Dramas and Political Movies
With Leone’s films, Ennio Morricone’s name had been put firmly on the map. Most of Morricone's film scores of the 1960s were composed outside the Spaghetti Western genre, while still using Alessandroni's team. Their music included the themes for Il Malamondo (1964), Slalom (1965) and Listen, Let's Make Love (1967). In 1968, Morricone reduced his work outside the movie business and wrote scores for 20 films in the same year. The scores included psychedelic accompaniment for Mario Bava's superhero romp Danger: Diabolik (1968)
His talent and creativity were such that many other directors were soon keen to collaborate with him, and in the next few years Morricone scored a lot of films by politically committed directors: collaborating with Marco Bellocchio (Fists in the Pocket, 1965), Gillo Pontecorvo (The Battle of Algiers (1966) and Queimada! (1969) with Marlon Brando), Roberto Faenza (H2S, 1968), Giuseppe Patroni Griffi (Metti una sera a cena, 1969), Giuliano Montaldo (Sacco e Vanzetti, 1971), Mauro Bolognini (Drama of the Rich, 1974), Pier Paolo Pasolini (The Hawks and the Sparrows, 1966) and Bernardo Bertolucci (Novecento, 1976).
In 1970, Morricone wrote the score for Violent City. That same year, he received his first Nastro d'Argento for the music in Metti una sera a cena (Giuseppe Patroni Griffi, 1969) and his second only a year later for Sacco e Vanzetti (Giuliano Montaldo, 1971), in which he had made a memorable collaboration with the legendary American folk singer and activist Joan Baez. His soundtrack for Sacco e Vanzetti contains another well-known composition by Morricone, the folk song Here's to You, sung by Joan Baez. For the writing of the lyrics, Baez was inspired by a letter from Bartolomeo Vanzetti: "Father, yes, I am a prisoner / Fear not to relay my crime". The song became a hit in several countries, selling over 790,000 copies in France only. The song was later included in movies such as The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and in the video game Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots as the closing theme as well as the recently released gameplay trailer for Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes.
In the same year, Morricone composed the score for the less-known drama Maddalena (1971) by the Polish film director Jerzy Kawalerowicz which included its composition 'Chi Mai'. The theme appeared on the million-selling score for Georges Lautner's Le Professionnel (1981), as well as the TV series, An Englishman's Castle (1978) and The Life and Times of David Lloyd George (1981). Because of its appearance on the latter, "Chi Mai" reached number 2 on the UK Singles Chart in 1981. The single was certified by the BPI with a golden record on May 1, 1981 and sold over 900,000 copies in France alone.
In the beginning of the seventies, the composer achieved success with other singles, such as A Fistful of Dynamite (1971) and God With Us (1974), having sold respectively 477,000 and 378,000 copies in France only.
Between 1967 and 1993 the composer had a long-term collaboration with director Mauro Bolognini. Ennio Morricone wrote over 15 film scores for Bolognini including Le streghe (1966), L'assoluto naturale (1969), Un bellissimo novembre (1969), Metello (1970), Libera, amore mio... (1973), Per le antiche scale (1975), La Dame aux camelias (1980), Mosca addio (1987), Gli indifferenti (1988) and La villa del venerd (1992).
Read more about this topic: Leo Nichols
Famous quotes containing the words political and/or movies:
“All the territorial possessions of all the political establishments in the earth—including America, of course—consist of pilferings from other people’s wash.”
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“I asked her if she wanted to go to the movies that night. She laughed again and told me that she felt like seeing a Fernandel movie. When we got dressed, she seemed very surprised to see me wearing a black tie and asked me if I was in mourning. I told her that my mother was dead. Since she asked me since when, I answered, “Since yesterday”.”
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