Ennio Morricone! Happy 80th birthday, you INGLOURIOUS BASTERD!

Wow, I can't imagine any news story getting me more excited this morning. Quentin Tarantino, for the first time ever, will have an original score for one of his films in the upcoming INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS. As any self-respecting Tarantino fan knows, he has in the past only ever used already written and performed musical themes or pop/rock songs to fill his soundtracks, and quite beautifully I might add. I believe the only time in the past that Quentin has ever used an original score was when Robert Rodriguez contributed one piece of music to KILL BILL as his part of the return favour for Tarantino directing a segment of SIN CITY. Though I could be wrong on that point, he may have used others, but he has certainly used them only infrequently. IGN (not that one, a website titled Italy Global Nation) carry the delicious news that Tarantino has HIRED my favourite ever composer, Ennio Morricone, 80 YEARS OLD TODAY, to score INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS. Morricone is best known for his close relationship with the famed Sergio Leone who he worked with on each of his 7 movies, including the classic scores for the DOLLARS trilogy. He won the honorary Oscar in 2007"in recognition of his magnificent and multifaceted contributions to the art of film music". He had never previously won an Oscar statue despite four nominations (THE MISSION, THE UNTOUCHABLES, DAYS OF HEAVEN, BUGSY, MALENA). He is also famous for providing a rare score for a John Carpenter movie not done by the director himself and that was for THE THING in the early 80's. Tarantino previously used several tracks from Morricone's filmography in KILL BILL, my favourite being for the "Escape" scene in Vol. 2...

This is just perfect. In the script for his World War II epic, Tarantino mentions a couple of times shots that he plans to rip off from Sergio Leone and mentions Morricone-esque music several times including an important theme for the character of Shosanna.

He called it Shosanna's theme which we presume will be similar to Deborah's Theme from ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA.

Tarantino originally approached Morricone for PULP FICTION but Morricone didn't feel his music suited the film (and he was correct) but when Tarantino was making KILL BILL, his self described "Spaghetti Western", Morricone actually approached Tarantino to score an original soundtrack.

Tarantino, a great lover of Morricone's past work and of course of cinema's past, decided to use already scored Morricone music instead.

This time both parties couldn't resist the chance to work with each other. I've always wondered what a Morricone scored "Spaghetti Western" would sound like from Tarantino and although we aren't quite getting that, a "World War II style Spaghetti Western" done in a Sergio Leone, "Once Upon a Time" style is very close indeed.

THE LATEST BATCH OF IMAGES FROM FILMING CAN BE SEEN HERE

source - quentin tarantino archives