever, Morricone had a happy reunion with Eastwood for the summer hit In the Line of Fire (1993), provided the violins for Bugsy star Warren Beatty's glossy remake of Love Affair (1994), brought out the horror and romance in Mike Nichols' Wolf (1994), ditto for Adrian Lyne's adaptation of Lolita (1997), and scored a docudrama about his erstwhile murdered collaborator Who Killed Pasolini? (1995). Working again with Beatty, Morricone neatly sent up political platitudes with martial horns, drums, and fifes and hauntingly paid tribute to the senator's spirit with soaring yet funereal strings in Beatty's incisive satire Bulworth (1998), earning a Grammy nomination for his work.
Even as he began to collect lifetime achievement awards, including a Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1995, Morricone continued going strong into the new millennium. Maintaining his presence in European and American cinema through his work with Joffe, De Palma, and Tornatore, Morricone also revisited another past creative relationship when he reunited with The Cannibals (1971) director Liliana Cavani for her adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's Ripley's Game (2002). As the 21st century rolled forward, Morricone remained as prolific as ever, though shifted his focus somewhat to focus more on telemovies, such as Karol - The Pope, The Man (2006), Memories of Anne Frank (2009), and Napoli milionaria (2011). Around the same time, he also began to score a considerable number of film shorts for the first time in his career. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi
A former slave and a German bounty hunter become unlikely allies in the battle against a tyrannical plantation owner in this western from visionary director Quentin Tarantino. Two years before the Civil War pits brother-against-brother, German-born fugitive hunter Dr. King Schultz (Academy Award-winner Christoph Waltz) arrives in America determined to capture the outlaw Brittle brothers dead or alive. In the midst of his search, Dr. Schultz crosses paths with Django (Academy Award-winner Jamie Foxx), a freed slave and skilled tracker who seeks to rescue his beloved wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington) from ruthless plantation owner Calvin Candie (Academy Award-nominee Leonardo DiCaprio). Once Django has aided Dr. Schultz in coralling the Brittle brothers, the two team up to capture some of the most wanted men in the South. Meanwhile, Django never loses sight of his mission to free Broomhilda from the treacherous slave trade before it's too late. Upon arriving at Candie's nefarious plantation, dubbed Candyland, Django and Dr. Schultz discover that slaves are being groomed for gladiator-like competitions by Candie's malevolent right-hand man Billy Crash (Walton Goggins), and together they skillfully work their way onto the compound for a closer look. But just as Django and his partner locate Broomhilda and plot a daring escape, Candie's house slave Stephen (Academy Award-nominee Samuel L. Jackson) catches wind of their plan, and informs his master of the betrayal. Now, as a clandestine organization attempts to back them into a corner, Django and Dr. Schultz will have to come out with pistols blazing if they ever hope to free Broomhilda from Candyland and the clutches of its vile proprietor. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Jamie Foxx, Leonardo DiCaprio, (more)
A group of hardened Nazi killers stalk their prey in Nazi-occupied France as a Jewish cinema owner plots to take down top-ranking SS officers during the official premiere of a high-profile German propaganda film. As far as Lt. Aldo Raine (aka Aldo the Apache," Brad Pitt) -- is concerned, the only good Nazi is a dead Nazi. Raine's mission is to strike fear into the heart of Adolf Hitler by brutally murdering as many goose-steppers as possible, or die trying. In order to accomplish that goal, Lt. Raine recruits a ruthless team of cold-blooded killers known as "The Basterds" which includes baseball-bat-wielding Bostonian Sgt. Donnie Donowitz (aka "The Bear Jew," Eli Roth) and steely psychopath Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz (Til Schweiger), among others. When the Basterds' secret rendezvous with turncoat German actress Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger) goes awry, they learn that the Nazis will be staging the French premiere of "The Nation's Pride," a rousing propaganda film based on the exploits of German hero Fredrick Zoller (Daniel Brühl), at a modest theater owned by Jewish cinephile Shoshanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent), posing as a Gentile after the brutal murder of her family by the ruthless Col. Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz). As the Basterds hatch an explosive plan to take out as many Nazis as possible at the premiere, they remain completely oblivious to the fact that Shoshanna, too, longs to bring the Third Reich to its knees, and that she's willing to sacrifice her beloved theater in the process. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Brad Pitt, Mélanie Laurent, (more)
Giuseppe Tornatore directed this grand-scale portrait of life and love over several decades in a small town in Sicily. The Torrenuovas are a family of peasant shepherds who have lived and worked in Bagheria though many generations. In the years before the rise of Mussolini, the family often found themselves working for Don Giacinto (Lollo Franco), a local tycoon who often used his power and position to take advantage of others. Young Peppino Torrenuova senses a profound injustice in the way Don Giacinto treats his elders, and as the years pass the young man becomes a passionate advocate for social change. Once he grows to be a man, Peppino (Francesco Scianna) falls in love with beautiful Mannina (Margareth Made) and they get married, starting a family of their own over the objections of Mannia's parents, who believe she can do better. As Peppino throws in his lot with the local Communist party and works to make life better for his fellow peasants, we see a number of important historical events through his eyes and watch the fortunes of his town and his family rise and fall. Featuring guest appearances by Monica Bellucci, Raoul Bova and Donatella Finocchiaro, Baaria was the opening night attraction at the 2009 Venice International Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Francesco Scianna, Margareth Madè, (more)
- 2008
This concert performance captures the legendary Ennio Morricone conducting the Roma Sinfonietta Orchestra through a number of his most famous film works including selections from Once Upon a Time In America, The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, and The Mission. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi
- Starring:
- Roma Sinfonietta Orchestra, Choir La Fenice, (more)
The devastated life of a man haunted by the unsolved murder of his beloved wife is strangely complicated by the mysterious neighbor who loves him from afar in a dark noir thriller directed by Manuel Pradal and starring Norman Reedus, Emmanuelle Béart and Harvey Keitel. Vincent (Reedus)' wife has suffered a most brutal fate, and these days the once happy New Yorker is but a frozen shell of his former self. Vincent is not a man unloved, however, because although he may currently be unaware of her feelings for him, his neighbor Alice (Béart) knows in her heart that she and Vincent were meant to be together. All that needs to happen to make Vincent recognize her love is for the grieving widower to finally be liberated from his tragic past; and Alice is willing to go to any lengths necessary in order to make this happen. If Vincent was finally to find the man responsible for his wife's death, he could finally be free to open his heart to Alice. When Alice hails a cab driven by lonely New York soul Roger (Keitel), the gears of the scheming woman's elaborate plan are slowly set into motion despite the ignorance of both the naïve cabbie, and the somber object of her delusional affections. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Harvey Keitel, Emmanuelle Béart, (more)
- 2006
Few American film enthusiasts were even aware that anyone made westerns in Italy before Sergio Leone's breakthrough film, 1964's Per un Pugno di Dollari (aka A Fistful Of Dollars), made Clint Eastwood a worldwide star and introduced audiences to the forbidding beauty and troubling morality of Leone's unique vision of the American West. A Fistful of Dollars was an international hit, as were its follow ups Per Qualche Dollaro in Più (aka For A Few Dollars More) and Il Buono, il Brutto, il Cattivo (aka The Good, The Bad and the Ugly), and Leone's striking visual sense and complex storytelling established him as one of the masters of genre filmmaking, though in later years his ambition would outstrip his ability to bring his projects to the screen. Sergio Leone: Il mio modo di vedere le cose (aka Sergio Leone: The Way I See Things) is a documentary which takes a loving look at the highlights of Leone's career in cinema, offering a behind-the-scenes look at how several of his best films were made through interviews with actors and technicians who collaborated with him as well as archival footage of Leone discussing his pictures. Sergio Leone: The Way I See Things received its American premiere at the 2006 Cinequest Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Eugenio Alabisio, Nino Baragli, (more)
Cinema Paradiso director Giuseppe Tornatore returns to the helm for this suspenseful thriller concerning a young Ukrainian prostitute-turned-cleaning woman named Irina (Kseniya Rappoport). Years ago, Irina was drawn into an international prostitution ring before being brutalized by a man named Mold (Michele Placido) who also killed her boyfriend. Flash-forward to the present, and Irina is a humble cleaning woman in a building owned by jewelers. Though her appearance would suggest poverty, Irina always has a sizable wad of cash in her pocket and lives in a large apartment across the street from the loudly dysfunctional Adacher family. Gradually, the mousy cleaning woman works her way into the family home, befriending the parents (Claudia Gerini and Pierfrancesco Favino) and becoming a trusted confidante to their daughter Thea (Clara Dossena). As her relationship with the family deepens, her motivations for getting so close become frighteningly clear. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Kseniya Rappoport, Michele Placido, (more)
While the major American TV networks were jockeying to be the first to present a filmed biography of the late Pope John Paul II, cable's humble Hallmark Channel managed to beat everyone to the punch with the four-hour Karol: A Man Who Became Pope. Actually, this made-for-TV film was a Polish-Italian co-production, debuting on Italian television as Karol, un Uomo Diventato Papa on April 8, 2005, and subsequently released theatrically in Poland. Curiously, it had been filmed in English, so no dubbing was necessary -- thus enabling Hallmark to rush the production onto American screens as early as August 15, 2005. Piotr Adamczyk stars as Karol Wojtyla, whose tireless fight for humanity and basic fundamental rights begins with the German invasion of his native Poland in 1939. Appalled at the brutal treatment afforded his Jewish friends, Karol turns to religion as a means of making a difference in the world, and with the help of several other like-minded individuals mounts a nonviolent, but extremely effective, anti-Nazi resistance. Ordained as a priest at war's end, Karol finds himself fighting another form of godless totalitarianism, this one from the Communists who have overtaken his country. Ultimately, Father Karol Wojtyla's noble mission culminates in his being elected as Pope John Paul II in 1978 -- and it was surely no coincidence that Poland's liberation was now but a matter of time. Although A Man Who Became Pope looks lavish and expensive, it was very economically produced, and had made back its cost many times over before its acquisition by Hallmark. The film is also a "winner" in terms of its straight-on portrayal of the pontiff, and the commendably sincere, unadorned performances of virtually every actor in the cast. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Piotr Adamczyk, Malgorzata Bela, (more)
One young man's devastating voyage through the Holocaust sets the stage for this powerful drama. Gyorgy "Gyurka" Koves (Marcell Nagy) is a 14-year-old Jewish boy living in Hungary when the Nazi pogroms begin sweeping through the country. Gyura's father (Janos Ban) has his business taken away from him not long before he's taken away to a concentration camp, and as he's led away, Gyura agrees to his father's request to look after his stepmother while he's gone. However, Gyurka takes a bus rather than the train to work the following morning, believing it to be safer, but before it can reach its destination, police stop the vehicle and take the Jewish passengers into custody. Gyurka is sent to Auschwitz, but is later transferred to Buchenwald, and finally to Zeitz; at each stop the teenager is witness to greater and greater horrors, as different varieties of torture and violence are introduced with each passing day, until his emotions begin to wear away. When American troops finally liberate Zeitz, Gyurka has been shocked into a placid serenity, and when he returns to the wreckage that is Budapest, his ravaged body and ghostly calm go mostly overlooked by the other survivors attempting to rebuild. Sorstalansag (aka Fateless) was adapted from a novel by Imre Kertesz, a Nobel Prize-winning author who is himself a survivor of the Nazi death camps. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Marcell Nagy, Aron Dimeny, (more)
The Spaghetti West documents the film genre referred to as Spaghetti Westerns. These movies were made in Italy, where production costs were very cheap and the terrain offered perfectly believable sets, during the 1950s and '60s. While Sergio Leone became the most well-known director that made his bones in the genre, a number of famous film personalities such as Clint Eastwood and Ennio Morricone established themselves in these Westerns. The film utilizes clips of some of the most famous spaghetti westerns, as well as interviews with those who made the films and those who have been inspired by these sparse, stylish movies. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi
- 2004
Political proverb states that a population in fear is a population that is easily controlled. In this documentary exploring the climate of fear that existed in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, filmmaker Adam Curtis explores the possibility that Western neoconservatives used anxiety as a tool to manipulate the masses into behaving in a predictable and controllable manner. By claiming that contemporary Western Democracy relies more on propagating the myth of an all-powerful al-Qaeda just waiting for the right time to strike rather than focusing on domestic issues and the bettering of the people, as previous generations of politicians had done, Curtis suggests that Washington is intentionally manipulating the population into a defensive stance that gives those in charge more power than necessary. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- 2003
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For a variety of reasons, mostly political, Charlie Chaplin left the United States in the early fifties living the final quarter-century of his life in Switzerland. Charlie Chaplin: The Forgotten Years documents this last act in the legendary director's life. The film intersperses personal footage of the man with interviews from those who knew him during this period. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi
- Starring:
- Geraldine Chaplin, Eugene Chaplin, (more)
- 2003
Miguel Hermoso's La Luz Prodigiosa (Marvelous Light) examines what might have happened if famed Spanish writer Federico Garcia Lorca had not been executed at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. In Grenada in 1936 Joaquin (Ivan Corvacho Cervantes) delivers a man he decides to call Galapago (Sergio Villanueva) to nuns after Galapago is shot. Fifty years later, Joaquin comes back to Grenada and is conned by Adela (Kiti Manver). Joaquin decides to find Galapago, who is now homeless. Joaquin and Adela soon suspect that Galapago may be Lorca, and each reacts to the situation differently. The music for Marvelous Light was written by the great Ennio Morricone. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi
- Starring:
- Alfredo Landa, Nino Manfredi, (more)
- 2002
Giorgio Perlasca was an Italian cattle dealer who was sympathetic to the fascist cause until September 8, 1943. Perlasca was in Budapest, Hungary, on a business trip when he had the opportunity to see first hand how Hungarian Jews were being treated by German occupying forces. Shocked by the cruelty and violence he saw, Perlasca had a sudden change of heart, and hatched a plan to help the Jews escape to freedom by impersonating a Spanish consul. As a result of Perlasca's brave actions, the lives of five thousand people were spared that day. Perlasca is a historical drama originally produced for Italian television which reenacts Perlasca's remarkable true story; Luca Zingaretti leads the cast as the daring Italian businessman. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Luca Zingaretti, Jerome Ange, (more)
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