Documentaries are a space of revelations. We explore the world. We look at the untold fate of seemingly ordinary people. We discover new aspects of the psyche and the careers of great artists. So I ran to see Ennio, hats off from the filmmaker Giuseppe Tornatore to Morricone, both already reunited in the cult Cinema Paradiso.
Many of us remain haunted by the film scores of the great Italian composer and conductor. Especially those of Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns (an expression he abhorred). The cry of the recreated coyote, the haunting themes on the harmonica, the incongruous sound effects and the disparate sound alliances had offered a new dimension to the musical frameworks of the cinema. All against the backdrop of cowboy duels or improvised gibbets in For a handful of dollars, The good, the bully and the ugly Where Once upon a time in Americaamong others.
With him, the music was no longer an accompaniment, but a parallel creation in its own right. And this devil of Morricone knew how to make the crowds vibrate, raising his nose to the melody, but handling it like a master. The one who offered Joan Baez the chords of the iconic song Here’s to You for Sacco and Vanzetti by Giuliano Montaldo in 1971, would offer the human rights movement of the time a hymn to freedom sung around the world.
Precursor, yes. Although his compatriot Nino Rota, who harmonized many Fellini films before him, did not give his place either, without seeing each other alas! mentioned here. The homeland of bel canto will have offered its letters of nobility to an art long considered minor by purists of great music. Ennio Morricone took time to see himself dubbed by his peers. He who had studied classical composition was reproached for slumming in front of the screen. But the soundtracks of the best films on which he pushed the note have long been popular (70 million albums sold) and his famous tunes electrify concerts of all kinds. His son Andrea, also a composer, is currently holding the baton on a world tour to pay tribute to this father who died in 2020, through a film-concert dedicated to his work.
In the documentary Enniostuffed with film extracts, we revel in the interviews granted by the prolific maestro to Giuseppe Tornatore, his friend and confidant, who knew how to soothe his natural shyness with a look.
This film reveals us not a warm man, but a kind of sphinx host to a cerebral world who, for our great pleasure, meticulously comments on his creative process. This great artist had an almost infinite knowledge of symphonic music, of improvisation as well as of the repertoire of the most diverse peoples, marrying cultures, sound effects and harmonies with extraordinary flair and absolute pitch.
His existence was offered to his muse. And the little Roman who dreamed of a career as a doctor at the age of eight was assigned that of a trumpeter, like his jazz musician father, who determined his vocation alone. Good for us and maybe for him. Because he was going to shine at the Conservatory, try out experimentation, serve the action of the most disparate films outside the chapels. Morricone was above all proud of his magic composition for The Mission, by Alain Joffe. He only won the Oscar, after six nominations, for the music of the eight bastards by Quentin Tarantino, in 2016. Still, Hollywood, pitiful, had already awarded him a tribute statuette to make up for his lack of recognition towards such a virtuoso.
On the screen, 60 years of cinema pass before our eyes. And I recommend this documentary, with some caveats. Because Ennio lasts 2 hours 47 minutes and would have deserved cuts. Those of several talking heads who came to show their admiration for the master. They add to the composer’s scores an overly misleading hagiographic note. The term “genius” fuses voices that chorus, laudatory remarks follow one another ad nauseamlike at a funeral.
Tornatore had a rich problem. Like many documentary filmmakers who came to pay homage to a major artist, he had access to a bouquet of stars too happy to throw deserved flowers at the deceased giant. And so go cut Quentin Tarantino, Clint Eastwood, Bruce Springsteen, Wong Kar-wai, Oliver Stone, Terrence Malick or the composers Hans Zimmer or John Williams in the editing. Not to mention the others. In short, Ennio suffocates under these jets of incense. The spectator feels admiring too. But don’t throw any more, he thinks on his cinema seat where the music and the words of Morricone were enough to delight him… without knocking him out.