GIUSEPPE TORNATORE’S “ENNIO” - Once upon a time in Morricone’s world
A few days ago, I happened to be in Ireland’s second city, Cork. The opaque prospect of a routine work trip was brightened when a colleague, friend and host, Daragh, suggested we join the closing evening of the local Italian Film Festival.
They were screening Giuseppe Tornatore’s Ennio and despite the near-full house it was easy for him to find the tickets. He was one of the organisers. So, I happily joined in, and in the end we knew we had seen a great film about a great man. It was also a humbling experience.
Ennio is a biographical documentary, a restrained but heartfelt homage by Tornatore to one of the greatest musicians of the 20th-century. The film is restrained for two reasons. First, Tornatore could have spoken at length about Ennio Morricone since the two worked together on a number of films. Most notoriously on Cinema Paradiso (1988), The Legend of 1900 (1998) and, more recently, on Baaria (2009).
Instead, Tornatore only appears a couple of times amongst the dozens of famous musicians, film directors and friends who are asked repeatedly to give their say or tell an anecdote. More importantly from a cinematic viewpoint, the film is restrained because it is difficult to see Tornatore’s hand. This is a film in which the director makes you almost forget that you are watching a film.
It does not seem that way at the start. The first sequence is very elaborate as the camera follows an elderly Morricone doing a number of physical exercises on the parquet floor of his flat. Camera movements and framing are most evident hence the presence of the director is palpable. However, this only lasts a few minutes.
After that, the film takes a more conventional shape, alternating studio interviews with clips of concerts or old footage of Morricone. It is as if, from then on, Tornatore adopts the more discreet role of historian and editor, allowing Morricone and his music to take centre stage.
The aforementioned humbling experience concerns our realisation of the enormous erudition hiding behind the simplicity of some of Morricone’s most renowned musical pieces.
All those who like his music and read a little about his life, know what a serious musician he was, studying composition amongst Italy’s elite group at Rome’s Santa Cecilia Conservatory, led by Goffredo Petrassi.
We also know of his involvement in contemporary experimental music which, in the 1960s, explored atonal music to the most annoying extremes. And we know how he quickly found an astonishing capacity to produce catching melodies that would stick in our minds once we happened to come across them.
It did not really matter whether it was pop music arrangements or art movies’ music scores. There they were, often accompanied by unusual sound effects like tins, bells, whistles and whips.
Morricone the experimenter and Morricone the melodic composer produced the rarest blend of high- and low-brow: music for the connoisseurs and music for everyone else. The result was that he quickly became one of the most sought-after musicians of his generation. And one of the most innovative ones.
This is testified by a litany of legendary figures singing his praises: from rock stars such as Bruce Springsteen, to fellow composers - a long list led by John Williams and Hans Zimmer - to film directors who worked with him like Sergio Leone, Oliver Stone, Quentin Tarantino and others, to iconic actors such as Clint Eastwood. It is literally la crème de la crème of contemporary music and cinema.
But despite this velvet-laced accolade, the film equally shows the human frailty of the man. It shows the extent to which Morricone’s sense of self-respect was challenged by the cold shoulder offered by his former “serious” fellow composers, or by the lack of formal recognition by Hollywood’s establishment. It took a consolatory career’s award in 2007 before Morricone could place the golden statuette into his award cabinet.
Morricone was a stern defender of his status as a composer. Producers, directors and journalists sometimes bore the brunt of it after asking him either to change his ways or the wrong question.
I had the privilege of interviewing him, back in 2006, and when I naively asked whether the closing song of The Legend of 1900, written by former Pink Floyd’s frontman, Roger Waters, was the fruit of a collaboration between the two, I felt the flames of hell scorching the soles of my shoes.
After a few seconds of resented silence, he let me know in no uncertain terms that Rogers’ song was little more than a blotch on the music score he had composed. I quickly moved on to other films and he returned to his usual well-poised, friendly self.
One highlight of Ennio is the clip of Tarantino’s brash speech, during the 2016 Academy Awards, in which he insisted that Morricone should be considered one of the greatest composers of all times, up there, with Bach and Mozart.
It is perhaps too early for that kind of consecration. However, there is no doubt that he is one of the most revolutionary and influential composers of his generation. Film scores are what he did best, but he has left an equally impressive repertoire of other compositions, ranging from pop songs to the classical symphony he composed after 9/11. Towards the end of his life, he was by far the most popular living composer in the world.
And by the end of the film, we sort of remember that we have been watching a documentary made by a great film director. And the great thing, this time, is Tornatore’s stepping back, allowing Morricone’s life and achievements to speak for themselves.
Cover: Ennio Morricone
(images courtesy of dogwoof.com)
