When Giuseppe Tornatore directed Cinema Paradiso in 1988, he faced early resistance from the Italian film industry. He collaborated with Ennio Morricone, a composer forever on the lookout for fresh voices, and Morricone’s music became one of the most memorable signatures of the maestro, even if not always the most overt in its brilliance.
Thirty-three years after their first collaboration, Tornatore produced the documentary Ennio, el maestro, which arrives in theaters today. Morricone and Tornatore continued to work together across projects, leaving no Tornatore film without Morricone’s score. The icon’s creative bond with directors like Sergio Leone, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Dario Argento, and Bernardo Bertolucci shows a steadfast loyalty when the collaboration clicked.
Ennio, el maestro strives to cover the breadth of Morricone’s life and vast musical journey. It spans classical music, avant-garde experiments, pop influences, and cinematic scores. The film gathers statements from more than fifty interlocutors—friends, family, fellow composers, Italian singers, filmmakers both living and departed, and artists from rock and jazz fields—creating a tapestry of admiration and respect that rarely contains discordant notes.
The list of voices is expansive: Quentin Tarantino, Clint Eastwood, Oliver Stone, Quincy Jones, Bernardo Bertolucci, Bruce Springsteen, Mike Patton, Hans Zimmer, Lina Wertmüller, Joan Baez, Pat Metheny, Gianni Morandi, Roland Joffé, Wong Kar-wai, among others. The consensus is clear: Morricone’s genius resonated across genres and generations, and the film conveys that rare, universal appeal.
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Beyond the insightful reflections from Pat Metheny and the personal reminiscences of directors who collaborated with Morricone, the centerpiece of the documentary is a lengthy conversation Tornatore could have had with the maestro before his passing. Morricone died on July 6, 2020, at ninety-one, with editing of the film completed a few months later. The film preserves a portrait of a life in music during which vitality never waned.
On screen, Morricone appears in fine health, maintaining daily routines to stay fit and radiating a generous, educational warmth as he explains the music he crafts and the reasons behind each choice. The narrative is, at its core, a meditation on musical creation and its power to transcend borders.
Morricone’s friendship with Tornatore also highlights the director’s broader role in supporting Italian cinema. In 2009 Tornatore published a compact collection of interviews with Riccardo Freda, the director behind The Vampires and The Horrible Secret of Doctor Hichcock, offering a candid glimpse into the life of filmmaking. Freda’s reply—We were starting another one—echoes the restless energy that Morricone often channeled into his work.
Similarly, Morricone’s career reveals a remarkable spectrum. In 1968 he contributed to sixteen feature projects, and the works that best illustrate his versatility in cinema include titles like Dibolic, Until the Time, Guapa, fiery and dangerous, and Teorema. The following years saw him involved in many more films, with 1969 standing out for its prolific scorework, including Queimada and El clan de los Sicilianos. The documentary frames these periods as a journey through different moods and scales, from intimate experimental pieces to grand cinematic statements.
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The film also examines the resistance Morricone faced from certain classical music circles who questioned commercial appeal during his early, more experimental days. Viewers witness the shift in perception when audiences heard the epic score for Once Upon a Time in America. Tornatore uses these contrasts to illustrate how admiration and skepticism can coexist within the same career, shaping the narrative Morricone himself tells through his music.
The documentary also delves into Leone’s role as an arranger for RCA hits in the early 1960s. The collaborations with Leone, alongside later projects like Novecento, contributed to a broader revival of Italian pop through arrangements of songs such as Sapore di sale and Il mondo, performed by Gino Paoli and Jimmy Fontana. The film positions these moments as essential threads in Morricone’s multifaceted career, underscoring how genre-crossing work can become landmark cultural touchstones, celebrated long after release.
In all, Ennio, el maestro presents a portrait of a life dedicated to music, fidelity to collaboration, and a lasting impact on both film and popular culture. The documentary invites viewers to listen closely, not just to the notes, but to the stories that shaped them and the people who carried those stories forward. Attribution: documentary materials and interviews compiled with friends, colleagues, and collaborators of Ennio Morricone.