布罗克斯顿评说莫里康内 MB-012-116

乔纳森·布罗克斯顿（Jonathan Broxton）的原始评论

埃尼奥·莫里康内长期以来一直为昆汀·塔伦蒂诺的电影提供音乐，但直到最近他才有意这样做。塔伦蒂诺的前六部电影——《落水狗》、《低俗小说》、《杰基·布朗》、《杀死比尔》、《死亡证明》和《无耻混蛋》——以不拘一格、精心挑选的音乐为特色，包括经典摇滚歌曲和塔伦蒂诺最喜欢的电影的配乐剪辑。《杀死比尔》和《无耻混蛋》最引人注目的是利用了几首经典莫里康内配乐中的音乐，包括《纳瓦霍乔》、《好坏丑》、《大捕杀》、《左轮手枪》和《阿隆桑芬》等电影的曲目。塔伦蒂诺因这种方法而受到赞扬和批评; 一些人喜欢他在一个新的、重要的环境中重新利用这种音乐的独特性，而另一些人则说他们对某些作品的熟悉导致了脱节，削弱了它们在新环境中的影响。多年前，当被问及他的音乐意识形态时，塔伦蒂诺说，他不信任任何作曲家来理解，然后在音乐上重新诠释他的电影愿景——“他电影的灵魂”。塔伦蒂诺在这件事上的立场在他的第七部电影《被解救的姜戈》之前开始有所软化，一度有传言说埃尼奥·莫里康内已经同意为它配乐——如果有人能让塔伦蒂诺改变他对原创配乐的影响和重要性的看法，那就是莫里康内。然而，情况导致这种情况没有发生，最终的配乐以莫里康内的原创歌曲“Ancora Qui”为特色，但没有原创配乐。

在《被解救的姜戈》上映后，莫里康内显然对塔伦蒂诺发表了几句贬低性言论，称他使用音乐“没有连贯性”，并且他“不会再与他合作，做任何事情”，这使得塔伦蒂诺和莫里康内真正合作的前景越来越不可能。然而，当塔伦蒂诺开始创作《八恶人》时，谣言再次开始出现，塔伦蒂诺和莫里康内已经和解，作曲家将创作这部电影的原创配乐。这一次，谣言是真的，莫里康内开始创作音乐; 最初，塔伦蒂诺计划让莫里康内只写一首序曲和一个主旋律，并使用莫里康内为 1982 年科幻电影《The Thing》配乐中未使用的音乐作为配乐的其余部分，但莫里康内深受这部电影的启发，他继续写作，最终为塔伦蒂诺提供了 50 分钟的原创音乐。这部电影的最终混音确实包括莫里康内为《The Thing》配乐的三首曲目——“Eternity”、“Bestiality”和“Despair”——以及来自《驱魔人 II：异教徒》配乐的“Regan's Theme （Floating Sound）”，但其中大部分是全新的，这是塔伦蒂诺电影的第一次。

《八恶人》是一部以西部片形式呈现的悬疑小说; 它由库尔特·拉塞尔和塞缪尔·杰克逊主演，饰演一对赏金猎人，他们乘坐马车穿越怀俄明州的山脉，前往红岩市收集战利品; 拉塞尔正在运送一名活生生的囚犯黛西·多梅格（詹妮弗·杰森·利饰），她计划因谋杀罪被绞死。杰克逊的所有囚犯都已经死了。在接到自称是红岩新警长的第三名男子（沃尔顿·戈金斯饰）后，他们的马车陷入了一场巨大的暴风雪，旅行者们被迫在一个偏僻的中转站寻求庇护，另外四人——德米安·比奇尔、布鲁斯·邓恩、迈克尔·马德森和蒂姆·罗斯——已经在避难。不久之后，八人之间的不和和不信任开始发展，内战遗留下来的嫉妒、苦涩和种族紧张局势浮出水面。《八恶人》包含了塔伦蒂诺的所有标志——充满咒骂和冗长的对话、绞刑架上的幽默、独特的叙事跳跃、残酷的暴力——但它也是一部非常美丽的电影，资深摄影师罗伯特·理查森（Robert Richardson）捕捉了一些壮观的雪山景观，制片设计师种子田洋平（Yohei Taneda）以极大的真实性再现了内战后美国的样子。莫里康内的音乐也极大地帮助了这一点，他将紧张气氛提升到几乎无法忍受的程度。

埃尼奥·莫里康内（Ennio Morricone）以其西部片音乐而闻名——《荒野大镖客》和《好坏丑》等配乐都是传奇——但事实上，自34年前1981年他为巴德·斯宾塞（Bud Spencer）鲜为人知的电影《哥儿们，我们去西部》（Occio Alla Penna）谱曲以来，他已经有很长一段时间没有为主流的美国电影配乐了，上一部是 2002 年的《雷普利的游戏》，尽管上一部广泛发行的可能是 2000 年的《火星任务》。因此，《八恶人》对于电影音乐爱好者来说是一个里程碑式的发行，应该这样庆祝。“莫里康内西部”这句话具有一定的音乐内涵，导致人们对乐谱听起来会是什么样子有先入之见; 然而，作为创新者，莫里康内为《八恶人》配乐听起来与塞尔吉奥·莱昂内 （Sergio Leone） 的经典电影完全不同，而是与他 1970 年代和 80 年代充满悬念的惊悚片有更多的共同点，尤其是像 Città Violenta、La Classe Operaia Va in Paradiso、前面提到的左轮手枪、罗马大屠杀、Peur Sur La Ville 和 The Untouchables。《八恶人》是一部紧张的电影，在一触即发的愤怒的刀刃上保持平衡，因此，这些紧凑、强烈的节奏想法更多地融入了塔伦蒂诺的视野。

乐谱的第一个主题是“L'Ultima Diligenza di Red Rock”，这是一首围绕 16 个音符主题构建的紧张进行曲，对巴松管、低音巴松管和大号的重复想法，所有这些都以出乎意料的现代踩镲舔镲和鲜明的刺耳弦乐为基础。莫里康内说：“这些乐器发出的声音可以表达塔伦蒂诺故事的主题——戏剧性、愤怒、绝望和讽刺。它们是一种健康的声音。他们还表达了对电影主角的批评。随着乐曲的发展，它为配器增添了新的触感——相互呼应的柔和小号，雷鸣般的鼓声插曲——甚至呈现出一个 B 乐句，一种旋转的动作主题，用粗鲁的吟唱男声加以强调。这是一首非常美妙的作品，充满了不祥的期待，暗示着即将到来的大屠杀，但它始终保持着彻底的音乐性，在整个 7 分半钟的长度中，节奏和器乐变化巧妙地进行。

第二个主题是“Neve”，这是一首冰冷、荒凉的作品，由朴素的高弦乐、轻柔飘动的双簧管和不断的金属脉冲组成，旨在模仿滴答作响的时钟，这是莫里康内之前在《黄昏双镖客》和《无名小子》的乐谱中探索过的音乐自负。它似乎有一种必然性，内心深处埋藏着一丝暴力，而且在加剧紧张局势的方式上非常出色。实际上，它最初出现在“序曲”中，有时与红岩主题相对应，后来成为“叙述者字母”的骨干，其中两个主题的对位写作再次得到证明，但在三首“Neve”作品中得到了最充分的探索。最长的一次，长达惊人的12分钟，是耐心操纵观众的实践，因为莫里康内以一种巧妙的方式呈现了不同变化的声音层次，重叠的乐器，淡入淡出，暗示主题。

乐谱几乎完全围绕这两个反复出现的想法构建。第七首曲目中的较短版本“L'Ultima Diligenza di Red Rock”主要集中在更激躁的弦乐创作和吟唱声上，效果极佳。“I Quattro Passeggeri”重温了巴松管和低音巴松管之间不祥的二重奏，而红岩主题最激进的表演出现在扣人心弦的“Sangue e Neve”中，而“La Musica Prima del Massacro”是暴风雨前的字面上的平静，柔和的钟琴主题和游丝木管乐器为即将到来的暴力提供了反直觉的漂亮前奏。

但这并不是谱曲所能提供的全部。在其他地方，莫里康内参与了一些相当残酷的铜管主导的不和谐音，最明显的是在“Narratore Letterario”的结尾，以及后来的“Sei Cavalli”。木管乐部分不同部分之间的芭蕾舞，几乎是印象派的相互作用，将“Raggi di Sole Sulla Montagna”指定为一个有趣的提示。两首“L'Inferno Bianco”提示交替使用铜管合成器，同时呈现出快速打击乐和穿透力十足的拨奏弦乐写作的紧张狂热。在结局“La Lettera di Lincoln”中，莫里康内呈现了高贵、爱国的小号旋律，让人想起克林特·伊斯特伍德在他的电影《美国狙击手》的片尾字幕中使用的《林戈归来》中的葬礼曲。

当然，由于塔伦蒂诺是塔伦蒂诺，他在原声带专辑中加入了几首对话曲目，詹妮弗·杰森·利（Jennifer Jason Leigh）演唱了一首古老的澳大利亚民谣，以及一些歌曲，包括The White Stripes的“Apple Blossom”，大卫·赫斯（David Hess）的“Now You're All Alone”，从电影《左边的最后一栋房子》的配乐中， 以及罗伊·奥比森 （Roy Orbison） 为 1967 年的电影《活着的最快的吉他》（The Fastest Guitar Alive）创作的“不会有很多人回家”，奥比森在其中扮演主角。这些歌曲实际上都非常好，但对话曲目可以很容易地编程出来，以获得更流畅的聆听体验——值得庆幸的是，塔伦蒂诺足够明智，没有将它们叠加在莫里康内的音乐上。原声带中没有包含《The Thing》或《Exorcist II： The Heretic》的线索，不幸的是，Crystal Gayle 的优美乡村歌曲“Ready for the Times to Get Better”也没有，这首歌在蒙太奇序列中播放。

以任何人的标准来看，《八恶人》都是出色的音乐，但它是由埃尼奥·莫里康内在 87 岁时创作的，这一事实简直是非凡的。尽管莫里康内年事已高，健康状况不佳，但他在这里证明了他仍然是一位重要、有趣、相关的作曲家，能够为顶级电影创作令人惊讶和具有挑战性的音乐，就像他自 1964 年首次登上世界舞台以来一直在做的那样。对他来说，挖掘他的旧目录并模仿他的几首经典意大利面条西部配乐是如此容易——而且，很可能很多人都希望他能做到这一点，包括昆汀·塔伦蒂诺——但莫里康内看到这部电影需要一些不同的东西，这一事实证明了他对电影的深刻理解， 他的创新能力，以及他作为世界任何地方电影音乐界真正伟大的人之一的地位。

从英国电影音乐商店购买《八恶人》原声带

曲目列表：

• L'Ultima Diligenza di Red Rock [Versione Integrale] （7：30）
• 序曲 （3：11）
• 沃伦少校遇见黛西·多梅格（对话） （0：32）
• 叙述者莱特里奥 （1：59）
• Apple Blossom （由Jack White作词，由The White Stripes演唱） （2：13）
• 边疆正义（对话） （1：50）
• L'Ultima Diligenza di Red Rock #2 （2：37）
• Neve [versione integrale] （12：16）
• 这是黛西·多梅格 （对话） （1：01）
• Sei Cavalli （1：21）
• Raggi di Sole Sulla Montagna （1：41）
• 巴吞鲁日血腥黑鬼杀手之子（对话） （2：43）
• 吉姆·琼斯（Jim Jones）在植物湾（Botany Bay）（传统，由Jennifer Jason Leigh表演）（4：10）
• Neve #2 （2：05）
• 查理叔叔的炖菜（对话） （1：41）
• I Quattro Passeggeri (1:49)
• La Musica Prima del Massacro (2:00)
• L’Inferno Bianco [Synth] (3:31)
• The Suggestive Oswaldo Mobray (dialogue) (0:47)
• Now You’re All Alone (written and performed by David Hess) (1:29)
• Sangue e Neve （2：05）
• Neve #3 （2：02）
• L'Inferno Bianco [Ottoni] （3：31）
• 黛西的演讲（对话） （1：32）
• La Lettera di Lincoln [Strumentale] （1：41）
• La Lettera di Lincoln [Con Dialogo] （1：46）
• 《不会有很多人回家》（由比尔·迪斯和罗伊·奥比森编剧，罗伊·奥比森演唱）（2：44）
• La puntura della morte （0：27）

片长：72分31秒

Decca/Verve/Third Man Records （2015年）

音乐由埃尼奥·莫里康内（Ennio Morricone）作曲和指挥。由捷克国家交响乐团演出。埃尼奥·莫里康内（Ennio Morricone）改编。由法比奥·文丘里（Fabio Venturi）录制和混音。由比尔·阿博特（Bill Abbott）编辑。乐谱由埃尼奥·莫里康内（Ennio Morricone）制作。专辑由昆汀·塔伦蒂诺、可可·弗朗西尼、理查德·格拉德斯坦、香农·麦金托什和史黛西·谢尔制作。

Original Review by Jonathan Broxton

Ennio Morricone has been providing music for Quentin Tarantino’s films for a long time, but it is only recently that he has done so intentionally. Tarantino’s first six films – Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, Kill Bill, Death Proof, and Inglourious Basterds – featured an eclectic, hand-picked selection of music comprising classic rock songs and score cuts from Tarantino’s favorite movies. Kill Bill and Inglourious Basterds most notably made use of music from several classic Morricone scores, including tracks from films such as Navajo Joe, The Good the Bad and the Ugly, The Big Gundown, Revolver, and Allonsanfàn, among others. Tarantino has been both praised and criticized for this approach; some love his idiosyncratic re-purposing of this music in a new and vital setting, while others say that their familiarity with some of the pieces causes a disconnect, diminishing their impact in their new context. Years ago, when questioned about his musical ideology, Tarantino said that he didn’t trust any composer enough to understand, and then musically reinterpret, his cinematic visions – the “soul of his movie”. Tarantino’s stance on this matter began to soften somewhat prior to his seventh film, Django Unchained, and at one point the rumor was that Ennio Morricone had agreed to score it – if anyone could get Tarantino to change his mind about the impact and importance of an original score, it would be Morricone. However, circumstances led to this not happening, and the final soundtrack featured an original Morricone song, “Ancora Qui,” but no original score.

Subsequent to the release of Django Unchained, Morricone apparently made several disparaging statements about Tarantino, saying he used music “without coherence” and that he “wouldn’t work with him again, on anything,” rendering the prospect of a true Tarantino-Morricone collaboration increasingly unlikely. However, when Tarantino began work on The Hateful Eight, rumors again began to emerge that Tarantino and Morricone had reconciled, and that the composer would write the film’s original score. This time, the rumors were true, and Morricone began working on the music; originally, Tarantino planned to have Morricone just write an overture and a main theme, and use unused music from Morricone’s score for the 1982 sci-fi film The Thing for the rest of the score, but Morricone was so inspired by the film that he kept writing, and ultimately provided Tarantino with 50 minutes of original music. The final mix of the film does include three tracks from Morricone’s score for The Thing – “Eternity,” “Bestiality,” and “Despair” – as well as one cue, “Regan’s Theme (Floating Sound),” from the score for Exorcist II: The Heretic, but the bulk of it is brand new, a first for a Tarantino film.

The Hateful Eight is a mystery whodunit presented as a western; it stars Kurt Russell and Samuel L. Jackson as a pair of bounty hunters travelling by wagon through the mountains of Wyoming to the city of Red Rock to collect their spoils; Russell is transporting a live prisoner, Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh), who is scheduled to hang for murder. All of Jackson’s prisoners are already dead. After picking up a third man (Walton Goggins) who claims to be Red Rock’s new sheriff, their wagon is caught in a massive snowstorm, and the travelers are forced to seek refuge at an isolated way station where four others – Demián Bichir, Bruce Dern, Michael Madsen, and Tim Roth – are already sheltering. Before long, discord and mistrust between the eight develops, with jealousy, bitterness, and racial tensions left over from the civil war coming to the surface. The Hateful Eight contains all Tarantino’s trademarks – expletive-laden and verbose dialogue, gallows humor, idiosyncratic narrative jumps, brutal violence – but it’s also an exceptionally beautiful film, with veteran cinematographer Robert Richardson capturing some spectacular snowy mountain landscapes, and production designer Yohei Taneda re-creating the look of post-Civil War era America with great authenticity. It is also helped immeasurably by Morricone’s music, which ratchets up the tension to almost unbearable levels.

Ennio Morricone is known for his music for westerns – scores like A Fistful of Dollars and The Good the Bad and the Ugly are legendary – but he actually hasn’t scored one since the little-known Bud Spencer film Occio Alla Penna in 1981, 34 years ago. It’s also been quite some time since Morricone has written the score for a (fairly) mainstream American film, the last being Ripley’s Game in 2002, although the last one to have any kind of wide release was probably Mission to Mars in 2000. As such, The Hateful Eight is something of a landmark release for film music aficionados, and should be celebrated as such. The phrase ‘Morricone western’ has certain musical connotations that lead to preconceptions of what the score will sound like; however, ever the innovator, Morricone’s score for The Hateful Eight sounds nothing like those classic Sergio Leone movies, and instead has much more in common with his suspense-filled thrillers of the 1970s and 80s, especially things like Città Violenta, La Classe Operaia Va in Paradiso, the aforementioned Revolver, Massacre in Rome, Peur Sur La Ville, and The Untouchables. The Hateful Eight is a tense film, balanced on a knife-edge of hair-trigger anger, and as such those tight, intense rhythmic ideas play much more into Tarantino’s vision.

The first main theme of the score is “L’Ultima Diligenza di Red Rock,” a nervous-sounding march built around a 16-note thematic motif, with repeated ideas for bassoon, contra-bassoon, and tuba, all of which is underpinned by an unexpectedly contemporary hi-hat cymbal lick and stark, stabbing strings. Morricone says, “the sound these instruments produce can express the drama, the rage, the despair and the irony that are the main themes of Tarantino’s story. They are a healthy, bodily sound. They also express a criticism towards the leading characters of the film.” As the piece develops it adds new touches to the orchestration – muted trumpets which echo off each other, a thunderous drum interlude – and even presents a B-phrase, a swirling sort of action motif accentuated with gruffly chanting male voices. It’s a quite wonderful piece, full of ominous anticipation, hinting at the carnage to come, but which remains thoroughly musical throughout, progressing intelligently with rhythmic and instrumental variation for its entire 7½ minute length.

The second main theme is “Neve,” a cold, desolate piece for austere high strings, gently fluttering oboes, and an incessant metallic pulse intended to mimic a ticking clock, a musical conceit Morricone has explored before in his scores for A Few Dollars More and Il Mio Nome é Nessuno. It seems to have a sense of inevitability, with a hint of violence buried deep within, and is quite brilliant in the way it ratchets up the tension. It actually appears initially in the “Overture,” where it sometimes plays in counterpoint to the Red Rock theme, and later forms the backbone of “Narratore Letterario,” where again the contrapuntal writing for both themes is in evidence, but gets its fullest explorations in the three “Neve” pieces. The longest, clocking in at an astonishing 12 minutes, is an exercise in patient audience manipulation, as Morricone presents different shifting layers of sound, overlapping instruments, fading in and out, hinting at themes, in a masterful way.

The score is built almost entirely around these two recurring ideas. The shorter version of “L’Ultima Diligenza di Red Rock” in the seventh track focuses mainly on the more agitated string writing and chanting voices, to superb effect. “I Quattro Passeggeri” revisits the ominous duet between the bassoon and contrabassoon, and the most aggressive performance of the Red Rock theme comes during the gripping “Sangue e Neve,” while “La Musica Prima del Massacro” is the literal calm before the storm, with the gentle glockenspiel motif and the gossamer woodwinds providing a counter-intuitively pretty prelude to the violence to come.

But this is not all the score has to offer. Elsewhere, Morricone engages in some quite brutal brass-led dissonance, most notably towards the end of “Narratore Letterario,” and later in “Sei Cavalli.” Balletic, almost impressionistic, interplay between different parts of the woodwind section earmarks “Raggi di Sole Sulla Montagna” as an intriguing cue. The two “L’Inferno Bianco” cues alternate synths for brasses while presenting a nervous frenzy of rapid-fire percussion and penetrative pizzicato string writing. The one hint of warmth comes during the finale, “La Lettera di Lincoln,” during which Morricone presents a noble, patriotic-sounding trumpet melody reminiscent of the funeral piece from Il Ritorno di Ringo that Clint Eastwood used over the end credits of his film American Sniper.

Of course, with Tarantino being Tarantino, he pads out his soundtrack album with several dialogue tracks, Jennifer Jason Leigh singing an old Australian folk ballad, and a handful of songs, including “Apple Blossom” by The White Stripes, “Now You’re All Alone” by David Hess from the soundtrack to the film The Last House on the Left, and “There Won’t Be Many Coming Home” by Roy Orbison, written for the 1967 film The Fastest Guitar Alive, in which Orbison played the leading role. The songs are all actually very good, but the dialogue tracks can be easily programmed out for more fluid listening experience – thankfully, Tarantino was wise enough not to layer them over Morricone’s music. None of the cues from The Thing or Exorcist II: The Heretic are included on the soundtrack, and unfortunately neither is the beautiful country song “Ready for the Times to Get Better” by Crystal Gayle, which plays over a montage sequence.

The Hateful Eight is brilliant music by anyone’s standards, but the fact that it was composed by Ennio Morricone at the age of 87 is nothing short of remarkable. Despite his advancing years and less-than-perfect health, Morricone has proven here that he remains a vital, interesting, relevant composer capable of writing surprising and challenging music for top-tier films, just as he has been doing since he first burst onto the world stage in 1964. It would have been so easy for him to dig into his back catalogue and ape a couple of his classic Spaghetti Western scores – and, in all probability, many people were hoping that he would do just that, including Quentin Tarantino – but the fact that Morricone saw that this film needed something different is testament to his deep understanding of film, his capacity for innovation, and his standing as one of the true greats working in film music anywhere in the world.

Buy the Hateful Eight soundtrack from the Movie Music UK Store

Track Listing:

• L’Ultima Diligenza di Red Rock [Versione Integrale] (7:30)
• Overture (3:11)
• Major Warren Meet Daisy Domergue (dialogue) (0:32)
• Narratore Letterario (1:59)
• Apple Blossom (written by Jack White, performed by The White Stripes) (2:13)
• Frontier Justice (dialogue) (1:50)
• L’Ultima Diligenza di Red Rock #2 (2:37)
• Neve [Versione Integrale] (12:16)
• This Here is Daisy Domergue (dialogue) (1:01)
• Sei Cavalli (1:21)
• Raggi di Sole Sulla Montagna (1:41)
• Son of the Bloody Nigger Killer of Baton Rouge (dialogue) (2:43)
• Jim Jones at Botany Bay (traditional, performed by Jennifer Jason Leigh) (4:10)
• Neve #2 (2:05)
• Uncle Charlie’s Stew (dialogue) (1:41)
• I Quattro Passeggeri (1:49)
• La Musica Prima del Massacro (2:00)
• L’Inferno Bianco [Synth] (3:31)
• The Suggestive Oswaldo Mobray (dialogue) (0:47)
• Now You’re All Alone (written and performed by David Hess) (1:29)
• Sangue e Neve (2:05)
• Neve #3 (2:02)
• L’Inferno Bianco [Ottoni] (3:31)
• Daisy’s Speech (dialogue) (1:32)
• La Lettera di Lincoln [Strumentale] (1:41)
• La Lettera di Lincoln [Con Dialogo] (1:46)
• There Won’t Be Many Coming Home (written by Bill Dees and Roy Orbison, performed by Roy Orbison) (2:44)
• La Puntura Della Morte (0:27)

Running Time: 72 minutes 31 seconds

Decca/Verve/Third Man Records (2015)

Music composed and conducted by Ennio Morricone. Performed by The Czech National Symphony Orchestra. Orchestrations by Ennio Morricone. Recorded and mixed by Fabio Venturi. Edited by Bill Abbott. Score produced by Ennio Morricone. Album produced by Quentin Tarantino, Coco Francini, Richard Gladstein, Shannon McIntosh and Stacy Sher.