Italy Cheers Ennio Morricone’s Oscar Win for ‘The Hateful Eight’ Score
A.M.P.A.S./REX SHUTTERSTOCK
ROME – Italy on Monday cheered Ennio Morricone’s Oscar victory for composing the original score for Quentin Tarantino’s “The Hateful Eight,” which marks the first competitive Oscar won by the 87-year old maestro with more than 500 movie credits to this name.
“After an almost 60-year-long career, and five nominations which had left him empty-handed, Ennio Morricone finally brings an Oscar for best score home,” trumpeted daily La Republica on its website.
“Superb Maestro, finally!” tweeted Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi at dawn, Italian time. Also on Twitter Italo Culture Czar Dario Franceschini enthused that “an all-time movie giant has triumphed.”
Morricone, who received an honorary Oscar in 2007, had been nominated five previous times, for “Days of Heaven,” “The Mission,” “The Untouchables,” “Bugsy” and “Malena.”
But international accolades for Morricone came after what is now considered his most groundbreaking work, on scores for Sergio Leone’s so-called “Dollars Trilogy” – “A Fistful of Dollars,” “For a Few Dollars More,” and “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.” And also on Leone’s “Once Upon a Time in the West.” They revolutionized the way Westerns, and movies at large, are scored.