Ennio Morricone was probably the greatest film director who never directed a movie. Morricone‘s approach to creating a film score was that the music was never just a supplement to a film. Music was a character in the film.
Morricone’s impact on music and film is immeasurable. His Internet Movie Database profile lists 520 films scored. It’s probably more than that. The Italian film industry in the 1960’s and 1970’s was churning out so many movies per month that it was difficult to keep track of them all. Film scholars and historians will probably discover lost Morricone film scores for years.
He’s best known for his work in the Sergio Leone “Dollars” trilogy, otherwise known as the “Man with No Name” movies – A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. He scored many other westerns apart from that, including A Pistol for Ringo, Bullets Don’t Argue, Seven Guns for the MacGregors, Navajo Joe, and others both great and obscure. He scored action films, sci-fi films, dramas (His score for The Mission is legendary.), comedies, giallo films (many for Dario Argento), and horror films – notably John Carpenter‘s remake of The Thing. Carpenter and his band played Morricone’s main theme to The Thing when I saw Carpenter perform in Detroit.
He also composed a lot of great Bossa nova music and orchestral pieces. His music is instantly recognizable. You’ve heard it not only in hundreds of films, but also in thousands of TV shows from Moonlighting to The Simpsons.
He will be greatly missed, but he had an amazing life and career. The world is better for him being in it.
Rest well, Maestro.
Also, if you ever wondered what song I want played at my funeral, it’s this.
Keep your mind open.
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