The official trailer for Giuseppe Tornatore’s documentary on the iconic Italian film composer Ennio Morricone is now available to view ahead of its opening in select US theaters on February 9, 2024. You can watch it below.
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Titled Ennio, the film traces Morricone’s career from his early work with Sergio Leone to his first Academy Award for Quentin Tarantino’s 2016 movie The Hateful Eight, including The Good, the Bad and the Ugly; Once Upon a Time in America; Days of Heaven; The Mission and The Untouchables. It also offered the late composer, who died in 2020, an opportunity to tell his own story and break down his artistic process.
Adding to the portrait of Morricone are interviews with several of his collaborators and contemporaries, including Clint Eastwood, Quentin Tarantino, and Bruce Springsteen. Ennio also features appearances from Oliver Stone, Hans Zimmer, John Williams, Bernardo Bertolucci, Marco Bellocchio, Giuliano Montaldo, Dario Argento, Joan Baez, and more.
Morricone and Tornatore shared a long collaborative history, beginning with 1988’s Cinema Paradiso. From there, Morricone went on to write the music for all of Tornatore’s subsequent films, including his Golden Globe-winning score for 1998’s Legend of 1900.
Ennio premiered at the Venice Film Festival in July 2021 before Music Box Films acquired the US distribution rights in November of this year. The film was released in Italian cinemas on 27 January 2022 and digital platforms in April 2022.
The film has already attracted considerable critical acclaim. A review in The Guardian stated: “His documentary represents a painstakingly detailed, fantastically entertaining, and profoundly exhausting deep dive into the career of the hyper-prolific Italian composer Ennio Morricone, known best perhaps for his orchestral scores for Sergio Leone (including the so-called Dollars Trilogy and Once Upon a Time in the West),” while The Irish Times’ review said “The tributes become a little repetitive but there’s much to enjoy in this documentary about Ennio Morricone.”
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