A composer who thought in terms of molten-guitar melodrama and wailing choral grandeur, Ennio Morricone, who died on Monday at 91, scored movies the way their biggest fans heard them in their heads. He believed in the films no matter how ridiculous, celebrating and amplifying their feelings into something transcendent. (Morricone was often more successful at doing this than their directors or screenwriters.)
If we allow ourselves to think about spaghetti westerns as touched by a sense of cosmic fate, or horror slashers as occasionally gorgeous, Morricone is certainly to thank for that. He was a kindred spirit to visionaries like Sergio Leone, Dario Argento, Brian De Palma, John Carpenter and Quentin Tarantino (all five collaborated with him) — that is to say, he was a supremely talented addict to the rush of genre filmmaking.
To understand Morricone’s genius, it’s better to explore the deep cuts.
1966
‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’
The twangy, galloping, ay-ay-ay-ing main title of Leone’s action epic is more famous, but revisit the film’s wordless climax, set on a cracked-stone clearing where the antagonists shoot it out over stolen gold coins, and you’ll appreciate how adventurous Morricone’s art was. The composer multiplies the unbearable tension of the stare-down with each added instrument: a Spanish guitar (gloriously out of tune), a blaring trumpet, skittering castanets, delicate chimes, even what sounds like a reverb-drenched amplifier being tipped over. Colored by avant-garde liberation, it’s a sonic palette that was uniquely his.
1968
‘Danger: Diabolik’
Mario Bava’s kitschy comics-based crime film has its superfans (the Beastie Boys once built a whole video around it), but Morricone’s groovy, psychedelic-tinged additions have more personality than the masked antihero, played by John Phillip Law. Trained at the Santa Cecilia classical conservatory in his native Italy, Morricone was also seasoned in jazz and pop, meaning he could lounge it up with the best of them. “Deep Down,” this movie’s flirty fuzz-guitar-laden theme song cooed by the chanteuse Maria Cristina Brancucci, deserves to be more widely known. It’s easily better than maybe all but three James Bond tunes.
1968
‘Once Upon a Time in the West’
Another Leone western moment is merited here, and this violent reveal from the director’s mighty 1968 summation work is the most shocking scene of his career. He lets a child’s point of view bring us into the scene, rushing down a hallway and almost smacking us into Morricone’s savage electric guitar crunch. The boy and his farming family will soon be gone, rubbed out by the menacing men who materialize from the scrub and dark orchestral swells. Their leader? None other than the classic American good guy Henry Fonda, breaking bad in a perverse piece of casting. Morricone makes the betrayal feel like a gut punch.
1970
‘The Bird With the Crystal Plumage’
It’s impossible to reflect on Italy’s tradition of giallo — stylish thrillers prone to black-gloved killers in close-up — and not smile at their creepy aural signatures, often supplied by Morricone in a steady side gig. His work on Argento’s enormously influential breakthrough film is a nightmare in your ear holes: twinkly lullaby chimes and slightly deranged la-la-la singing. Talk to disciples of Morricone’s weirdest soundtracks and they’ll steer you toward titles like “A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin” (1971), “What Have You Done to Solange?” (1972) and “Spasmo” (1974). Still, take your time with that journey in the dark; here’s the place to start.
1970
‘Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion’
Elio Petri’s Kafkaesque police satire, about a corrupt inspector (Gian Maria Volonté) who kills his mistress and hopes to get caught, would be almost unbearably bleak as a piece of entertainment if played straight. Fortunately, Morricone’s score, the product of an especially inspired and fecund period, functions as a mischievous counterbalance. Mincing mandolins, conspiratorial bassoons and the prominent sproing of a mouth harp coalesce into a nudge that helps ground our reaction in black comedy. In his recent reappraisal, J. Hoberman called Morricone’s score “cartoonish.” It’s also a stealth commentary built into the film itself.
1978
‘Days of Heaven’
Golden-hour-hued and exquisitely pastoral, Terrence Malick’s Texas-set drama has such a visual fineness to it, you can almost feel the softness of the air. Even in conjunction with knockout cinematography (of such uglies as Richard Gere, Brooke Adams and Sam Shepard), Morricone’s contribution stands out, particularly this cue, wavering between natural order and an underlying tension. The composer notoriously butted heads with Malick, who was as demanding as they come. Nonetheless — or perhaps because of it — Morricone produced some of his most aching passages.
1986
‘The Mission’
Music bridges cultures and connects listeners to a conception of the divine (no matter how arbitrarily imposed) in Roland Joffé’s sumptuous religious drama. Tapping into his love of heavenly harmonies and contrapuntal elegance, Morricone composed an oboe melody for Jeremy Irons, playing an 18th-century Spanish Jesuit missionary in South America. His priest performs it in the jungle for a tribe of Indigenous Guaraní. The solo has to function as an initiation: beguiling, innocent, unthreatening. Morricone expands it into a theme underpinning one of his most beloved scores, better known than the film itself.
1988
‘Cinema Paradiso’
This may be Morricone’s masterpiece, in which his churning, romantic score supplies the final catharsis — the belated viewing of a lost reel of kisses from old films — in the absence of dialogue. Giuseppe Tornatore’s Oscar winner is about a boy enchanted by movies who grows up to be a cynical, faithless director. His memories of youth, first love and a kindly projectionist (Philippe Noiret) are the basis for the story’s four-alarm nostalgia fire, deeply indebted to Federico Fellini. If you’re too cool for it, “Cinema Paradiso” is easy to dismiss, but we Morriconians see you discreetly wiping a tear from the corner of your eye.
Source: Movies - nytimes.com
