Search - Ennio Morricone :: Once Upon a Time in the West

Ennio Morricone's grand musical score for "C'era una volta i

Lawrance M. Bernabo | The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota | 08/14/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"John Williams gets a lot of the credit for the revival of the motion picture film score, mainly on the strength of his work for "Jaws" and "Star Wars." I can remember reading the linear notes for the double-album of the later which explained how each character had a theme and how Williams wove these all together. That was all impressive, and "Star Wars" is certainly on my list of Top 10 soundtracks of all time, but I saw "Once Upon A Time In The West" a decade earlier and so I know that Ennio Morricone had already done that. For me in the decade of the Sixties the only other comparable film scores for an epic film are what Maurice Jarre did for "Lawrence of Arabia" and "Doctor Zhivago." Still, I will maintain that no film score in that decade was as important to the story being told as Morricone's score for "C'era una volta il West."



Pertinent Aside: There is much to be said for composers who work with particular directors to great success. This would obviously include John Williams and Steven Spielberg, Maurice Jarre and David Lean, Bernard Hermann and Alfred Hitchcock, and Ennio Morricone and Sergio Leone. For that last pair, "C'era una volta il West" represents each at their peak. No wonder this Spaghetti Western is a mythic representation of the Old West.



I am still fascinated by how Morricone employs variations of his themes. The main title theme sounds like a classical composition, with the soaring voices of the Modern Singers of Allessandroni, but then comes back as a simple violin piece for "A Dimly Lit Room." "As a Judgment" uses the fuzz of an electric guitar to establish the movie's "showdown" theme, while "Farewell to Cheyenne" weaves together whistling and the rhythm of a horse clopping along the trail. Morricone strips down the latter to be "The First Tavern." "Man With a Harmonica" has the wailing of the title instrument but with the underlying theme of "As a Judgment" working through it until we finally find out at the point of dying why Harmonica wants Frank dead. But the composer also strips the underlying music down farther in "The Man," while the harmonica becomes totally distorted in "Death Rattle." Morricone even anticipates the "Star Wars" music for the Cantina band with his old "Bad Orchestra."



Of course, now that I have listened to the score again I have to follow up by watching the movie, which remains my favorite western (and the first classic in the genre I actually got to see in a movie theater as opposed to discovering on television decades later). But I have to do that because ultimately it is a grave disservice to divorce the soundtrack from the movie, because there are so many key sequences where Morricone's music replaces the dialogue. This is especially true of the climatic duel between Harmonica (Charles Bronson) and Frank (Henry Fonda), and the entire end title sequence where Jill (Claudia Cardinale) brings out the water to the men working on the railroad. In fact, I think I can make a very good case that no other film score in movie history is as important to the story and as prominent in the overall equation of the film as what Morricone composed for "C'era una volta il West."



Of course, you can only come to this score through the film, and once you have seen the film there is no need to convince you of either the effectiveness or the importance of this score. Finally, I want to contend what we have here is the best film score not to be nominated for an Oscar and in case you were wondering the best film score to be nominated but not win is Randy Newman's one for "The Natural." Both are among the film scores nominated for consideration in the American Film Institute's 100 Years of Film Scores (which is, apparently, simply going to be a concert at the Hollywood Bowl on September 23, 2005 and not a list like AFI has put out for the Top 100 Movies, Songs, Quotes, etc. Morricone's scores for "The Mission," "Once Upon a Time in America," and "The Untouchables" have been nominated as well, but this one is still the best of the bunch by far."

Haunting and Evocative

Raegan Butcher | Rain City, USA | 02/06/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Ennio Morricone's score for THE GOOD,THE BAD AND THE UGLY is probably more recognizable to most people but I think this is some of the most stirring and majestic music ever created for a film; Morricone uses a symphony augemented by other instruments and the result: the best mix of harmonica, orchestral instruments and electric guitar and banjo ever. Once you hear it you will never forget it. Beautiful stuff."

Another Morricone Masterpiece

R. Young | Adelaide , Australia | 01/24/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Once Apon a Time in The West...have you seen the movie? Have you ever heard of this movie? If you are a 'western' freak, a spaggetti western tragic, a serious film student or immersed in popular cultural history it is hard to imagine how powerfull Sergio Leone's westerns would have been without the creative magic of Morricone's musical soundtracks.

Putting an accurate finger on the pulse of these gems is not easy.If you are connected to where music can take you......go along for this ride.I've seen recently that Morricone is touring...performing these tracks.Catch him while you can."