Morricone, Ennio, 1928–2020, Italian composer. Most famous for his film scores for 1960s spaghetti westerns, he also composed for comedies, historical dramas, and thrillers. Combining music with haunting sound effects, he worked with such acclaimed directors as Sergio Leone, Quentin Tarantino, Brian de Palma, Bernardo Bertolucci, and Gillo Pontecorvo. His compositions for Leone's trilogy A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966) sometimes overshadowed the sparse dialogue. Among the other films he scored are De Palma's The Untouchables (1987), Giuseppe Tornatore's Cinema Paradiso (1988), and Tarantino's The Hateful Eight (2015), which won him an Academy Award. Morricone, who received an Academy Award for lifetime achievement in 2007, also composed for television and wrote concert pieces.
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2024, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
See more Encyclopedia articles on: Music: History, Composers, and Performers: Biographies