This news has probably made me smile more than anything else I have ever reported on this site since it started back in July. Legendary composer
Ennio Morricone is set to recieve an Honorary Oscar at next year's Academy Awards ceremony after a 45 year career in film scoring, where he worked on over 300 movies. Morricone is my favourite composer in the history of film after his extraordinary collaborations with
Sergio Leone on his Dollars trilogy and Leone's two masterpieces
Once Upon a Time in the West and
Once Upon a Time in America. The score to
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly is my favourite, with the piece "La Storia De Un Soldato" (The Story of the Soldier) being the most haunting in the way Leone used it in the torture sequences that was reminiscent of German P.O.W camps. Morricone worked on a huge number of "Spaghetti Westerns" with other Italian directors and also had a long career in American movies where he recieved 5 Oscar nominations, most notably for
The Untouchables but he lost out on the statue each time. Academy President Sid Ganis said this of the decision...
"The board was responding not just to the remarkable number of scores that Mr. Morricone has produced, but to the fact that so many of them are beloved and popular masterpieces." The Oscars take place on Sunday 25th February at the Kodak theatre. Morricone is throughouly deserving of this award and it's a great testament to the man that he is still conducting large performances at the age of 78. source -
coming soon