Oscar-winning film composer Ennio Morricone dies aged 91
Video report by ITV News Correspondent Dan Rivers
Oscar-winning film Composer Ennio Morricone, who scored more than 400 films, has died at the age of 91.
The Italian musician, who is best known for scoring The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, died in Rome last week following complications from a fall, according to The Hollywood Reporter.His family confirmed his death on July 6 in Italian publication Corriere Della Sera and said he had "preserved to the last full lucidity and great dignity."
Morricone broke his femur a few days ago and died during the night at a clinic room.
A statement from the family said Morricone "has preserved to the last full lucidity and great dignity."
"He greeted his beloved wife Maria who accompanied him with dedication in every moment of his human and professional life and was close to him until the last breath thanked his children and grandchildren for the love and care they gave him."
"He dedicated a moving memory to his audience from whose affectionate support he has always drawn the strength of his creativity," the family added.
Morricone’s longtime lawyer, Giorgio Assumma, said the Maestro, as he was known, died early Monday in a Rome hospital of complications following a fall, in which he broke a leg.
During a career that spanned decades and earned him an Oscar for lifetime achievement in 2007, Morricone collaborated with some of the most renowned Italian and Hollywood directors, in movies including The Untouchables by Brian de Palma, The Hateful Eight by Quentin Tarantino and The Battle of Algiers by Gillo Pontecorvo.
His filmography includes The Thing, In the Line of Fire and The Hateful Eight.
In 1984, Morricone and Leone worked together again on Once Upon A Time In America, a saga of Jewish gangsters in New York that explores themes of friendship, lost love and the passing of time.
The movie starring Robert De Niro and James Woods is considered by some to be Leone’s masterpiece, thanks in part to Morricone’s evocative score, including a lush section played on violins.
"Inspiration does not exist," Morricone said in a 2004 interview with The Associated Press.
"What exists is an idea, a minimal idea that the composer develops at the desk, and that small idea becomes something important."
More recently, Morricone provided the score for The Hateful Eight, Tarantino’s 2015 epic. It marked the first time in decades that he had composed new music for a Western.
It was also the first time Tarantino had used an original score. In accepting Morricone’s Golden Globe award for the music in his place, Tarantino called him his favourite composer.
“When I say ‘favourite composer’, I don’t mean movie composer. … I’m talking about Mozart, I’m talking about Beethoven, I’m talking about Schubert,” the director said.
Minutes before handing Morricone the Oscar for lifetime achievement in 2007, Eastwood recalled hearing for the first time the score for A Fistful Of Dollars, and thinking: “What actor wouldn’t want to ride into town with that kind of music playing behind him?”
Morricone received his first Oscar nomination for best original score for his work on Terence Malick’s 1978 movie Days Of Heaven.
Beside The Hateful Eight, his other Oscar nominations were for The Mission (1986), The Untouchables (1987), Bugsy (1991) and Malena (2000).
Shortly before receiving his lifetime Oscar, Morricone joked that he would have been happy without the coveted statuette, saying: “I would have remained in the company of illustrious non-winners.”
But he also made no secret that he thought The Mission, with its memorably sweet theme of Gabriel’s Oboe, deserved the Academy Award. That year, he lost to Herbie Hancock’s Round Midnight.
When he finally won the Academy Award for best original score for The Hateful Eight in 2016, he said: "There is no great music without a great film that inspires it."
Asked by Italian state TV a few years ago if there was one director he would have liked to have worked with, Morricone said Stanley Kubrick had asked him to work on A Clockwork Orange.
But that collaboration did not happen because of a commitment to Leone, Morricone recalled.
Italy’s head of state, President Sergio Mattarella, in a condolence message to the composer’s family, wrote: "Both a refined and popular musician, he left a deep footprint on the musical history of the second half of the 1900s."
Morricone is survived by his wife Maria Travia, whom he cited when accepting his 2016 Oscar. Married in 1956, the couple had four children, Marco, Alessandra, Andrea and Giovanni.