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Can you remember the first time you ever heard the opening notes to Ennio Morricone’s theme for The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly? Maybe you listened to it on first watch, but it’s more likely that you originally discovered it through the endless references that have been made to the track in other songs, movies, and TV shows. Nearly sixty years later, this melodic howl remains as quintessential to our view of movies as the shower attack strings of Psycho or the symphonic blast introducing Star Wars.
Giuseppe Tornatore’s Ennio, a comprehensive documentary about Morricone’s career compiled from hours of interviews the brilliant composer gave before his passing in 2020, showcases how this timeless riff is really one small piece in a phenomenal career of over 400 scores the maestro created over the span of sixty years. Morricone is given the space to discuss everything from his beginnings on Italian films in the 1950’s to his overdue Oscar win for The Hateful Eight in 2015. The movie is filled with expansive, behind the scenes footage of Morricone composing and conducting, as well as constant visuals from a wide range of his projects. His endless influence can be detected just from the insane lineup of talking heads Tornatore gathered to share their connection to his music: from filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino, Clint Eastwood, Bernardo Bertolucci, and Wong Kar-wai, to musicians like Quincy Jones, Bruce Springsteen, Hans Zimmer, and James Hetfield. For Ennio Morricone lovers, it’s a must-watch victory lap for one of the most important artists in movie history; one that allows us to appreciate all of the different facets of his life.
This March the 4-Star Theater honors Morricone with A Fistful of Music, a series which pairs Ennio with some of his greatest projects. Throughout, the program will highlight his fruitful collaborations within Italian cinema. We’ll be starting with Ennio director Giuseppe Tornatore’s own beloved 80’s cinephile epic Cinema Paradiso. Naturally, we’ll be playing Spaghetti western godfather Sergio Leone’s The Man With No Name Trilogy (A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and the aforementioned The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly), as well as his dreamy 1968 masterpiece Once Upon a Time in the West. You’ll also get a chance to see Morricone’s work on the revolutionary 1966 decolonial docudrama The Battle of Algiers, and his foray into early 70’s giallo with horror master Dario Argento (Four Flies on Grey Velvet and The Bird with the Crystal Plumage). We’ll even be playing The Humanoid, a rarely screened 1979 Italian Star Wars riff with a trippy electronic score provided by the legend.
Beyond that, the series will also be representing some of Morricone’s biggest partnerships in the larger film community. Names as wide reaching as Terence Malick (the haunted period piece Days of Heaven), Pedro Almodóvar (the transgressive dark comedy Tie Me Up! Time Me Down!), Quentin Tarantino (the intense revisionary western The Hateful Eight and the heavily Morricone soundtracked Django Unchained), and John Carpenter (the menacing horror classic The Thing).
Throughout, many of these screenings will include special introductions by Bay Area writers, and our March 8th double feature of The Thing and The Humanoid will be accompanied by live sets from Utrillo Kushner (Howlin’ Rain and Comets On Fire) who will be DJing from his large Morricone soundtrack collection.
A Fistful of Music plays from March 1st-14th, 2024, with frequent screenings of Ennio throughout.
TICKETS: $15 for General Admission. $12.50 for Children (under 11) and Senior Citizens (over 60). $5 more for Double Features.