Discovering Ennio Morricone's genius
His score for Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight has recently been nominated for an Oscar
Only a few persons can claim having had a long lasting influence in the world of Hollywood. Among them, we can certainly count the Italian soundtrack giant Ennio Morricone. His score for Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight has recently been nominated for an Oscar, and it's not the first time he has received an Oscars nod: this is his sixth nomination, although he has never previously won.
As recently reported by The Guardian, in 2007, Morricone received an Academy honorary award for his "magnificent and multifaceted contributions to the art of film music": at this year Oscar awarding ceremony, it is likely the Morricone will collect another prize, as Tarantino's movie is expected to get the lion's share of 2016 prizes together with The Revenant.
The Hateful Eight is the first movie where Morricone has collaborated with Tarantino, although the director has often repurposed Morricone's existing work in his works and often stated how much he admires the creation of the Italian maestro.
Morricone has composed over 500 scores for cinema. His career started with the classic 1960s Italian spaghetti westerns (westerns is a term he apparently finds offensive, so I refrain from using it!) in partnership with Sergio Leone, including The Good, The Bad and the Ugly and Once Upon a Time in the West. The most famous of his many masterpieces is probably his score for Roland Joffé's 1986 movie The Mission - incidentally, it was also nominated for an Oscar, but did not get it. At the age of 87, Morricone does not seem likely to stop working. He recently declared at the British newspaper The Guardian: "I am still here and still performing. When I was 35, I told my wife Maria, 'OK, when I am 40 I will stop writing film music, and I will just write absolute music'. But I am still here writing film music, so you can never say when you will stop."
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