NZIFF Film Review: "Ennio: The Maestro" (2021).

From the director of The Best Offer (La migliore offerta) comes Ennio: The Maestro. This documentary film written and directed by Giuseppe Tornatore. A portrait of one of the most popular and prolific film composers of the twentieth century, ENNIO celebrates the life and legacy of Ennio Morricone, featuring never-before-seen archival footage and interviews with renowned filmmakers and musicians including Hans Zimmer, John Williams, Quentin Tarantino and Clint Eastwood. 

On November 10, 1928, Italian composer, orchestrator, conductor, trumpeter, and pianist, Ennio Morricone, was born. He wrote music in a wide range of styles, with more than four-hundred scores for cinema and television, as well as more than one-hundred classical works, Morricone is widely considered one of the most prolific and greatest film composers of all time. He has 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 seventy award-winning films, all Sergio Leone's films since A Fistful of Dollars (1964), all Tornatore's films since Cinema Paradiso (1988), Dario Argento's Animal Trilogy, as well as Gillo Pontecorvo's The Battle of Algiers (1968), Bernardo Bertolucci's 1900 (1976), Terrence Malick's Days of Heaven (1978), Georges Lautner's Le Professionnel (1981), John Carpenter's The Thing (1982), Roland Joffé's The Mission (1986), Brian De Palma's The Untouchables (1987), Warren Beatty's Bugsy (1991), and Tarantino's The Hateful Eight (2015), receiving the Academy Award for Best Original Score for the latter. He won the Academy Honorary Award in 2007. After playing the trumpet in jazz bands in the 1940s, he became a studio arranger for RCA Victor and in 1955 started ghost writing for film and theatre. Throughout his career, he composed music for artists such as Paul Anka, Mina, Milva, Zucchero, and Andrea Bocelli. From 1960 to 1975, Morricone gained international fame for composing music for Westerns. From 1966 to 1980, he was a main member of Il Gruppo, one of the first experimental composers collectives, and in 1969 he co-founded Forum Music Village, a prestigious recording studio. He continued to compose music for European productions, such as Marco Polo, La piovra, Nostromo, Fateless, Karol, and En mai, fais ce qu'il te plait. His best-known compositions include The Ecstasy of Gold, Se telefonando, Man with a Harmonica, Here's to You, Chi Mai, Gabriel's Oboe, and E Più Ti Penso. He has influenced many artists including Zimmer, Danger Mouse, Dire Straits, Muse, Metallica, Fields of the Nephilim, and Radiohead. He passed away on July 6, 2020.

The film is a rare bird indeed. It can be enjoyed by the casual viewer as well as those who previously thought they knew everything about what shapes the aforementioned films. Once you see it, you'll never hear the movies the same way again. That said, the film serves well as an introduction to Morricone's life and works, and includes numerous contemporary composers and musicians that reveal just how Morricone's music contrives to shape our movie-going experiences.

Simon says Ennio: The Maestro receives:

Also, see my NZIFF review for The Best Offer (La migliore offerta) and Shin Ultraman (シン・ウルトラマン).