What really set Ennio Morricone apart from other great soundtrack composers was how he dipped into multiple musical genres without sacrificing quality. A jack of all trades; master of all. Therefore, it was hardly a surprise he was called Il Maestro.
It would often come as a surprise that a film's soundtrack would contain a distinctive style, which would have you thinking it was composed by Morricone. For the longest time Roberto Pregadio's music for The Forgotten Pistolero (1969) had me completely fooled.
Here are a bunch of themes which had me fooled into thinking they were by Il Maestro:
No surprise his old mate and fellow peer, Bruno Nicolai, would feature so heavily.
Switchin things around, how uncanny is it that Morricone's theme for John Carpenter's classic, sci-fi horror The Thing (1982) actually sounds like something Carpenter would have composed for his film?
I was a fan of The Thing for years before I realised Carpenter didn't do the theme.
ReplyDeleteNicolai is definitely the Davy DMX to Morricone's Larry Smith, and plz believe that's a compliment.
Didn't find out about Morricone scoring The Thing until a mate at school told me. For whatever reason, I never really paid attention to film credits back then.
ReplyDeleteBruno Nicolai might be the only soundtrack composer to outdo Morricone when he produced four of my favourite giallo soundtracks - all in the very same year.
On the subject of soundtracks, what's the deal with Tarantino taking shotz at at the Herrmann's Taxi Driver soundtrack in his book?
ReplyDelete"Minimalist car noise - asshole with a sax - score that Herrmann pawned off on Scorsese."
Piss off, dickhead.
😀
ReplyDeleteHe described Hitchcock’s Frenzy as “a piece of crap” in his chapter on De Palma’s Sisters.