Ennio, a documentary on film composer Ennio Morricone from Music Box Films directed by Academy Award-winner Giuseppe Tornatore (Cinema Paradiso), is set to arrive in North American theaters on Feb. 9. The film received a trailer on Dec. 19 to mark its official release date.
ENNIO | Official Trailer | Music Box Films
A legendary Italian film composer and conductor, Morricone died in 2020 at the age of 91, with the filming of this documentary fortuitously completed shortly before his passing. Among film composers, Morricone's contributions to the world of cinematic music scores are virtually unmatched in their breadth and diversity of genres. With more than 500 scores for the big screen, including his most memorable for director Sergio Leone's 1966 The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Morricone worked with such diverse talents as Quentin Tarantino, Brian De Palma, Warren Beatty and Mike Nichols. But it was his work with fellow Italian Tornatore that makes this feature especially noteworthy.
Composer Ennio Morricone at the Italian premiere of Quentin Tarantino's 'The Hateful Eight,' Rome, January 28, 2015.
With interviews from Morricone's collaborators and admirers, director Tornatore paints a canvas bathed in sound, with a variety of famous names explaining his innovations. Clint Eastwood, who starred in what has become known as The Dollars Trilogy as "The Man With No Name," notes that Morricone was "very new at the time and still today," in having a distinctive theme permeate the soundtrack, courtesy of Leone's insistence on the use of a pan flute "all over the movie."
Titol - from ' A Fistful Of Dollars' Soundtrack
Tornatore, who worked with Morricone on thirteen films, has included narration from the maestro himself, interspersed with scenes from the films he scored, including Bernardo Bertolluci's 1900, Leone's "spaghetti westerns," and Tarantino's The Hateful Eight ,which won the 2016 Academy Award for Best Motion Picture Score (Morricone's first Oscar after several career nominations).
Ennio Morricone accepting the Oscar for Best Motion Picture Score for 'The Hateful Eight' Dolby Theater, Los Angeles, February 28, 2016.
While Ennio premiered at the Venice International Film Festival in 2021, Tornatore is finally able to bring his "love letter" of admiration and dedication to theaters. The film features contemporary interviews with Eastwood, Tarantino, Joan Baez, Bruce Springsteen, Quincy Jones, James Hetfield, John Williams, Hans Zimmer, Bernardo Bertolucci, Mike Patton, Dario Argento, Wong Kar-Wai, Oliver Stone and Barry Levinson.
Aside from his lone Oscar win, Morricone was also awarded three Grammys, three Golden Globes, six BAFTAs, ten David di Donatello awards, eleven Nastro d'Argento awards, two European Film Awards, the Golden Lion Honorary Award, and the Polar Music Prize in 2010. He was ordered the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic in 2007.
As Express critic Andy Lea observed of the documentary in a review: "Morricone, it seems, could remember composing every note right up to the end of his life. Musical historians will be relieved that Tornatore was around to capture him in full flow." The Guardian's Leslie Felperin called the film "a painstakingly detailed, fantastically entertaining, and profoundly exhausting deep dive into the career of the hyper-prolific Italian composer," while noting that the film is "perhaps...ideally seen first in a cinema for maximum impact and then again in small, digestible chunks at home."
