Speaking to the Guardian recently, the italian maestro Ennio Morricone criticised the state of music in today’s cinema. He blamed the cost cutting measures forcing directors to use law quality synthesised sounds and amateur musicians depriving the film of a great score that could enhance the viewing experience.
During a career spanning over 60 years, Ennio Morricone had composed number of cinema’s most memorable scores. The Good, The Bad and The Ugly and Oscar winning Cinema Paradiso appear high among them.
There are some directors who actually fear the possible success of music, They fear that the audience or the critics will think the film has worked because there was a very good music score.
He revolutionised movie music with his compositions for Sergio Leone’s ‘Spaghetti westerns’ where Morricone’s music combined with the landscape of the scenes and fight sequences to create a memorable cinematic experience. Hollywood Reporter one time put it as “There aren’t many composers whose music is immediately identifiable after just a couple of whistled notes.” He is also the only composer to have received a honorary Oscar.
He also announced on Wednesday that he will start a world tour on January next year. Before that he will be performing in the City of Rome, during a special mass dedicated to Pope Francis.
In his conversation with Guardian, he criticised the film makers who does not understand the time which it takes for a piece of music to properly convey its message in a film. He blamed the deterioration of the standards and cost-cutting for this problem. He also added that electronic music sounds flat compared to a live orchestra and that contributes to a bland, standardised genre of music.
However he had reserved some praise for other contemporary movie composers such as Hans Zimmer (Gladiator) and John Williams (Star Wars, Schindler’s List). According to Morricone those are the composer that have understood the emotional impact in the film carried by music.
Morricone had also collaborated with both Hollywood and European directors, such as Brian de Palma and Bernado Bertolucci.
If you have a 20-second music piece, you cannot really express anything … It can just signal maybe a scene change … If you allow it to develop, the music can do its job in telling what is not said and showing what you cannot see.
His recent European tour was a runaway success. The tour played for more than 150,000 people in 22 countries and Morricone received standing ovation at his recent London concert. His longtime creative partner Sergio Leone had said that music in a film is more expressive than dialogue. Often Morricone would write a piece of a score even before the director starts shooting the film.
Despite all the accolades, Morricone is disappointed that he is often associated with music he wrote for westerns which only represents just 8% of his creative output. He had written scores for a wide array of films including historical, comical and dramatic films.
According to Morricone, the purpose of a score is to serve the film. He is certain that “bad music cannot ruin a good film” as much as a good music cannot improve a bad film.
His next tour dates in the UK will be on February next year, during which he will be playing in the O2Arena and in Dublin.