RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
This is the sound of the American West, at least that iconic sound as filtered through the ears of an Italian, composer Ennio Morricone. He was a giant in the world of film scores, composing the music for more than 500 movies. Ennio Morricone has died at the age of 91. NPR's Rose Friedman has this appreciation.
(SOUNDBITE OF ENNIO MORRICONE'S "IL BUONO, IL BRUTTO, IL CATTIVO (TITOLI)")
ROSE FRIEDMAN, BYLINE: When Ennio Morricone wrote a score for a Western, he used sneaky tricks to make those evocative sounds - whistles, animal calls, creaks, gunshots and groans. And his most famous sound...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
ROBERTA RINALDI: I used a coyote howl.
ENNIO MORRICONE: (Imitating coyote howl, speaking Italian).
RINALDI: That exact sound, that is the theme of the film.
FRIEDMAN: That was Ennio Morricone speaking to NPR in 2014 through his female translator Roberta Rinaldi. Morricone worked closely with directors to create a new kind of score. Dialogue was often minimal.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY")
CLINT EASTWOOD: (As Blondie) Your spurs.
FRIEDMAN: The soundtrack did the talking.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY")
FRIEDMAN: Historian Christopher Frayling wrote a book about the Italian Westerns. He told NPR in 2007 that the composer and the directors he worked with wanted to infuse the films with, among other things, a sense of humor.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
CHRISTOPHER FRAYLING: They wanted something that was much more hip, much more related to pop. So it's Italian folk instruments plus rock music of the mid-1960s. And it was an astonishingly raucous, noisy sound.
(SOUNDBITE OF ENNIO MORRICONE'S "THE CHASE")
FRIEDMAN: The creator of that sound was born in Rome in 1928. Ennio Morricone began writing music at the age of 6 and never stopped. In the mid-'60s, he discovered the contemporary music scene in Italy and joined a collective called Il Gruppo that was influenced by John Cage's avant-garde experimentation.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
MORRICONE: (Through interpreter) As a joke, I called these friends of mine, and I started telling them to do kind of a sound like groans or very strange sounds. And I started conducting them. And I also did sounds myself, so I kind of did some strange voice and noise (groaning).
FRIEDMAN: From that early experience, Morricone was off and running towards one of the most celebrated film scoring careers of all time. It began with "Il Federale" in 1961 and continued through his collaborations with director Sergio Leone on a famous series of Westerns that included "A Fistful Of Dollars," "For A Few Dollars More," "The Good, The Bad The Ugly" and "Once Upon A Time In The West." But that wasn't all he did. Some of his best-known scores include the political drama "The Battle Of Algiers..."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS")
FRIEDMAN: ...Brian de Palma's take on 1930s gangsters, "The Untouchables..."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE UNTOUCHABLES")
FRIEDMAN: ...And "The Mission" about a Jesuit priest in South America.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE MISSION")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTORS: (As characters, singing in non-English language).
FRIEDMAN: Historian Christopher Frayling had a chance to meet the choirmaster who'd worked on another Morricone film. And he asked what words the choir was actually singing.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
FRAYLING: He said, I can't remember. It's - it was just - they're just sounds, you know? And the human voice is used as another musical instrument.
FRIEDMAN: But while the words might have been imprecise, the maestro's hands still guided every aspect of the production. Many film composers write the music and then hand the score off to someone else to orchestrate. But Morricone insisted on being part of each step in the process. Again, he spoke through his female translator.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
MORRICONE: (Through interpreter) A real composer has to take care of all his music, and those who actually just write the melody and then hand it on to someone else are not - to me, they're not real composers.
FRIEDMAN: That attention to detail paid off. Ennio Morricone was nominated for six Academy Awards. He was presented with an honorary Oscar in 2007 and finally won the prize outright in 2015 for "The Hateful Eight." But none of it seemed to go to his head. He told NPR that he didn't think of himself as having created that iconic world of the Wild West. The director did it with his images, Morricone said. What I think I have done is specified and made it clearer what the characters were feeling. Rose Friedman, NPR News.
Copyright © 2020 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.