This superb documentary represents a painstakingly detailed, fantastically entertaining, and profoundly exhausting deep dive into the career of the hyper-prolific Italian composer Ennio Morricone, best known for his orchestral scores for Sergio Leone including the so-called ‘Dollars Trilogy’ and ‘Once Upon a Time in the West’ and ‘Americ’), Gillo Pontecorvo’s ‘The Battle of Algiers’, Bernardo Bertolucci’s ‘1900,’ and a swathe of American films ranging from the great Terrence Malick’s ‘Days of Heaven’, Brian De Palma’s ‘The Untouchables’ to the questionable Tarantino’s ‘The Hateful Eight’.
There is an incredible sonic, visual and emotional overload generated by the documentary itself; perhaps this is ideally seen first in a cinema for maximum impact. It’s one huge cinematic mosaic that tessellates a massive interview with the man himself (fortuitously filmed just before he died in 2020) with acres of archival footage and snippets from the movies he wrote soundtracks for. A pure labour of love.
