Sound technique · used in 7 films
Treating the score as part of the film's structure, sometimes writing it before the shoot and playing it on set. The acting, camera and editing are then shaped around the music.
Examples
Sergio Leone · 1964
Morricone has said some of the music was written before the film, which was unusual. The pacing and the long silences of the film are shaped by it, and it gives the Western its own sound.
Where to see it: The opening titles: Morricone's main theme plays over the opening titles before the Stranger rides into San Miguel.
Sergio Leone · 1965
Morricone started writing before production began, and Leone often shot scenes to the music on set. The rhythm of the acting and the camera follows the score, so the music is part of how the film is built.
Where to see it: The watch scenes: Indio carries a musical pocket watch taken from a woman who died after he attacked her. The tune comes back whenever it opens.
Sergio Leone · 1966
Morricone composed the film's themes before shooting, and Leone played the music on set so the actors and the camera could respond to it. Image and score line up almost eerily, to the point that the music seems to be creating the film.
Where to see it: The first appearance of the main title theme. The coyote howl, the flute and the human voices set up a new world of sound.
Sergio Leone · 1968
Morricone finished the score before filming began, and Leone played it on set during takes. The harmonica motif was written as music and also as the actual object Harmonica carries. That is, the film's emotional rhythms were musical before they were ever filmed.
Where to see it: Harmonica's theme. The sound of the instrument is the character's identity, the mystery of the plot and the emotional center of the film all at once.
Sergio Leone · 1971
Morricone scored the film, as he did Leone's earlier Westerns. A theme called Invention for John plays over the opening credits and sets the film's mix of the comic and the epic.
Where to see it: The opening credits: The theme plays over the credits and introduces the tone before the story begins.
Sergio Leone · 1984
The film's pan flute themes, played by Gheorghe Zamfir, are how it remembers things, and they do far more than sit in the background. Each time a theme returns, it brings back the feelings from the earlier times you heard it. The score becomes a second story that runs alongside the one you see.
Where to see it: The closing sequence. The Morricone theme returns as the film's last word, and it carries the full weight of everything that came before it.
Quentin Tarantino · 2015
Ennio Morricone wrote the original score, his first full Western score in 34 years, and won an Oscar for it. The music is dark and heavy from the start. It sets the mood of dread before the characters speak.
Where to see it: Opening stagecoach ride: The score plays as the coach moves slowly through the blizzard.
Questions