Monday 13 July 2020

Arrivederci Ennio Morricone, Composer extraordinaire...

              A cinema great passed away last week. A true great, perhaps the greatest of his genre, certainly amongst the most inspiring and influential. Ennio Morricone, the legendary film composer whose magic dust was sprinkled over 400 films and television shows across several decades, was ninety-one. Indeed, he was still working till his late eighties, conducting concerts of his film scores, not to mention winning an Oscar for the Hateful Eight aged eighty-seven. He died on the sixth of July, my grandmother’s birthday. She loved her movies, particularly the old Hollywood classics. I’d like to think they’re having a chat right now about some of the great films from that golden age of cinema. Drinking cocktails and laughing.  
                Born in Rome in 1928 to a musical family, Ennio started composing as young as six. The name may or may not ring a bell, but I can guarantee you’ll know his music, or some of it at least. Perhaps only rivalled in recognizability by James Barry’s ‘James Bond’ theme, is there any more famous and atmospheric theme in cinema than that of ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’ from 1968?
'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly' is the third in the trilogy - after 'A Fistful of Dollars' and 'For a Few Dollars More' - of Sergio Leone’s collaboration with Morricone, starring Clint Eastwood as the "man with no name". All masterpieces thanks in large part to Morricone’s unique, innovative and provocative scores. The opening track to the first in the series, ‘A Fistful of Dollars’, tells you all you need to know. Clearly it has a Western feel but with a range of less conventional sound effects, such as the whistling, the sound of gunfire and something resembling a bird call combined with male vocal harmonies – a little less rigid than the traditional “manly” singing of the American Westerns – as well as strings, guitar and so on. He has created a truly unique vibe even before we’ve seen anything on the screen. In fact, it was a case of necessity being the mother of invention. Budget restrictions limited his access to a full orchestra leading him to improvise, which by accident or design added extra contrast to the style of Western normally seen in Hollywood. The other main contrast of course being Leone’s shooting style and techniques but’s that another discussion. An interesting aside is the irony that it was an Italian director in a European collaboration that made Clint Eastwood’s name. Clint wasn't Leone's first choice but when James Coburn proved too expensive he got the job. Eastwood's TV contract at the time forbade him from doing American Westerns but lucky for him and us that there was no issue with Europe. Sergio, Ennio and Clint created a new genre, "The Spaghetti Western". It was Leone’s respect for Morricone and his estimation for the importance of the soundtrack, that allowed Morricone the freedom to create such iconic music. Some creative partnerships really are meant to be.
                Another of my favourite soundtracks and favourite films with a Morricone score is a French film, ‘Le Clan Des Siciliens’, a classic heist adventure from 1969 with Alain Delon, Lino Ventura and Jean Gabin. Delon plays an escaped convict planning a jewel robbery in Rome with Gabin’s Parisian/Sicilian gangster. Ventura is the cop chasing them.  Within seconds of the film opening we are taken into that world. A melancholy whistling from the mesmerising Curro Savoy  - whom we also hear in 'The Good, Bad and Ugly' - combined with a metallic sounding Jew’s harp effect creates a sense of stillness and menace and leads to haunting guitar chords as Delon exits a police van in cuffs. And it feels like Italy but I’m not sure why. Is it the instruments? Not especially. Is it the mood? I can’t say. Subliminally he does that to you. This was part of Morricone’s genius; to suggest or illustrate but in a non-clichéd way. Incidentally, the film opens in Paris, so that feeling is even more interesting. But I suggest you watch it and see if you agree. In fact while you’re at it watch the whole film, it’s magnificent.
                In the summer of 1999, I was in London visiting a girl – well, a woman – that I knew. It was getting late on a lovely, warm and still summer evening. My memories have that vagueness that the tipsiness from the specific moment in time brings, but I’ll never forget the feeling. From the other room, she put on a song. I heard these lovely, slightly off beat piano chords leading to this truly beautiful and moving melody. I rushed through wondering what it was. It was the main theme to ‘Cinema Paradiso’ which became one of my favourite films. Again, it was the work of the great Ennio. How grateful I was for that discovery. She also introduced me to Withnail And I. She had good taste in films, perhaps less so in music (I do remember a John Farnham – he of “You’re the Voice” fame – cassette). Though she was Australian so I suppose it can be forgiven. Anyway, I was hooked though I didn’t actually see ‘Cinema Paradiso’ till a year or two later.  Made in 1988, it is essentially the story of  Salvatore (Toto), a successful film maker living in Rome, who returns to Sicily – Sicily again, what a place – having left thirty years before and never returned, for the funeral of Alfredo, played by the legendary French actor, Phillipe Noiret. Going to a flashback, we move to just after WW2. Alfredo is the Camera Projectionist at the Cinema Paradiso in town, and he befriends the young Toto, becoming his mentor and surrogate father. The cinema becomes a refuge for the boy and the movies a place of escape; his home life being difficult due to his mother’s depression - his father, her husband, having been killed in the war. The metaphor of the cinema as an escape, as it was particularly in those days before television, is one of the other keys to the film. It very much evokes the joy and nostalgia for things past and the magic of old black and white movies; the power that cinema held and still does. But it is much more than that: A political history, a story of love, friendship and humanity. Mr Morricone’s contribution, as always, is sublime. Being a little more classic in its instrumentation, using pianos, cellos and violins, for example, to help evoke the sense of nostalgia. There’s a certain sadness, a certain fragility to the music but also a certain warmth. And of course, a certain beauty.
                1982’s The Thing is an altogether different type of film that also benefited from Morricone’s talents. A tense and atmospheric Sci-Fi horror about a shape-shifting alien that can take the form of any animal it gets its tentacles into, including humans, it is truly exceptional. The creature having been accidently released from the ice after thousands of years creates havoc in an Antarctic research station and kills most of the men in it. A sort of Ridley Scott’s Alien-type film but set on Earth rather than Space, though it might as well be Space. Morricone himself was a bit of a shape shifter in his ability to put his talents to so many different types of movies. Directed by John Carpenter, he of ‘Halloween’ and ‘The Fog’ fame, the music has an electronic, minimalist and sombre style, befitting the era and style of the film. A sense of foreboding and terror is around every corner as the men get more and more paranoid about which one of them is the monster. Widely panned by the critics at the time for reasons best known to themselves, it is a truly wondrous piece of filmmaking, the theatricality and horror of the beast contrasting with the stillness and chill of the mood and harsh landscape. Morricone’s music, of course, helps build and support the sense of foreboding and isolation. Highly recommended unless you don’t like being scared out of your wits, of course. Even then, it’s worth it. As Carpenter himself said, Morricone had an innate feeling for mood and how to enhance it beyond the expectation of the director.
                Sergio Leone’s final film, ‘Once Upon A Time in America’, of course scored by Morricone is also highly recommended, if you have a couple of days to spare. Leone was actually offered the Godfather, but he turned it down as he already had the project in mind for what would become this film ten years later. Released in 1984, the film received a rapturous applause on its screening at the Cannes Film Festival. Sadly, the American distributors, terrified by its running time of almost four hours, cut in by half and re-edited it without Leone’s permission. This shocking form of censorship had the opposite effect intended. The film was a critical failure and it took years for its reputation to be restored. If you can watch it get the Director’s cut. Funnily a similar thing happened with ‘Cinema Paradiso’. Damn those meddling money men. Starring Robert De Niro, James Woods, Joe Pesci and Elizabeth McGovern amongst others, it is a masterpiece. Covering more than half a century from the early 1900’s to the 60’s it is an epic story of violence, crime, revenge, love, friendship and so on. The usual stuff for the genre. The Godfather films have, understandably, a great reputation. As does 'Goodfellas'. This is a different beast, a little more theatrical dare I say, more Italian in its wide sweeping shots, it's almost baroque framing and of course with Morricone’s astonishingly evocative and beautiful music. In a French interview in 1988, Leone explained that for this film, he often had Morricone compose the music before he shot the scene. There existed, in other words, “une complicité totale” between the two. A great director like Leone actually shooting a scene with the music already written is perhaps the greatest testimony that could be paid to Morricone. Genius is an exception and we and future generations are blessed to have access to his legendary works. Have a look at his filmography. I’ve just mentioned a few, there are hundreds more. Search for his name on YouTube. There are numerous gems to get you started or to remind you. His work with Leone may be his best. Certainly their symbiosis seemed to bring the best out of them. Stanley Kubrick once said to Leone that the only music of Morricone he liked was in Leone’s films. Leone replied that he hated the composer Richard Strauss except in that famous scene in Kubrick’s 2001 ‘A Space Odyssey’ with the apes and the spaceship. The marriage of the music to these great directors’ visuals is a match made in cinematic heaven - nothing more, nothing less. 

2 comments: