The Maestro and His Movies

Winner of a recent Honorary Oscar® for his career achievements, Ennio Morricone has provided some of the most audacious and beautiful sounds to accompany some of the most memorable images of international cinema’s last 50 years. This is why I couldn’t think of a more fun and appropriate way to demonstrate the Dryden Theatre’s new projection and sound equipment than a film series tribute to this celebrated and enormously prolific composer.

Famous for his versatility, Morricone has written the music to more than 400 features. It’s a staggering figure, and while there are some bummers among those films that have been touched by his unique musical imprimatur, there’s rarely a Morricone score that’s not worth listening to. For the purposes of this series, however, I’ve compiled a varied selection of both supreme masterpieces and excellent movies that deserve to be better known. The only common factor among all of the films being shown is the eminently listenable music of Maestro Morricone. You’ll see a heist thriller and a farcical sex comedy; period love stories and politically explosive docudramas; heart-stopping horrors, and, of course, spaghetti Westerns.

These European-made Westerns, a sub-genre with a heyday that lasted from the early 1960s through the mid-1970s, allowed Morricone to make his reputation through a unique mixture of pounding surf guitar sounds and militaristic, yet somehow plaintive trumpet solos (Morricone studied trumpet at Rome’s Santa Cecilia Conservatory). During this period, he forged long-lasting working relationships with directors like Sergio Sollima (The Big Gundown) and Sergio Corbucci, whose Navajo Joe features a hair-raising, shrieking chorus that repeatedly chants the film’s title.

But it was for a third Western auteur named Sergio (Leone, to be precise) that Morricone wrote some of his most enduring themes, music that provides the soul to beautifully composed and strikingly edited action-adventure epics like The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly and Once Upon a Time in the West. This music often plays an important on-screen role, and musical instruments are figured into the plots, such as Charles Bronson’s wheezy, discordant harmonica in the latter film. For Leone, a childhood schoolmate of Morricone’s, the composer took the unusual approach of composing his themes before any film was shot, and the director often played back the music on set. Through their grandiose treatment of simple and familiar genre tropes, the two artists achieved the equivalent of opera in cinema.

Like Leone, a significant number of acclaimed directors have chosen to work frequently, if not exclusively, with Morricone: Bernardo Bertolucci, Roland Joffé, Giuseppe Tornatore, Gillo Pontecorvo, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and horror maestro Dario Argento, all of whom are represented in this series. Morricone found a different and appropriate sound for each of these filmmakers, creating mellow moods with light rock and lounge beats, evoking bygone eras via sentimental melodies, jangling nerves with dissonant chords, or, in the case of the magisterial score for Joffé’s The Mission, inspiring awe through the power of music.

Jim Healy, Assistant Curator, Exhibitions, Motion Picture Department

Sunday, July 15,

7 p.m. Once Upon a Time in the West (C’ERA UNA VOLTA IL WEST, US/Italy 1968, 165 min.)

Thursday, July 19

7 p.m. Ennio Morricone (UK 1995, 45 min.) and 8 p.m. Before the Revolution (PRIMA DELLA RIVOLUZIONE, Italy 1964, 115 min., Italian with subtitles)

Tuesday, July 24

The Burglars (LE CASSE, France/Italy 1971, 120 min.)

Thursday, July 26

7 p.m. The Big Gundown (LA RESA DEI CONTI, Spain/Italy 1966, 80 min.) and 8:30 p.m. Navajo Joe (Italy/Spain 1966, 93 min.)

Sunday, July 29

2 p.m. & 7 p.m. Cinema Paradiso—The Director’s Cut (Italy 1998, 170 min., Italian with subtitles)

Thursday, August 2

The Battle of Algiers (LA BATTAGLIA DI ALGERI, Italy/Algeria 1966, 123 min., French and Arabic with subtitles, 35mm)

Friday, August 3

Days of Heaven (US 1978, 95 min.)

Thursday, August 9

7 p.m. The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (L’UCCELLO DALLE PIUME DI CRISTALLO, Italy/West Germany 1969, 98 min.) and 8:45 p.m. The Cat O’Nine Tails (IL GATTO A NOVE CODE, Italy/France/ West Germany 1971, 112 min.)

Friday, August 10

Sacco and Vanzetti (Italy/France 1971, 120 min., English and Italian with subtitles, 35mm) Co-presented by the Rochester Labor Council.

Saturday, August 11

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly—The Uncut Version (IL BUONO, IL BRUTTO, IL CATTIVO, Italy/Spain, 1967, 180 min.)

Thursday, August 16

The Mercenary (IL MERCENARIO/ REVENGE OF A GUNFIGHTER/A PROFESSIONAL GUN, Italy/Spain 1968, 110 min.)

Thursday, August 23

La Cage aux Folles (BIRDS OF A FEATHER, France/Italy 1978, 91 min., French with subtitles)

Friday, August 24, 8 p.m. &
Sunday, August 26, 4 p.m.

The Mission (Roland Joffé, UK 1986, 123 min.)

Thursday, August 30

Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom—The Uncut Version (SALÒ O LE 120 GIORNATE DI SODOMA, Italy 1975, 116 min., Italian with subtitles) No one under 18 admitted.

All films will be screened in the Dryden Theatre at 8 p.m. unless otherwise noted. Admission is $6, $5 students, and $4 members.