Quentin Tarantino’s films aren’t known for their original scores. The genre cinema-obsessed director is partial to the music of other movies. “One of the things I do when I am starting a movie, when I’m writing a movie or when I have an idea for a film is, I go through my record collection and just start playing songs, trying to find the personality of the movie, find the spirit of the movie,” he once said. “Then, ‘boom,’ eventually I’ll hit one, two or three songs, or one song in particular, ‘Oh, this will be a great opening credit song.’” There’s one composer Tarantino has been greatly inspired by, having used several of his works in various films: Ennio Morricone. The legendary Italian composer has not scored a western film in 40 years, but it was announced yesterday at Comic-Con that Morricone will compose the score for Tarantino’s upcoming western The Hateful Eight.
“I want to make one announcement that people don’t know yet. It wasn’t for sure, but we just settled it,” he told a packed audience. “You guys know that I don’t use an original score in my movies, I kinda take scores from other movies and put ‘em in there. This one, I thought should have an original score. So I’m here to announce that the great Ennio Morricone will be doing the score for The Hateful Eight. He’s writing right now, and recording in Prague in the next couple of weeks.”
Since the mid 1940s, Morricone has composed the scores for more than 500 film and TV works. His best-known compositions were for Sergio Leone’s operatic spaghetti westerns The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Once Upon a Time in the West, A Fistful of Dollars, and For a Few Dollars More. But chances are, you’ve heard a Morricone score in a variety of genres. From The Untouchables and Days of Heaven, to Once Upon a Time in America and Bugsy, Morricone’s sweeping scores are breathtaking.
The Hateful Eight will be released for a roadshow presentation in 70mm on December 25, before being released in digital theaters on January 8, 2016.
