Do you love film music? Have you ever had the urge to take a college course on film music?
Sit down and let the sights & sounds of ENNIO: THE GLANCE OF MUSIC wash over you. You'll have a doctorate in all things Ennio Morricone by the end of this nearly three hour, exhaustive tour of the composer from his youth through many of the greatest films of our time.
Even casual movie fans know Ennio from his legendary whips and whistles themes for Clint Eastwood's 1960's spaghetti westerns.
The most legendary of those movies , "The Good , The Bad and The Ugly" is in my all time Top 100 films and Ennio is to thank for a lot of that, his music equally important as Eastwood's laconic Man With No Name in establishing mood.
This documentary dives deep into Ennio's youth and his early genius, along with the lack of respect many of his fellow European composers had for film music. In their minds, you may as well be a poet putting your prose on bathroom walls. Films are for the masses, why degrade yourself?
Morricone carved a new path in the fifties and sixties, creating respect among legendary directors like Sergio Leone, Bernardo Bertolucci and even Quentin Tarantino in recent years, who hired Ennio to compose a score for his "The Hateful EIght".
Some of my favorite Morricone scores aren't detailed within, like his incredible score for John Carpenter's "The Thing". But, there's a deep dive on his music for Brian DePalma's "The Untouchables" that I really enjoyed.
John WIlliams, Hans Zimmer and Bruce Springsteen are among the many music legends that are interviewed on film about the impact of Ennio on the history of film scores. It's fascinating to watch Ennio think about wrapping up at the end of every decade and then plowing into the next score that challenges him.
For viewers of the documentary, studios have been generous in offering up a huge variety of film clips that bring back great memories of his music filling a theater.
It's painstaking in its detailed approach to his work, its opposition and his legacy. With more than half the film in Italian with subtitles and nearly three hours of storytelling, it's certainly not for the casual film fan, but I appreciated Writer/Director Giuseppe Tornatore (Cinema Paradiso) and his inspired devotion to capturing Morricone.
Ennio passed away in 2020 at the age of 91, just before the film's premiere. His passion, talent and music will live on for generations of film goers.
ENNIO gets an appreciative B.
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