Monday, November 10, 2008

Happy Birthday, Mr. Morricone

I have already highlighted one fantastic musical moment of Ennio Morricone's.

Now, however, I must revisit him. Today is his eightieth birthday. Happy Birthday, Ennio Morricone!

Christian Divine gives us all another wonderful "cinematic moment" of Mr. Morricone's.

Morricone's music is unquestionably some of the greatest in film history. He is a giant. I intend to "[c]elebrate with pasta, wine and an iconic stance," as Christian most appropriately suggests we all do.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm Italian-American on both sides )Napolitan. Bodaise, Abrusaise. (but I cannot speak the language) But that certainly won't stop me for issuing praise for one of the greatest composers in film history.

Morricone has written a slew of scores that many would consider among the greatest ever composed. Surely, ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA and ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST are seminal scores as is his beloved score for CINEMA PARADISO. He came close to winning an oscar for his sublimely beautiful score for MALENA, and few realize that the unfairly-maligned LEGEND OF 1900 yielded one of the most drop-dead gorgeous compositions ever heard to the human ear.

Morricone iis a titan--a composer of distinct melodious gifts, in a long-line of Italian melodists dating back to operatic greats Verdi, Mascagni, Puccini, Leoncavallo and Giordano. Morricone wrote an absolutely stunning score with director Pontecorvo for the masterpiece THE BALLE OF ALGIERS, and he wrote beautiful scores for Rolan Joffe's THE MISSION, Terrence Malick's THE DAYS OF HEAVEN and Lajos Koltai's Hungarian Holocaust film FATELESS.

He has written unforgettable scores for Visconti, Ferreri, Bava, Lattuada, Argento, Taviani, Bellochio, Leone, Bertlucci, Zeffirelli, Pasolini, Fuller, Carpenter, DePalma and Oliver Stone.

I love the man and his work more than I can convey here and have spent hundreds of hours listening to my 40 plus CD collection his film scores. Only Bernard Herrmann and Max Steiner rank higher in my estimation, although I know Korngold, Williams, Rosza, Young and Newman fans could make a case too.

I applaud you Alexander for giving this great man his due here.

Coleman's Corner in Cinema... said...

Wow, Sam, your tribute right there with that comment is more than enough for all of cyber-space on this wonderful, celebratory day for a man who must be considered one of the greatest film composers of all time.

Thank you for that most articulate and passionate comment, Sam, you have immeasurably enriched Coleman's Corner yet again. I hope Ennio is looking in on this somewhere!

Anonymous said...

L'amore Ennio Morricone.

Daniel said...

Hard to top Christian's feature, but I have to put my vote in with what Sam mentions - The Mission. Simply exhilarating.

K. Bowen said...

The score for Days of Heaven is frequently used for all sorts of things. You still hear it in commercials from time to time. In trailers a great deal also.

Coleman's Corner in Cinema... said...

Thank you for commenting, Giuseppe.

Daniel, great point about The Mission, and, KB, great point about Days of Heaven. You're right about the universality of the Days of Heaven score, KB, you do hear it a lot.

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