{"id":45185,"date":"2020-08-02T00:36:48","date_gmt":"2020-08-02T05:36:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/?p=45185"},"modified":"2020-08-02T11:01:46","modified_gmt":"2020-08-02T16:01:46","slug":"the-poet-of-dynamic-immobility-ennio-morricone-a-guest-post-by-jeff-smith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/2020\/08\/02\/the-poet-of-dynamic-immobility-ennio-morricone-a-guest-post-by-jeff-smith\/","title":{"rendered":"The poet of dynamic immobility: Ennio Morricone: A guest post by Jeff Smith"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Ennio Morricone holding his principal instrument, the trumpet, in a picture taken in the 1970s. Photo by Roberto Masotti.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

DB here: For our blog entry #1001, who better to memorialize Morricone than our stalwart collaborator Jeff Smith? He has provided many music-sensitive analyses of films both recent and classic. Our most popular entries from last year were his two looks (here<\/a> and here<\/a>) at the music and musical culture behind Once Upon a Time. . . . in Hollywood<\/strong>. Herewith his warm appreciation of a maestro.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Jeff here:<\/strong><\/p>\n

On July 6, 2020, the legendary composer Ennio Morricone passed away in Rome at the age of 91. As expected, several encomia were published reflecting upon Morricone\u2019s musical genius. Of particular note were reflections by two writers for Variety,<\/em>\u00a0film critic Owen Gleiberman<\/a> and film music historian Jon Burlingame<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The tributes highlighted many notable features of Morricone\u2019s film work: his gift for melody, his sense of humor, his eclecticism, and his amazing productivity. Having written more than 500 film and television scores, Morricone\u2019s compositional output was jaw-dropping. After all, even Josef Haydn wrote only 106 symphonies.<\/p>\n

Throughout my own career as a film scholar, I frequently engaged with Morricone\u2019s music. In preparation for the writing of my dissertation, I did an independent study with David on Hollywood film music. My final project? A detailed analysis of the score for Sergio Leone\u2019s The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly<\/em>, complete with handwritten transcriptions of every musical theme and motif I could identify.<\/p>\n

I vividly remember the satisfaction I felt in being able to play the main title from start to finish on the piano. It is one thing to read music and play it. It is another to take what you hear and try to put it in some reproducible form on paper. Playing back Morricone\u2019s famous theme, I felt I\u2019d gained insight into the mind of the great composer.\u00a0 That work eventually became the basis for chapter six in my first book, The Sounds of Commerce<\/em>.<\/p>\n

My fascination with Morricone\u2019s work has continued to the present day. Last summer, I wrote a review of Ennio Morricone: In His Own Words<\/em>, a book of interviews conducted by Alessandro De Rosa. This past April the Criterion Channel posted my most recent \u201cObservations on Film Art,\u201d<\/a> which examines musical motifs in Morricone\u2019s score for The Battle of Algiers<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

That\u2019s close to thirty years of near-obsessive fascination with Morricone\u2019s music and his compositional style. In what follows, I share some additional thoughts on the Maestro\u2019s legacy, offering some insight on the reasons for his seemingly inexhaustible creativity.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Sicilian defense<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The first section of Ennio Morricone: In His Own Words<\/em> is all about the maestro\u2019s love of chess. Although the composer would describe himself as a hobbyist, his chess skills surpassed those of most amateurs. Morricone played against Boris Spassky, Garry Kasparov, and other Grand Masters. When asked about his passion for the game, Morricone explains that he sees important parallels between music composition and chess. Both activities involve mathematical relations. These relations are further expressed in axes of verticality, horizontality, and graphics.<\/p>\n

This initial discussion of chess struck me as a key to understanding Morricone\u2019s creative process. The game of chess is often analogized as a battle where stratagems and tactics are deployed in an effort to outmaneuver \u2013 and thus, defeat \u2013 one\u2019s opponent.\u00a0 That comparison undoubtedly rings true. Yet when one looks at the board before the game starts, it also represents something simpler: a field of open possibilities. Not every move is permissible, of course. But when you consider possible combinations of moves, the permutations can number in the millions. And even though the rules of chess constrain the patterns of moves that can be made, all of these possibilities are generated by the dispositions of up to 32 pieces on a field of 64 squares.<\/p>\n

Morricone seems to approach the blank space of staff paper as though it were a chessboard at the start of the game. A chess player works with sixteen pieces that can be used in various combinations. A composer works with the twelve tones of the chromatic scale to create intervals and chords. As with the chessboard, there are millions of different permutations in the way these twelve tones can be arranged. More importantly, since each note in the scale can be varied by pitch class, duration, articulation, dynamics, and instrumental color, the options seem endless.<\/p>\n

Yet while the \u201cterror of the white page\u201d can be an obstacle to the creative process, that has never appeared to be the case with Morricone. Why? I think it is because the composer found a method of composition that reduced the apparently infinite possibilities to the level of the merely multitudinous.<\/p>\n

In Ennio Morricone: In His Own Words<\/em>, the composer characterized himself as a student of the Second School of Vienna. Unlike Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, who were part of the first Viennese School, Morricone tried to transpose the former\u2019s twelve-tone technique into a seven-tone system while retaining the latter\u2019s commitment to the rules of serialism that ordered all other musical parameters. For Morricone, this system had the advantage of enabling him to write tonal music without having to slavishly adhere to its characteristic tensions and resolutions. By adopting Webern\u2019s principles of serialism, the notes, according to Morricone, \u201care freed from their reciprocal constraints.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over time, Morricone learned how to adapt this simplified version of twelve-tone serialism to the needs of each film score he wrote. In some cases, he would work within a pentatonic system. In others, he might base his compositions on a row of six or eight tones. In still others, he might jettison the system altogether.<\/p>\n

This simplified serial technique provided Morricone with a compositional framework that was extraordinarily generative. Once the composer has determined the tone row and the ordering of other musical parameters, he simply spins off hundreds of variations that are then fitted to the film\u2019s dramatic situations. The smaller tone row still acts as a guarantor of harmonic unity. Morricone describes it as the music\u2019s DNA, something like an identifying marker in every musical \u201ccell.\u201d Specific changes in rhythm, tempo, orchestration, volume, and tessitura all provide means of refreshing the basic musical schema.<\/p>\n

Indeed, Morricone\u2019s compositional system proved so procreant that he sometimes wrote three or four versions of a score\u2019s theme in order to give the director some options to choose from.\u00a0 In Ennio Morricone: In His Own Words<\/em>, he offers an example with the police triumph theme in The Untouchables<\/em>. The theme was the last one written for the score, and Morricone prepared three pieces that were recorded with two pianists. He then sent them off for director Brian De Palma\u2019s consideration. De Palma didn\u2019t like any of them. Back to the drawing board,<\/p>\n

Morricone wrote three more pieces and shared them with De Palma. In a phone call, the director told Morricone that he still wasn\u2019t convinced. Morricone completed three additional pieces and sent them. This time, though, he included a brief that summarized the strengths and weaknesses of all nine proposals. Morricone himself recommended against variant number six, claiming it was most triumphant and therefore the least convincing.\u00a0 Concluding his story, Morricone asks, \u201cGuess which one he chose?\u201d<\/p>\n