The cult composer who wrote soundtracks for more than 400 films and series has died

The Italian composer Ennio Morricone died in Rome. The winner of the Oscar and the author of many soundtracks, including westerns, was 91 years old. Writes about this with the BBC.

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Morricone died on the night of Monday, June 6, in a Roman clinic from the effects of injury after a fall. He had previously been hospitalized with a hip fracture.

Ennio Morricone’s funeral will be held in private, the composer's family said.

Morricone began his path to fame in the Roman ensemble of Alberto Flamini, then worked as an arranger of songs for radio and television shows. He made his film debut in 1961, when he was already over 30. It was film music that brought Morricone worldwide fame and many awards, including two Oscars.

During his more than half-century career, Morricone has written music for more than 400 films and television series, worked with prominent Italian, French, and American directors.

The four most memorable periods in the work of the composer.

Spaghetti Westerns and Sergio Leone

The young composer’s first success was the soundtrack to Italian westerns (spaghetti westerns) from the so-called “Dollar Trilogy” directed by Sergio Leone. The Italian director was able to breathe new life into a genre that was fading at that time, demonstrating a non-standard, innovative creative approach. An abundance of close-ups, long - up to 10 minutes - pauses, short and biting dialogues - all this was accompanied by piercing, intense music with a predominance of trumpet and harmonica, as well as the inclusion of sounds of a whip, a jew's harp and revolver shots.

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The trilogy about the “man with no name” performed by Clint Eastwood quickly became a classic of world cinema, as did its prequel, Once Upon a Time in the West. The music for the latter became one of the best-selling soundtracks in cinema history. Morricone would later write music for another Leone masterpiece, the gangster drama Once Upon a Time in America, which was filmed in Hollywood.

The composer later admitted that he did not like being referred to as a “Western specialist.” “This is only a small percentage of the music that I wrote,” Morricone emphasized.

Italian movie classics

In the late 1960s, Morricone began to gradually move away from the music that brought him deafening fame to spaghetti westerns. He diversifies his creative arsenal and works with the most outstanding representatives of Italian cinema: for Bernardo Bertolucci he writes music for the epic drama “The Twentieth Century”; for Pier Paolo Pasolini - creates soundtracks for the scandalous films “The Flower of 1001 Nights” and “Lard, or the 120 Days of Sodom”; for Dario Argento - composes compositions for the giallo horror films “The Cat of Nine Tails” and “Four Flies on Gray Velvet.”

Success in Hollywood, work with Tarantino

Morricone's growing demand and popularity in Europe helped him move overseas and begin active work in Hollywood studios. The first Hollywood film for which he wrote the music, “The Exorcist 2,” was not successful at the box office, but subsequent projects often took their place among screen classics. Among them are the fantastic horror “The Thing” by John Carpenter, the crime drama “The Untouchables” by Brian De Palma and the historical drama “The Mission” by Roland Joffe.

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Among Morricone's fans in Hollywood was Quentin Tarantino, who actively used his music from spaghetti westerns in his films. Twice Tarantino managed to work directly with the Italian classic - Morricone wrote the soundtracks for the films “Django Unchained” and “The Hateful Eight,” filled with homages and references to classic Italian westerns of the 1960s and 1970s.

Despite the abundance of job offers in Hollywood, Morricone refused to move overseas and continued to live in Italy until the end of his days. In addition, he never mastered the English language.

“They offered me a free house in Hollywood, but I said, ‘No thanks, I’d rather live in Rome,’” he said.

Belmondo and "72 meters"

Morricone worked actively, including with French filmmakers. Here his greatest success was brought to him by the music for films with the participation of Jean-Paul Belmondo: “Fear over the City”, “Outside the Law” and “The Professional”. The music for the latter became Morricone's calling card and largely overshadowed the popularity of the film itself, which, nevertheless, became a box office hit in the Soviet Union.

Russian producers also managed to attract Morricone to cooperation once: in 2004, the Italian became the author of the music for Vladimir Khotinenko’s disaster film “72 Meters.”

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