Ennio Morricone to Receive Honorary Academy Award
December 14th, 2006 by Andre Soares
Over his 45-year career, prolific composer-conductor Ennio Morricone has composed more than 500 scores for both films and television — including this blogger’s all-time favorite movie score, the C’era una volta il West / Once Upon a Time in the West ballad.
Morricone will finally be given his Oscar due February 25, 2007, when he’ll be picking up an Honorary Academy Award for his indelible contributions to film art. More than a film composer, Morricone was frequently the lone savior of rotten films made bearable — at times even memorable — merely because of his compositions.
Born in Rome in 1928, Morricone started creating film music as the 1950s came to a close. A few years later, he began collaborating with director Sergio Leone on a series of European-made Westerns, including Per qualche dollaro in più / For a Few Dollars More (1965) and Il Buono, il brutto, il cattivo / The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966).
Among the other films — whether good or bad — made better by Morricone’s art are La Battaglia di Algeri / The Battle of Algiers (1966), Teorema (1968), Queimada / Burn! (1969), L’Uccello dalle piume di cristallo / The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970), La Storia vera della signora delle camelie / The True Story of Camille (1980), The Mission (1986), The Untouchables (1987), Nuovo cinema Paradiso / Cinema Paradiso (1988), ¡Átame! / Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (1990), Il Lungo silenzio / The Long Silence (1993), and Malèna (2000).
Morricone has earned five Academy Award nominations for original score — for Days of Heaven (1978), The Mission (1986), The Untouchables (1987), Bugsy (1991) and Malèna (2000) — but has never won.
The composer’s current project, Leningrad, has been announced for a 2008 release.
Boston Society of Film Critics Awards - 2006
Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Awards - 2006
Poster Exhibition of Oscar-Winning Foreign Language Films
W. C. Fields Exhibit in Beverly Hills
Sao Paulo Film Festival 2006 Winners
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