Directed by Giuseppe Tornatore
ChinoKino score:A
Review by Allan Tong
If you don't know the name Ennio Morricone, you have heard his music in films such as Malena, The Mission, In The Line of Fire, The Untouchables, Days of Heaven, Once Upon A Time In America, and the one that launched him internationally, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. The Italian trumpeter and classical composer scored over 400 films in his 91 years and is considered the greatest. Morricone collaborated with director Giuseppe Tornatore on 1988's Cinema Paradiso, which was was a Valentine to cinema. So is Ennio, which Tornatore made as an obvious tribute to Morricone. The result is an essential documentary about the Maestro and the mysterious, but powerful art of creating music for film.
The strength and structure of Ennio lies in the subject itself who freely shares his life story from his childhood in Rome. Morricone wanted to be a doctor, but his father ordered him to take up the trumpet like he did in order to feed his family. Hungry years inevitably dawned, which did not satisfy the young trumpeter. Morricone studied classical composing which was unusual for a trumpet player. Versed in Verdi and Mozart, of course, Morricone surprisingly admired avant-garde musician John Cage who was infamous for making music out of ordinary sounds. Morricone's gift for melody, his classical training and his affection for experimentalism gradually made its way onto Italian, TV then film.
