I don't usually post twice in a week, but news that composer Ennio Morricone passed away this morning at age 91 has hit me in the feels. Morricone composed the scores of over 500 movies, including the famous Spaghetti Westerns of Sergio Leone (The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly). I'm listening to his music on my YouTube playlist and will happily provide the link to anyone interested. (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL54JVjPqRWsGVzXvVTO2GxRUKCBnbuSWZ)
Why do I have a whole playlist devoted to Morricone? If you read the most recent chapter of Double Twist, you'll know that Marvel and Hopkins are on a California tour in which they've chosen music by Morricone to start their revolution.
According to NPRs obituary this morning, "Morricone was off and running toward one of the most celebrated film-scoring careers of all time. It began with Il Federale in 1961 and continued through his collaborations with director Sergio Leone on a famous series of Westerns that included A Fistful of Dollars; For a Few Dollars More; The Good, the Bad and the Ugly; and Once Upon a Time in the West. But that wasn't all he did.
"Some of his best-known scores included the political drama The Battle of Algiers; Brian de Palma's take on 1930s gangsters, The Untouchables; The Mission, about a Jesuit priest in South America; and Cinema Paradiso, about a young boy growing up after World War II with a love of movies."
Morricone was nominated six times and received an honorary Oscar in 2007. He won the Oscar for himself in 2016 (age 87!) for the score of Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight.
RIP to this fantastic composer.