By Jaime Holguin
NEW YORK (AP) --All Ennio Morricone asked of Quentin Tarantino, after committing to score his new Western, "The Hateful Eight," was that the director feature his music prominently and give it the space needed to convey its message.
Given how Tarantino feels about the award-winning composer, he hardly needed to ask.
"Ennio Morricone, as far as I am concerned, is my favorite composer," Tarantino said onstage as he accepted the 87-year-old Morricone's third Golden Globe Award for best original score. "When I say 'favorite composer,' I don't mean movie composer. … I'm talking about Mozart, I'm talking about Beethoven, I'm talking about Schubert."
Getting Morricone to score "The Hateful Eight" was a coup for Tarantino, who tried before to get a soundtrack out of the prolific Italian composer. Some of Tarantino's films, like "Kill Bill: Vol. 2" and "Django Unchained," have featured existing music that Morricone originally composed for movies directed by Sergio Corbucci, Don Siegel and Sergio Leone in the 1960s.
Morricone's music played a central role in the cinematic experience of Leone spaghetti Westerns like "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" and "A Fistful of Dollars," and it's similarly front-and-center in "The Hateful Eight," which also earned Morricone an Oscar nomination. In Tarantino's hands, Morricone's music gets a starring role, serving as a narrator that helps move the story along, foreshadowing coming plot twists and accentuating the building suspense.
"The duration of the music piece inside the film is paramount for the mission of the film and the music score," said Morricone. "If you just have 30 seconds, the music cannot play its role, which is to express what you cannot see and hear through the images and dialogue."
Morricone spoke, via a translator, from his home in Rome. His remarks have been edited for clarity and brevity.
Q: Do you have a general process that you go through when you decide to score a film?
Morricone: Sometimes I discuss it with the director when the movie is just an idea, and in this way I can even contribute my own ideas. But it depends on the kind of approach of the director. In the case of Tarantino, he came to me after filming, when the movie had already been shot. I told him, if there is going to be a next time — a next film with Quentin Tarantino and Ennio Morricone — I would like to start discussing the music beforehand, when you have the first idea of the film so I can really make a full contribution with my music.
Q: Some are calling this your first score for a Western film in more than 40 years, but in recent interviews you've said you don't consider "The Hateful Eight" a true Western. As someone who helped define the genre almost half a century ago, could you explain what constitutes a true Western film?
Morricone: What I consider a true Western film contains adventure and drama, set in a very specific geographic location, with prairies … horses and guns. This is what makes a Western film a Western film. In the case of 'The Hateful Eight,' we have the cowboy hats and the guns, but we also have the presence of snow and the fact that almost all the film takes place in the same location and the same interior. This does not make it a Western movie, in my opinion. In fact, when I read the script, I never thought that this would be a Western movie.
Q: You've scored so many films. How do you stay so prolific?
Morricone: I started as an arranger … writing pop songs. I started working on very easy kinds of music pieces for the radio, for television and then for the theater and then little by little I started to compose the film scores. All these experiences added together, together with my studies — because you can't forget that I followed all the studies that a real classic composer has to follow — led me to be so prolific, so fresh and so original over the years.
Q: What drew you to film composition?
Morricone: I must say that I have never looked for a particular kind of job assignment. It was the other way around. People called me to do something. It was the case for the pop songs, and then for the radio and then for the television and then for the theaters and last, but not least, for the cinema. So maybe it's that the people who called me, the producers and the filmmakers, they understood that I could be a good composer for film.
Oscar and Emmy-Winning Composer Kris Bowers Joins Barking Owl For Advertising, Branded Content
Music, audio post and sonic branding house Barking Owl has taken on exclusive representation of Oscar and Emmy-winning composer Kris Bowers for advertising and branded content.
Bowers’ recent film scores include The Wild Robot and Bob Marley: One Love, alongside acclaimed past works such as The Color Purple (2023), King Richard and Green Book. His contributions to television are equally impressive, with scores for hit series like Bridgerton, When They See Us, Dear White People, and his Daytime Emmy Award-winning score for The Snowy Day.
In addition to his work as a composer, Bowers is a visionary director. He recently took home the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject for his directorial work on The Last Repair Shop. The emotionally touching short film spotlights four of the people responsible for repairing the musical instruments used by students in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). The Last Repair Shop reflects the positive influence that musical instruments have on the youngsters who play them, and the adults in the LAUSD free repair service who keep them working and in tune.
Barking Owl CEO Kirkland Alexander Lynch said of Bowers, “His artistry, diversity of style and depth of storytelling bring an unparalleled edge to the work we create for global brands. His presence on our roster reflects our continued commitment to pushing the boundaries of sound and music in advertising.”
Johanna Cranitch, creative director, Barking Owl, added, “Kris first caught my attention when he released his record ‘Heroes + Misfits’ where he fused together his jazz sensibility with a deeply ingrained aptitude for melody, so beautifully.... Read More