Farewell, Maestro

Ennio Morricone, the Oscar®-winning composer, has passed away at the age of 91.

As Edgar Wright has said, where to even start? He could make an average movie into a must see, a good movie into art, and a great movie into legend.

We're honoured to represent several of the films that he scored, just a small part of the incredible legacy he leaves behind. Morricone had a prolific career that included countless film scores, pop tunes, sold-out concert tours, best-selling tribute albums, and just about every award imaginable.

In 2018, Park Circus was honoured to create a new 4K restoration trailer for our rerelease of A Fistful of Dollars (1964). Before you even see his name appear on any of the many incredible films he has been involved in, you know it's him the moment you hear it.

Morricone is perhaps best remembered for shaping the sound of the Spaghetti Western genre, thanks to his legendary work on Sergio Leone’s Dollars Trilogy,which include not only A Fistful of Dollars (1964), but also For a Few Dollars More (1965), and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). Morricone and Leone would continue to work together on films such as Once Upon a Time in the West (1968).

But according to The Hollywood Reporter, Morricone did not like the term “Spaghetti Western” and noted that his work in that genre represented just a fraction of his career.

In 1982, he composed the eerie score to John Carpenter’s The Thing. In 1984, he worked with Sergio Leone on his final film, Once Upon a Time in America, and with Brian De Palma on 1987’s The Untouchables.

And of course, many know Morricone for what is considered by some to be the finest soundtrack ever recorded, from Roland Joffe’s The Mission (1986). In this powerful action epic about a man of the sword (Robert DeNiro) and a man of the cloth (Jeremy Irons) who unite to shield a South American Indian tribe from brutal subjugation, Morricone juxtaposed evocative and moving choral sound with indigenous instruments to stunning effect.

Morricone also worked with several other legendary directors, including Bernardo Bertolucci on 1900, William Friedkin on Rampage, Pedro Almodovar on Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, Franco Zeffirelli on Hamlet,and latterly, his 2015 Oscar®-winning score for Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight.

Our thoughts are with his friends and family. Farewell, Maestro.