Ennio Morricone, RIP
By 
The greatest film composer in history is no more.
It’s hard to overstate the greatness of Morricone. He completely turned the rather stale genre of film scores on its head in the mid-60s through his work with Sergio Leone. The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly is probably the most known soundtrack, but I’d speak extremely strongly for both For a Few Dollars More and Once Upon in the West as well. In the latter, with each character having a completely different musical theme, the music is as much a part of the film as Cheyenne or Harmonica or Frank or Jill. He then built that work into a long career. By the 80s, he was producing just gorgeous work, especially on The Mission and Once Upon a Time in America but there are so many other examples as well. And then let’s not forget the brilliance of his score for The Battle of Algiers, where both the stark military music and the lush sadness of the death scenes helps make that one of the greatest films ever made. Let’s listen to the master.