"Ennio" (Morricone)

I'm watched Ennio last night, and thoroughly enjoyed it, but I'll add a note here to explain that it may not be to everyone's taste.  First of all, it's a documentary rather than a traditional movie, and it's also two-and-a-half hours long.  More importantly, it is not a mashup of hours-worth of his compositions - it's instead an insight into the mind of arguably the most inventive and successful composer of our lifetime.

This man reminds me of the Mozart in Amadeus; the music is there inside his head and he just transcribes it to paper as fast as he can.  Look at this productivity:

With more than 400 scores for cinema and television, as well as more than 100 classical works, Morricone is widely considered one of the most prolific and greatest film composers of all time. He received numerous accolades including two Academy Awards, three Grammy Awards, three Golden Globes, six BAFTAs, ten David di Donatello, eleven Nastro d'Argento, two European Film Awards, the Golden Lion Honorary Award, and the Polar Music Prize in 2010.

His filmography includes more than 70 award-winning films, all Sergio Leone's films since A Fistful of Dollars, all Giuseppe Tornatore's films since Cinema Paradiso, Dario Argento's Animal Trilogy, as well as The Battle of Algiers (1968), 1900 (1976), La Cage aux Folles (1978), Le Professionnel (1981), The Thing (1982), The Key (1983) by Tinto Brass and Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (1989). He received Academy Award for Best Original Score nominations for Days of Heaven (1978), The Mission (1986), The Untouchables (1987), Bugsy (1991), Malèna (2000) and The Hateful Eight (2015), winning for the latter. He won the Academy Honorary Award in 2007. His score to The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) is regarded as one of the most recognizable and influential soundtracks in history. It was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

Morricone has the classical education that allows him to decide that a film set in the 1700s needs this kind of music rather than that.  But his signature style began with the incorporation into movie scores of nontraditional music and sounds.  Before him, movie scores were produced by orchestras and were lyric and melodic.  Morricone adapted non-orchestral instruments, animal sounds, and ambient noises into a tapestry of sound.  And it fits into the movie because he is often looking at the soundless scene and creating the music as he watches.

See also Ennio Morricone's Ecstasy of Gold, and In memoriam: Ennio Morricone.