A Composer Behind the Film Camera

A Composer behind the Film CameraEnnio MorriconeElena Boschi

Music, Sound, and the Moving Image, Volume 1, Issue 1, Spring 2007,pp. 95-105 (Article)

Published by Liverpool University PressDOI: 10.1353/msm.0.0045

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This article was first published in Enciclopedia della musica. I. Il Novecento,2001, pp. LXVIII1333. Reproduced courtesy of Giulio Einaudi editore s.p.a.,Torino.

1 The Multiplicity of Techniques

I must confess that the request to write an article about my experience asa composer of music for films initially made me feel ill at ease. The craftof the composer is that of composing, not of writing. By all means, I alsolike to reflect on what I do. But reflecting on my own is one thing,putting myself before a blank page and filling it with reflections that willend up in the head of who knows whom and be received who knows howis another thing. Frankly, I feel more at ease when I can talk to someoneface to face, when this person can react to what I say that is, when adialogue is established rather than when I have to do it all by myself.There also are, and have been, musician authors, but not everyone hashad this talent: Wagner had it, but not Verdi, if I may dare refer tocomposers of this calibre. Now then, dear reader, pretend were in frontof one another and were chatting. Dont expect any theoretical abstracttalk. Expect, rather, a dialogue, and ask me some question every now andthen. I will try to answer you.

Im going to start with some autobiographical information, which Ibelieve is necessary to better introduce the things I intend to talk about.I had a double training: in the Conservatoire, where I studied perform-ance and composition according to the regular courses, and out of theConservatoire, in dance halls, various kinds of theatres and publicvenues, where I made music for a living. In this second respect, my guideand model was my father. It is he who opened this road for me, becausethis was precisely his profession. In this respect, I come from a musicalfamily. And I also must add that it is thanks to all of this that Im probablyone of the few Italian composers who has always earned a living fromcomposing music.

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A Composer behind theFilm Camera

ENNIO MORRICONEtranslated by Elena Boschi

At the Conservatoire I learned the technical foundations of the craftinside out. Without this I couldnt have done any of the things I did after-wards. Out of the Conservatoire I learned other important things thatschools dont teach: I taught myself the techniques of arrangement, andI also learned to compose music that had a good theatrical effect. And Imust have learned pretty well if a few years later the RAI1 called me toarrange for radio orchestras and later to work for television. I startedworking for cinema only after I had acquired a little notoriety in thecircles Ive just mentioned.

I believe my luck is due precisely to my humble beginnings. In thoseyears I was trying to redeem the low matter of pop ditties, of which I wassometimes even ashamed, trying to turn them into something different,inserting, for example, quotations from classical pieces or dodecaphonicserial patterns. It was a way of heightening those kinds of music. And thisprobably gave my lesser works from that time certain unexpectedfeatures that someone considered not unpleasant, and that helped me tobe appreciated and accepted. I will confess that features of this kindalmost gave me a sense of revenge on what I considered a secondary oreven a slightly depressing profession.

The first encouragements in the field of cinema came from LucianoSalce, with whom I collaborated on his first Italian film in 1961: it was IlFederale (The Fascist). I was a little over thirty years old then, but Ialready had had a pretty long public career. In fact, he called me becausehe had already had opportunity to appreciate my music in two theatrecomedies, one by Marceau and one by himself.

All this biographic introduction is not for its own sake. I would haveno reason to be telling you my life story here. The truth of the matter is:I need it in order to explain what music for cinema is, when all is saidand done. In brief, I would say that it is a very peculiar art, different fromothers. It requires creativity, but not that kind of creativity one can learnin a school like the Conservatoire, however comprehensive and solid theeducation they offer may be. The creativity of cinematographic music hasto be, paradoxically, bereft of a personal and unambiguous stylistic orien-tation. A musician who wants to make good film music mustnt specialisejust in classical or symphonic music, old or new, he mustnt be just a popmusician, a jazz or a rock enthusiast. He must specialise in everythingand be able to fuse different genres well.

In this sense my previous experience, which was so varied and free,helped me get started in this profession. The music of a film is influencedby the film itself, by the characters, by the events narrated, but it is espe-cially influenced by the relationship between the musician and thedirector. Every director has his special culture, his experience of the

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Ennio Morricone A Composer behind the Film Camera

1 Radio AudizioniItaliane, the officialbroadcasting agency ofthe Italian government.

world and of art, and his musical experience too. And music must knowhow to interpret all of this. The director gives the film its backgroundcultural structure. Music can neither deny it nor remain indifferent to it,if it wants to be good film music. It even happens, sometimes, that thedirector tends to assert himself, sometimes to the detriment of thecomposers autonomy which can be anything but nice. But aside fromthese problems of a personal and psychological nature, it is the dialoguebetween director and composer, it is their artistic understanding, thatbecomes fundamental at this point. Ive said this not so much to go intothe often difficult details of this dialogue, but above all to underline howavailability, mental elasticity, variety of experiences, and adaptability todifferent contexts are essential aspects for the musician who wants towrite for cinema.

When the relationship with a director becomes ongoing and successfulit can produce perverse consequences. For example, sometimes I foundit difficult to extract myself from certain labels that were given to methanks to the kind of director with whom I was involved. During acertain period, at the time of my collaboration with Sergio Leone, Ibecame a composer of westerns a label to which I frankly felt extra-neous. Then I was associated with political film, and so on. But I knewvery well that I wasnt a specialist in film genres. I was specialised inmusic. I knew how to transfigure myself like chameleons do, change myskin and adapt to the necessities of the film, drawing from the variety ofmy musical experiences. Having worked many years before for the revue(la rivista), with Rascel or Modugno for example, had taught me a lot.And doing arrangements for radio had given me many experiences.Sometimes when I was working at the radio they would give me a songto elaborate, and say: modify it la Bach. And I would play with themesand countersubjects and have a great time. All this allowed my techniqueto be perfected, and to acquire that adaptability which has always consti-tuted its secret.

A composer of film music has to adapt to a lot of unpredictable situa-tions that perhaps he doesnt expect. For example, not only does he haveto take into account the film, the audience, the director, and theproducer who sometimes have strange ideas and often dont even agreeamong themselves but he also has to take into account the needs of themusic publisher. When the musician isnt sufficiently authoritative thepublisher tends to press (in the past it sometimes even happened to me)for the film soundtrack to be as appealing as possible melodic, easy, sothat the majority of the audience likes it. He pushes so that one is able todance to the music on the opening credits as well as to the music on thecredits at the end. The easier the composer is to blackmail, the more



direct and indirect pressure there will be. After all, this is understand-able. The music publisher is the one who pays for musical performanceexpenses, using the royalties from the box office sales of the film, and ifthe film isnt sufficiently successful (even because of the music) hisexpenses are not covered. When all is said and done his needs arereasonable. Then of course there is the possible soundtrack album, whichis financed either by the publisher or by a different producer. So thereare myriad people who come forward, each with their own needs. For mypart, I always intend to deal in the first place with the film itself and withthe director. For example, I worked with director Dario Argento on kindsof film that pushed me to introduce avant-garde, atonal, formalist tech-niques. At which point the publisher had to be silent and accept it.

2 How to Compose Music for Film

My primary, and in the majority of cases even exclusive, relationship isthe one with the director. The dialogue with the director has always beenfor me, in each case, the real starting point of the composition. I considerit more important than the reading of the script itself, becausedepending on the director the same script may acquire very differentmeanings. My work always starts from the discussion with the director.The stage immediately following is the composition of a number ofmusical pieces, even simple ideas or themes, that adapt to the generalcharacter of the film and constitute the first outcome of that dialogue.Starting from those initial compositions, I then go back to think aboutthem by myself and with the director. And this is the third stage of mywork.

Unfortunately, it often happens that the relationship with the director,even with talented directors, is played predominantly on themes. I oftenget the impression that themes are just about the only ground where filmcomposers and people who dont have direct practical knowledge ofmusic and who arent trained musicians can understand each other. HereI am using the word theme in its classical sense: a musical thread thatthe audience learns, recognises, understands, and perhaps whistles. Ithink there are other aspects, perhaps subtler, but just as if not more important than the theme itself: sonorities, sounds, rhythms, andharmonies. But about these aspects it is a lot more difficult to communi-cate with someone who is not a musician. This is also because the rela-tionship with the director is established through the piano. But with justone piano what can a poor composer convey? Some themes, obviously,but certainly not the timbral richness of the music he imagined, nor the



subtle features of many sorts that can derive from a complete instru-mental performance. I always make directors listen to many themes.However, directors dont always choose the best ones, so more recently Istarted selecting them beforehand. First I play them all for my wife, whois a woman of great sensitivity and wisdom, and because shes not amusician she represents the taste of the average audience. The ones sheconsiders good and that also seem good that is musically original tome, regardless of their relationship with the film, those and only those Ifinally take to the director.

But, I repeat, the theme is not the main thing for me. Of course, Iknow well that a theme is important, that a good theme works better thana bad theme. But now I no longer give themes a lot of importance. I feelI have nearly used up all the conceivable thematic combinations. For meother small things are a lot more important: instrumental considerations,timbres, pauses, thematic fragmentations and expansions. Speculationon intervals has also become important to me. Over the past few years Istarted composing themes considering them as exercises on a certaininterval. A sixth to me seems optimistic, joyful, whereas a fifth has a morepensive and reflective character. I did further research on durationvalues. In brief, I tried to transfer my experience as a composer oftwentieth century music to tonal and filmic music.

I also devote particular care to instrumentation: when at the end of theday directors listen to my music they often are in wonder because theydidnt expect it. Most of the time they react positively because they didntthink the use of instruments could add so many novelties and so manyexpressive effects to the themes they had already heard performed onthe piano. This is also because I usually like to mistreat the piano as muchas my themes: I play negligently and carelessly, a little because the thingin itself bores me quite a bit, and a little because this way directors in theend marvel at an unpredicted effect and are more satisfied.

After the director has discussed with me and finally chosen the musicalsituations that in his opinion better adapt to the various episodes of thefilm, we move on to the actual editing that is, applying the music to theimages. After weve agreed on where to place the music, a job begins thatis just as important and delicate. We take the lengths of the various piecesthat have to be accompanied by music and within each one of them wedecide which have to be the points of convergence between the musicand the image. Then we proceed to the actual editing.

Decisions on all these problems are always discussed between musicianand director. As far as Im concerned, though, I must say that thedirectors with whom I worked or at least the best among them at thispoint almost always had very clear ideas about what to do. Sometimes,



however, in these discussions I encounter a problem, as it were, ofmusical form. It occurs to me that I have to suggest to my director toanticipate the beginning of the music by a few seconds, because Imconvinced that before the piece is played outright a spectator almostalways needs a few moments of preparation. We forewarn him thatsomething is about to happen and we also make him understand moreor less what its going to be. We substantially predispose him to receivegracefully and benevolently the meaning of the music he is about toencounter. Even a few seconds are enough, but essential to obtain theright effect. The same thing can occur at the end of the episode, when Ioften prefer a gradual extinction that leads me to suggest to the directorto stretch the durations. Its a matter of form: in all music the processesof introduction and conclusion must always be well calculated.

Even during the editing process, as well as during the out-and-outprocess of invention, the musician must be extremely careful about whatis being narrated. Film music must have a dramatic effect. Ive alreadysaid before that it must be good music in an absolute sense, too, but itmust also favour the narration, be functional to the story. And here itsnot just about story pure and simple. There are also other aspects to betaken into account. For example, the visual quality of the images, whichwould seem like an unimportant aspect for the musician, is instead, Ibelieve, one of the most powerful stimuli for musical invention. In a moregeneral sense I would say that the music must be able to suggest what thecharacters dont say in the dialogues.

An example might be useful to help understand what I mean. InIndagine su un Cittadino al di Sopra di Ogni Sospetto (Investigation of a CitizenAbove Suspicion2) the use of an out-of-tune piano, a mandolin, and avaguely dancing theme with a slightly crooked metric accentuation onthe last eighth note of a 4/4 bar, introduced an ironic and grotesquetouch that described well the characteristics of the Sicilian police commis-sioner. In this case it didnt take much to introduce a whole world ofallusions into the film. The music spoke beyond the images and the story,and it clarified many things about the psychology of the character. In thiscase the music won me over because it seemed fitting to the needs of thestory, even though one cannot say that this was the only possible musicor the best music for that story. There is no right music. Ten goodcomposers can compose ten different musics that are all right for thesame film. Each one of them will emphasise, if its good filmic music,different details.

In other cases the kind of language that was chosen had the capacityto introduce opportune connotations. Up to now I have almost alwayscreated themes tied more than anything to tonal music. But things dont



2 Also known asInvestigation of a PrivateCitizen or Story of aCitizen Above AllSuspicion.

change if one moves to a more sophisticated language. For example,when I worked on LUccello dalle Piume di Cristallo (The Bird with the CrystalPlumage3) by Dario Argento, I didnt write themes, but I wrote structuresfor each instrument and then, using a particular gestural technique, Idirected the instrumental band myself, adapting the musical events tothe content of individual scenes (or in a few cases giving specific instruc-tions to director Bruno Nicolai). It was therefore music of a formalist anduncertain kind, written according to procedures in use in the 1960s and1970s avant-gardes. Here problems arose, because when the directorwould ask me to replay some example to listen to it again, I could neverreplay it the same way because of the improvisatory and uncertain natureof the adopted technique. The director was, in fact, free from time totime to improvise his gestures, and the performer had available struc-tures within which he could choose paths that were partly prescribed andpartly improvised. The use of languages of this kind also change theprocedure of editing between music and image. The performance had totake place in the direct presence of the running images. What was rigidlydetermined was only the duration of each section of the piece: eachfragment had to last a precise number of seconds to synchronise with theimages.

Choices of this kind, however, often caused me problems of under-standing with directors for some of whom avant-garde musics werehardly comprehensible. Dissonances, to those who dont know this kindof music well, all sound the same. To me they dont sound like that at all.On the contrary, I find that the practice of dissonance has an immenserange of nuances. But I must add a clarification to this point: there is atradition according to which the dissonant musics of our century areoften associated with terrifying or disquieting films. A kind of conventionhas become established, even at the level of common sense, whereby non-melodic and dissonant music provokes fear. In a way I can even under-stand these sorts of connections. When the listener loses that sense oftonal clarity, of security in the waiting times and paths to which our civil-isation has been used for centuries, he feels somehow disorientated andis prone to react with a sense of void, of lack of anchorage, of vertigo,which inevitably causes angst. I realised that too, and tried to use thisparticular situation when I deemed it useful for the success of a film.

A friend, a good musicologist, almost reproached this attitude of mine.We had infinite discussions on this point. His argument was that when Iused dissonances or allusions to twentieth-century music at high tensionpoints of a film, points that a spectator could find perturbing orunpleasant, in that moment I served contemporary music badly that is,I confirmed the widespread prejudice whereby contemporary music



3 Also known as GalleryMurders or Secret of theBlack Gloves.

would be unpleasant to listen to, discouraging, not alluring. This obser-vation certainly struck me. I thought about it a lot, for months, I believe.Then I replied to him that dissonance, even in the great classics, hasalways had this expressive function, and that to me it seemed that the useof music of this kind could instead get the ear used to listening tocontemporary music.

At the end of the composition process, once all the musical fragmentshave found their right placing, its possible to get an overall idea of theglobal sound atmosphere of the whole film, an idea as it were that isunified from the musical point of view. You could ask me if film musichas, in my opinion, an internal coherence comparable, for example, tothat of a sonata or any other musical piece. I have never found a definiteanswer to this question. By and large it seems to me that in many of myfilms there is musical coherence, but that in some cases its more difficultto detect. I remember, for example, the first film I did with the directorFaenza. He told me: try to do as you please, what your imaginationsuggests to you. And I let my imagination run wild and put togetherextremely disarticulated fragments: I accumulated references to Indianmusic, thematic playing with childlike sounds, mouth and throat soundsthat I had learned when I took part in the activities of the improvisationgroup Nuova Consonanza in Rome. On that occasion I worked withextreme freedom and even assumed heavy responsibilities of choice, iffor no other reason than that the boundary between sounds and noiseshad become very uncertain. Well, this is a case when, due to the veryheterogeneity of the languages and techniques used, I dont know if onecan talk about internal coherence in musical invention. But its a bit of apeculiar case.

Through these considerations I have now started thinking about theproblem of noises. Its true that in every film, beyond those possiblypresent in the music, there are the noises of people or objects thatbecome part of the story. But the musician has very little to do with thisdifferent sound apparatus; he can, at best, suggest to keep it more or lessevident according to the case; realistic noises can weave a dialogue withthe soundtrack, but mustnt interfere to the point of obscuring it. Eachone has its rights.

I remember on this subject the first film I did with Elio Petri, UnTranquillo Posto di Campagna (A Quiet Place in the Country), where themusic was partly composed and partly executed directly to the film withthe improvisation group Nuova Consonanza. In this case improvisationstended to replace the background noises of the film, especially at someparticular moments, for example in certain dream scenes of the protag-onist, a rather psychologically excited avant-garde painter. In these



dream moments the sound results were wonderful. Then unfortunatelythe film was a commercial flop. Obviously, when one uses music thatpeople consider difficult, the film itself can meet with some difficulty.However, I believe this doesnt happen solely because of the music: musicof that kind is suggested by the character of the narration and of theimages, with which it must get on the same wavelength. And then its thefilm in its entirety that is rejected by the audience, because its consideredtoo strange or difficult.

3 The Other Musics

I love many of the films I did even if they didnt achieve the commercialsuccess they deserved in my opinion. Im less fond of, I must say, otherkinds of image commentary, for example music for television and adver-tisements. I worked in this sector, too, and sometimes I even got somesatisfaction: for example when I was told that thanks to the musicalcommentary a certain product doubled its sales. It was undoubtedly agratifying experience. But in this field little ideas and gimmicks areenough. It doesnt require great imaginative work. The important thingis to have ideas that are useful for their purpose. The techniques arentvery different from those of film music, but theyre in a sense reduced:short melodic or rhythmic segments, little jazzy riffs or ideas from musicof oral tradition that evoke civilisations distant from our everyday life.These are techniques that minimalist musicians know very well and thenapply repeatedly, perhaps having these little ideas performed by amachine that reproduces them in a cold and perfect manner, introducingthe necessary alternations, modifications, and rhythmic displacements.But its always low quality stuff that one can compose with little effort.

However, I dont only compose applied music. I also compose concertmusic. When I happen to reflect on this multiplicity of experiences Imust say that I find myself in a labyrinth not easy to decipher. Forexample, a few years ago my experiences of concert music were for mecompletely separated from the other: two unconnected worlds, two non-commensurable dimensions. There was a long period when I almostcompletely neglected writing music for concerts; I only composed forcinema. When I started writing again, every time I needed to take a goodperiod of time to detoxify, to realign myself. As time went on, I realisedI needed these periods of detachment and separation less and less. NowI can write a piece with no need for detachment. On the contrary, the twothings can even happen in parallel: when I have to write a piece of musicI need time to conceive it and develop it; usually I get to write only when



I have sufficiently clear ideas to do it. So, thoughts of the music to becomposed can accompany me for a long time through my other dailyactivities. From symptoms of this kind it seems that I can deduce thatsomething must have happened, some sort of approach between twoworlds that until a few years ago were in me so far apart, and that someconvergences between them might even have been put into action.

My discussions with Sergio Miceli, who wrote a wonderful book aboutme,4 were also very useful in this sense. They confronted me with a pointof view that I trusted, but that was different from mine. They forced meto think about things to which I wouldnt have given importance, andthat on the contrary had importance. Miceli had studied my music withgreat attention and care, in great depth. Well, he sometimes used for mymusic the adjective difficult. In his opinion, the more I thought it outthe more it came out complex; the more it was the result of a lengthystudy and thought (but I always need to think a lot about the music Iwrite), the more the music came out difficult in its contact with thepeople. The funny thing is that it hadnt been clear to me, or I didntalways realise it even though I had some doubts. To me, that music wasextremely clear and transparent; but maybe not for the common listener.So Miceli suggested that I wrote more straight off, that I calculated lessabout what I wrote, that I was more immediate, just as when I wrote mymusic for cinema.

Sometimes I really thought that more immediacy could be good forme. Sometimes I even thought that unconsciously something of myability to communicate through the film could also transpire in the otherkinds of music I composed. But then doubts arise. Communicating to anaudience is really the most mysterious thing there can be. We believe inour fantasies, and the moment were about to start writing we find themso present in our mind that they seem perfectly able to talk. But thenwho can ever understand what goes through the minds of people wholisten? According to what criteria do they listen? What is the culture theyput in place when they judge? This for me is really the great mystery ofmusical communication.

However, I think today my music communicates more than it did sometime ago. Its a pure and simple sensation, but some symptoms seem toconfirm it. It seems to me that a piece like my Cantata per lEuropa whichisnt a difficult piece in itself, because I just intended to talk to and makemyself understood by the people went in this direction. To tell the truthit took me nine months to compose it, so maybe I didnt really followMicelis suggestion to the letter, but from the results I understood thatthe piece is comprehensible. Another of my latest pieces, Ombra diLontana Presenza, which I dedicated to the death of Dino Asciolla, even



4 Miceli, Sergio, 1994,Morricone, la musica, ilcinema, Modena:Mucchi Editore.

had audiences that I have no reason to deem particularly sophisticatedcalling for encores.

In this piece I worked with formalist techniques; but I graduallydrained away the overall sonority: from the initial twelve notes I finallyreduced it down to just four, a tetrachord that perhaps was closer to theacoustic habits of the people; perhaps it even had something vaguelyreminiscent of what in film music I call a theme. Anyway, I like, both incinema and in other music, to adopt the principle of reduction ofmaterials. Sound economy fascinates me a lot. I must say that thisprinciple became fixed in my head when I was young, and discovered atthe Conservatoire that extraordinary masterpiece that is the RicercareCromatico by Frescobaldi, which to me has always seemed one of the mostprophetic and genial opuses by that great and too underestimatedcomposer. The six notes that constitute the theme of that study havealways remained carved in my mind. Every so often I used them in mymusic for film, too, sometimes even manipulating them in contrary orretrograde motion. Obviously no one notices, but its not a pure andsimple homage to Frescobaldi, its a deep internal work that his musiccarried out inside me.

At this point I realise that I found convergences among the manykinds of music I was used to handling and the concert music to which Ifeel deeply bound. Maybe after many years some background unity isbeginning to emerge. Maybe Morricone isnt made of many differentpieces as I was led to believe in many periods of my life. Of course, I alwaysaimed at a fundamental goal: I had faith in my listeners; I always tried,although I didnt always succeed, to make myself understood. Perhapstoday the time has come to facilitate this deep necessity of mine. Perhapssomething is changing even in the world of the so-called avant garde andin the collective musical conscience, and is transforming audiencesmusical expectations too. Its not up to me to say, because Im not aspecialist in these problems, but I certainly allow myself to hope for it.



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A Composer Behind the Film Camera