Ennio

Ennio

A documentary. Released in 2021. Directed by Giuseppe Tornatore. I saw it at Cine Switch Ginza for the first time in March 2023.

It depicts the life of a film score master, Ennio Morricone, making interviews with famous persons who knew Morricone.

I struggled against sleepiness in the first half, for it portrays the Italian musician's background and the old movies whose music he composed, though I was interested in Bruce "The Boss" Springsteen, who was really impressed by the music of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, and the fact that the film director, Stanley Kubrick, had desired to work with him in A Clockwork Orange. My tears started to well up in the scene about Once Upon a Time in America. The scores are more fantastic than the acting of remarkable actors Robert De Niro and James Woods. Although the running time is about four hours, yet it will never bore me because of his music. The Mission was so serious that I had had not wanted to see it again. Now that I knew that Morrcone made the music, I like to do it again. I also want to see my favorite movie The Untouchables deliberately listening to the background music which he composed. As for Cinema Paradiso, unlike the people who praise it, I think that the character Alfredo is kind of egoistic. All the same, I love it because the melody is overwhelmingly beautiful throughout and makes my thoughts trivial. In the episode of U Turn, Oliver Stone relates with a laugh that the manager offended Morrcone when he asked the composer to watch and refer the animation movie Tom and Jerry. Anecdotes about unique persons are amusing.

The Italian had won five Academy nominations but not an Oscar before he received the Academy Honorary Award in 2006. He finally obtained an Oscar in The Hateful Eight directed by Quentin Tarantino and released in 2015. It took a long time considering his lengthy trance record. The ceremony was really touching. I cried at the glory moment when he won the award after he had kept on overcoming the wall of prejudice and envy. The great master's way of life with fortitude is extremely wonderful.

John Williams is also a giant of film music and one of the people who were interviewed about Morrcone. I was surprised that he was not only alive and but also never feeble, for he was still very famous when I was a child. He was 90 years old at the release. Morrcone passed away in 2020 at the age of 91 but he looks healthy in the motion picture. The secret of being healthy at any age must be to be active even if you get old.