Arts & Entertainment

Ennio Morricone’s brilliance shines in Venice Film Festival

By Gonzalo Sánchez

Venice, Italy, Sep 10 (EFE).- Believe it or not, Ennio Morricone never wanted to be a musician. It was his father who forced him to play the trumpet, unsuspectingly pushing him to become a great composer, now brought to the screen in a documentary by his friend Giuseppe Tornatore in Venice.

Ennio, screened out of competition, is a documentary that Tornatore has been producing for years, becoming a final tribute to the late composer, who died in July of 2020.

“I’ve come to understand that not only will he always be listened to, but also he will always be studied,” said Tornatore, author of Nuovo Cinema Paradiso (1988), in a press conference.

The film shows the musician’s routines, including fitness exercises he carried out at home.

But he is also shown in all his glory, lost in thought and surrounded by sheets of paper in his studio, as he lets his genius loose across the blank music sheet.

Then, from the comfort of a sofa, Morricone recalls his most intimate old memories in a long conversation with his friend.

Morricone grew up in a fascist Rome, as it sped straight towards tragedy. At the time he considered being a doctor, but his father was the one to cut the idea down and put a trumpet in his hands. Little Ennio would be a musician, like his father.

The composer recalls in tears how he was forced to play music for soldiers to afford food, “humillitation,” he says, that made him lose attachment to the instrument.

However, his passion for music had swollen nonetheless, pushing him forward in his career, with the influence of artists like Igor Stravinski and Goffredo Petrassi, to become one of the greats himself.

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