The 13th night of the Ennio Morricone film Festival brought TWO MULES FOR SISTER SARA to the large David Geffen screen of the Academy Museum. Memories of many of these films have faded for me so the first thing that popped out is how animated Clint Eastwood considering much of his early acting was somehow wooden. But this makes sense since director Don Siegel and he were not only chums by then but he had become Eastwood's mentor. Siegel would always get the best from him especially in their next film THE BEGUILED. Shirley Maclaine is not only beautiful here but the role of an ostensible nun helping in a revolution seems perfect for her at this time. Add to this Siegel was still at the top of his game here (especially the first half) with CHARLEY VARRICK coming next for him. AND legendary Hollywood 10 blacklisted writer Albert Maltz (MILDRED PIERCE, BROKEN ARROW) co-wrote this with legendary Budd Boetticher so much of the dialogue is cracklingly good.
For Morricone this was a pivotal film, but not in a good way. By 1970 Ennio had conquered Europe. He was in demand everywhere but the USA. Unfortunately he chose this as his maiden effort. He wrote this superb score whose main theme is not only ingenious but it a piece that doesn't telegraph some twists of the plot that could hurt the film overall. It is one of his best efforts in the westrn genre. But not only was he not treated so hot but was paid commensurate with the lower level American composers. Don Siegel confirms this stating Martin Rackin (an undistiguished writer who became an undistinguished producer) did not let him hire some of his favorite actors for parts in TWO MULES because he wanted an all Mexican crew and below the line cast to save money. This left a sour taste in Morricone's mouth for America and not until 9 years later after Ennio won his first Oscar nomination for DAYS OF HEAVEN did he get offers he considered respectable.
On the 14th day of the Ennio Morricone Film Festival at the Academy Museum we have the lumbering epic 1900 or NOVECENTO. Bernardo Bertolucci burst upon the arthouse scene in 1970 with the box office hit THE CONFORMIST which combined politics, sex and violence in a sumptuous period piece, well acted and breathtakingly presented. He immediately got a screenplay Oscar nomination for it which was rare for a foreign film. He followed that up with LAST TANGO IN PARIS which added a major star and pushed the envelope of sexual content, giving him a director Oscar nomination and a box office that arthouse films could only dream of then. Based on the success of that it's producer Albert Grimaldi greenlit Bertollucci's dream project of telling a slice of Italian history via a feudal farmship at the turn of the century. Perhaps he should have kept it as a mini-series as he first conceived it, because, whether it is the 4 hour version I originally saw or this 5 hour version I've seen twice now, it still seems to me incomplete. I've heard rumors, because Bertolucci wanted to "feel" the seasons he took almost a year to make this, so with the amount of footage shot and rewrites as he went along, the film ended up with characters and subplots galore. Which made the original cut so unwieldy it was pared down a lot for 5 hours! This may be why I feel, after the two protagonist kids grow up, the film careens back and forth between sex and violence so much it feels like an epic exploitation movie. Maybe story and character development was left behind somewhere. Add to this, even though I usually feel subtitles are preferred, but not having the voices of such familiar actors as Burt Lancaster, Sterling Hayden, Robert Deniro and Donald Sutherland brought this whole production down further. Actually if you want to see a great film on this subject matter see Ermanno Olmi's TREE OF THE WOODEN CLOGS from a year later.
But Morricone's job is to make a coherent whole of everything and, of course, he does. Whenever his main theme plays during 1900 we actually feel a clarity whether or not it is there. In fact his main title and the scored scenes there are with the two fathers Lancaster and Hayden have a feel of a movie we never saw fully develop. Ennio with his insight into storytelling comes out on top once again.
Thanks for your continuing narrative on this marvellous season, Henry. Would have loved to have gone to a few of these, but would probably have balked at a five-hour showing of Novocento! I have a mixed relationship with the film, which is brilliant in parts and terribly hard to watch in others. The last time I watched it, which was within the last year, I wondered to myself if I had the stamina and fortitude to sit through it again, and I suspect I might not.
The fifteenth night of the Ennio Morricone Film Festival at the Academy Museum brings yet ANOTHER film I saw long ago, didn't care for, and now I am so impressed with - IL DESERTO DEI TARTARI But this time it is not because of some expansion or change in the film. This time it is I who have changed. I saw it close to 1976, when it came out probably at Filmex, and thought it was boring. This tale of a French Foreign Legion outpost so remote the enemy is more a rumor than a reality is based on a book that was thought "unfilmable" which usually means the book is an interior monologue (i.e. JOHNNY GOT HIS GUN), everything is happening on the inside. I no doubt reacted negatively to this film because on a certain level nothing happens. Bu since then I have seen so many films where "nothing happens" from Antonioni, Bresson and Ozu and found out from them that there is plenty happening. First thing I noticed this time is that the allstar European cast of Vittorio Gassman, Giuliano Gemma, Helmut Griem, Philippe Noiret, Francisco Rabal, Fernando Rey, Jean-Louis Trintignant and Max von Sydow are all capable of communicating much with just a look. So there is always a sense there is a lot going on under the surface. The young lead Jacques Perrin, who was great in "Z" as the reporter and later became known as the grown "Toto" the filmmaker in CINEMA PARADISO, plays the new recruit and hence seemingly normal. The rest of the occupants of the fort have been in the desert too long and are at various points of "losing it". The location for this film is one of the most amazing in cinema. This ancient fortress they found in Morocco seems to have been built to protect a small city within, which has long since disintegrated. This aids in the idea there is this whole legion is out here protecting nothing. Scenes of the characters walking among these ruins are haunting. The last quarter of the film, where our protagonist deteriorates way too fast, isn't as convincing as most of this masterful production.
This project was very special for Morricone on a number of levels. Director Valerio Zurlini was a prominent Italian director known for his knack at adapting literature to the big screen. Zurlini's composer of choice was Mario Nascimbene, who gave Morricone one of his earliest opportunities in film as an orchestrator. Unfortunately his job as an orchestrator involved way too much actual composing and after years with Mario he left bitter proclaiming you were not a real composer unless you did your own orchestrations. On another level Goffredo Petrassi, one of Italy's most prominent concert composers AND Ennio's teacher and mentor, composed one of his few film scores for Zurlini. Morricone had a hard time getting Petrassi to ever take his film scores seriously so here he might get Petrassi's ear. This is Morricone's LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, except this is not a beautiful desert or a background for battles, but a desolate place where men go mad, while still having that haunting percussion in the background. There is some melody but it also seems ironic in context. Morricone included this in his concerts for many, many years. It and the film are memorable for me.
Thanks for the report. I get a little bit of Claire Denis' BEAU TRAVAIL from your descriptions, only "dustier". You certainly make it sound more intriguing than I initially thought it was (I pictured a more pulpy affair). I've thoroughly enjoyed Morricone's soundtrack for a few years now.
Redux: Back on the 11th day of the Ennio Morricone film Festival it was so jam packed with films I forgot the matinee of UN BELLISSIMO NOVEMBRE by director Mauro Bolognini. This was an egregious bungle on my part since Bolognini was Morricone’s most consistent collaborator with 15 features they worked on. I should also mention that on my SACCO AND VANZETTI review I forgot to mention that that film’s director Giuliani Montaldo holds the second position with 11 films collaborated on (compared this with Sergio Leone with 6, Dario Argento and Bernardo Bertolucci with 5). Most of the films Bolognini did are based on novels and they include METELLO, L’ASSOLUTO NATURALE, LADY OF THE CAMELIAS and THE INHERITANCE.
What is intriguing about this novel is the overlay that is mentioned at the beginning, that this is some sort of Siclian crime family, that is not mentioned again but is important about the ultimate behavior of this family. Otherwise this can be taken as just an odd coming of age film. This mundane family existance is broken up by the appearance of free spirit Aunt Cettina played by Gina Lollobridgida who our young protagonist Nino falls in love with. The movie is all about his obsession and the inevitable "family responsibilities" that take over.
Morricone takes the whole thing from Nino's point of view so it is very serious but also quite lovely. The lively Aunt Cettina does not get any expression musically but that goes well towards the ultimate storytelling. This was score #2 of 15 for Bolognini.
So many of these films I would have loved to see on the big screen. I'm also reminded of the powerhouse presence of Volonté. Just compare his roles from DOLLARS to CITIZEN to SACCO. He had an almost chameleon-like ability to change his appearance from film to film.
The Ennio Morricone film Festival has ended but I will finish my assessment of the last few days. The 16th day of the Ennio Morricone brought a double bill of ALLONSANFAN and THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE. PLUMAGE was Dario Argento’s first directing effort and like almost all his films he came up with some very stylish murders but please don’t ask too much along the lines of logic from his plots. The film made a big impression in America and Morricone had his first giallo score released for an American label - Capitol Records. Like many scores of the time he was asked to re-record his score with him conducting for that LP while the LP released in Italy was the original soundtrack conducted by Bruno Nicolai. Ennio created a unique soundscape with sounds of glass overlayed by Edda Del Orso doing haunting La-La whispers. It created the framework for future giallo scores the same way A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS laid down the pattern for future spaghetti westerns.
ALLONSANFAN is another mindblowing reassessment film. The smallest audience for any of these films, 15 or so, did not help it because it was satire, and a certain amount of comical recognition is necessary. During the French Revolution an anarchist Fulvio is let out of jail. The opening scene he comes out confused at the top of the stairs and tries to walk down them while a line of jailers with cat-o-nine tails flail him as if it is a gauntlet. At the bottom two smiling representatives of the king give Fulvio the good news the king is giving out special dispensations and he is free. With Morricone’s opening tarantella the tone of everything is satiric. But not only does our small audience not respond but Wikipedia and IMDB declare this an historical drama. As one user says in his review characters come and go without explanation and the plot keeps jumping around in an absurd way. Indeed as a historical drama this sucks but if you take it as a subtle lowkey satire I think it is right on. Perhaps Marcello Mastroianni plays it so straight the absurdity of him running away from the anarchists he had been a part of AND the aristocracy he belongs to but no longer relates to, might get lost. Not on me, everytime his past catches up with him, no matter where he goes, it is funny, and says a lot about responsibility and commitment in an nicely absurd way.
Morricone comes up again with a brilliant representation of this tongue-in-cheek style with a tarantella. This is a mountain Sicilian folk dance. It works as Bernard Herrmann’s fandango in NORTH BY NORTHWEST does expressing the absolute chaos our protagonist is thrown into. ( I will never forget in the doc ENNIO: MAESTRO the Taviani Brothers are the only filmmakers who start singing the theme from their film ALLONSANFAN, first one and then the other, in an absolutely giddy way). There is a scene in ALLONSANFAN where the anarchists are having a meeting but are discovered so they pretend they are having a class for mountain dancing. Morricone absolutely knows what this film is about and the tone to use. And as further proof this is perfect satiric music Quentin Tarantino’s INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS at the end of the film (Spoiler!) when Hitler and his high command are burned in a movie theatre in this alternate history tale, his end title that immediately follows is ALLONSANFAN. Again a unique sound that sticks out for this period piece amongst all of Morricone 400+ scores.
What a great season, and your reports have made it feel as if I’d actually been there. Revisiting the programme from your initial posts, I’ve seen 17 of the 21 films involved, and hope to catch up with the others as the opportunities arise.
Big thanks again for your comprehensive run-down of the various nights.
Thanks to everyone who thanked me for these reports. Nice to know they are read. Only wish more of you could have come.
The 17th and last night of the Ennio Morricone Film Festival at the Academy Museum presented ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA, the final collaboration of Sergio Leone and Morricone, which had one of the most oddball histories ever. Many films have been cut down/butchered over the years and then brought back to its original sheen including LAWRENCE OF ARABIA. But the David Ladd Company, on its way to bankruptcy, decided to pick UP American distribution for this epic and then deemed it unreleasable after ostensibly one preview. Ladd himself thought he could fix this by taking this memory piece, where recollections come in and out in a specific order to tell the story, and putting it in together chronologically. Imagine a memory piece like CITIZEN KANE starting out with the young Kane playing with his sled and moving in the order of Kane’s life. You wouldn’t kill all the qualities of the film but as storytelling you would be left with a mess. You would never be able to make a coherent film out of this rearranged jigsaw puzzle. Nevertheless it is a tribute to Leone the film ended up on a few best ten lists cut down but still received mostly bad reviews. Add to this jumble the Ladd Company on its way out forgot to submit any of their films for Oscar consideration so that even the elements of ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA that remained exceptional, even in a butchered state ( like cinematography, art direction and especially score) could not be rewarded. Morricone’s had a shoo-in for his second Oscar nomination but thanks to Ladd that didn’t happen. Anyway the full restored cut was presented in all its glory on this night.
Sergio Leone had been offered a ton of gangster films over the years, including THE GODFATHER, but declined feeling offended that practically all gangsters were portrayed as Italian. What attracted him to this story is it was about the Jewish mafia. But ironically the feel of the film, with Robert Deniro, Joe Pesci, the score and many other elements, is distinctly Italian. Thanks to early scenes and mainly James Woods we are reminded who this film is about. Leone even chose Amapola, a traditional love song which sounds Italian, as his main love theme. The film is brutal in parts, as a gangster film should be, but the overall feel is of loss, a life half lived because of bad choices. A lot of this comes from Morricone’s score. Deborah’s theme being the most haunting aspect of it. It is the beating heart of this score. So much so Celine Dion commissioned a song made from it entitled “ I Knew I Loved You” for the 2007 album We All Love Ennio Morricone. She sang it to Morricone when he won his Lifetime Achievement Oscar in an unprecedented 14 minute presentation at that year’s Oscar ceremony.
It has been an incredible journey watching all 20 films from this festival. But because this only scratches the surface of what Morricone covered in over 400 scores, I thought I might mention a few neglected aspects. Nothing from the man who gave him his first score plus 5 others - Luciano Salce. Because Morricone arranged and composed a number of hit records for pop star Gianni Morandi he scored a number of musicals for him. He did a ton of non-Leone westerns from directors like Sergio Corbucci and Sergio Sollima. He did a number of mini-series like MARCO POLO, I PROMESSI SPOSI, NOSTROMO and THE OCTOPUS. And did a number of one shot projects for the likes of Mario Bava, Roman Polanski, Franco Zeffirelli, John Boorman, Marco Ferrari, Phil Karlson, Edward Dmytryck, Samuel Fuller, Mikhail Kalatozov, Margaret Von Trotta, Wolfgang Peterson, Oliver Stone and John Carpenter. And I will add LA CAGE AUX FOLLES which was a box office smash everywhere.
But thanks Academy Museum for doing for Morricone what no one has done for any composer in this town ever!
Thanks to everyone who thanked me for these reports. Nice to know they are read. Only wish more of you could have come.
The 17th and last night of the Ennio Morricone Film Festival at the Academy Museum presented ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA, the final collaboration of Sergio Leone and Morricone, which had one of the most oddball histories ever. Many films have been cut down/butchered over the years and then brought back to its original sheen including LAWRENCE OF ARABIA. But the David Ladd Company, on its way to bankruptcy, decided to pick UP American distribution for this epic and then deemed it unreleasable after ostensibly one preview. Ladd himself thought he could fix this by taking this memory piece, where recollections come in and out in a specific order to tell the story, and putting it in together chronologically. Imagine a memory piece like CITIZEN KANE starting out with the young Kane playing with his sled and moving in the order of Kane’s life. You wouldn’t kill all the qualities of the film but as storytelling you would be left with a mess. You would never be able to make a coherent film out of this rearranged jigsaw puzzle. Nevertheless it is a tribute to Leone the film ended up on a few best ten lists cut down but still received mostly bad reviews. Add to this jumble the Ladd Company on its way out forgot to submit any of their films for Oscar consideration so that even the elements of ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA that remained exceptional, even in a butchered state ( like cinematography, art direction and especially score) could not be rewarded. Morricone’s had a shoo-in for his second Oscar nomination but thanks to Ladd that didn’t happen. Anyway the full restored cut was presented in all its glory on this night.
Sergio Leone had been offered a ton of gangster films over the years, including THE GODFATHER, but declined feeling offended that practically all gangsters were portrayed as Italian. What attracted him to this story is it was about the Jewish mafia. But ironically the feel of the film, with Robert Deniro, Joe Pesci, the score and many other elements, is distinctly Italian. Thanks to early scenes and mainly James Woods we are reminded who this film is about. Leone even chose Amapola, a traditional love song which sounds Italian, as his main love theme. The film is brutal in parts, as a gangster film should be, but the overall feel is of loss, a life half lived because of bad choices. A lot of this comes from Morricone’s score. Deborah’s theme being the most haunting aspect of it. It is the beating heart of this score. So much so Celine Dion commissioned a song made from it entitled “ I Knew I Loved You” for the 2007 album We All Love Ennio Morricone. She sang it to Morricone when he won his Lifetime Achievement Oscar in an unprecedented 14 minute presentation at that year’s Oscar ceremony.
It has been an incredible journey watching all 20 films from this festival. But because this only scratches the surface of what Morricone covered in over 400 scores, I thought I might mention a few neglected aspects. Nothing from the man who gave him his first score plus 5 others - Luciano Salce. Because Morricone arranged and composed a number of hit records for pop star Gianni Morandi he scored a number of musicals for him. He did a ton of non-Leone westerns from directors like Sergio Corbucci and Sergio Sollima. He did a number of mini-series like MARCO POLO, I PROMESSI SPOSI, NOSTROMO and THE OCTOPUS. And did a number of one shot projects for the likes of Mario Bava, Roman Polanski, Franco Zeffirelli, John Boorman, Marco Ferrari, Phil Karlson, Edward Dmytryck, Samuel Fuller, Mikhail Kalatozov, Margaret Von Trotta, Wolfgang Peterson, Oliver Stone and John Carpenter. And I will add LA CAGE AUX FOLLES which was a box office smash everywhere.
But thanks Academy Museum for doing for Morricone what no one has done for any composer in this town ever!
thank you so much for all your reports, i really enjoyed reading them all. in munich there´s another morricone film festival with more than 30 movies to been shown, and the filmphilharmoinc orchestra of berlin will be on stage all over the world to show us the genius of this man. cheers and salut from berlin!
thank you so much for all your reports, i really enjoyed reading them all. in munich there´s another morricone film festival with more than 30 movies to been shown, and the filmphilharmoinc orchestra of berlin will be on stage all over the world to show us the genius of this man. cheers and salut from berlin!
Yes, and MOMA in New York did a 35 film tribute to Morricone. Still I appreciate the Academy Museum doing what they did since nothing of that nature has ever been done in this town.
