Ennio Morricone

 "You can't save a bad movie with a good score."

A classmate of director Sergio Leone with whom he would form one of the great director/composer partnerships, Ennio Morricone studied at Rome's Santa Cecilia Conservatory, where he specialized in trumpet. His first film scores were relatively undistinguished, but he was hired by Leone for "A Fistful of Dollars" (1964) on the strength of some of his song arrangements. His score for that film, with its sparse arrangements, unorthodox instrumentation (bells, electric guitars, harmonicas, the distinctive twang of the jew's harp) and memorable tunes (budget strictures limited Morricone's access to a full orchestra), revolutionized the way music would be used in Westerns, and it is hard to think of a post-Morricone Western score that doesn't in some way reflect his influence.

Although his name will always be synonymous with the spaghetti Western, Morricone has also contributed to a huge range of other film genres: comedies, dramas, thrillers, horror films, romances, art movies, exploitation movies - making him one of the film world's most versatile artists. Morricone often expressed frustration for being recognized mostly for his western scores. He repeatedly stated that he considered himself a composer of music, not merely of movie scores and certainly not only westerns. He also reportedly took great offense at the term "spaghetti western,"and journalists were warned to avoid using the word when interviewing him.

Morricone said in an interview that he accepted Quentin Tarantino's request to score "The Hateful Eight" (2015) because he liked the script, and because Tarantino gave him full freedom in the composition. Morricone said he considers the film an adventure movie, rather than a Western, and as a result, he tried to make the music sound completely different from his famous Western scores. He based the music on the feelings that the script evoked in him, rather than composing music for specific scenes. Because Morricone had only about a month to produce his score, he added several pieces of music that he had originally written for "The Thing" (1982), some of which had never been used. Morricone finally gave Tarantino five pieces of music, which he could use in the movie as he pleased.

Happy Birthday, Ennio Morricone!