|
003-The
Hateful Eight
|
|
|
|
|
|
Composed
by Ennio Morricone
Decca / 2015 / 72m
|
| Quentin Tarantino has
used music in his films very strikingly, from the start of his career;
the soundtrack albums have all been very popular and big-sellers.
Lots of those albums have featured music by Ennio Morricone – all
of it from the 1960s and 70s, all of it brilliant. It’s hard to
imagine Inglorious Basterds in particular without the indelible
Morricone music (Allonsanfan‘s “Rabbia e Tarantella” one of the
most explosive things he ever wrote, Revolver‘s “Un Amico” one of
the prettiest; and in the same film there’s The Battle of Algiers,
The Return of Ringo, Death Rides a Horse and The Big Gundown); Navajo
Joe‘s guttural wail became one of the signature sounds of the second
part of Kill Bill, which also features Il Mercenario‘s “L’Arena”,
a genuine contender when it comes to the most brilliant pieces of
music he wrote for a western.
For his last film Django
Unchained, Tarantino not only curated another collection of Morricone
gems, he even got an original song from his musical hero, “Ancora
Qui” (sung by Elisa). It was fairly clear that if the director
ever did something that seemed unlikely – to commission an original
score – there would only be one person he’d want to write it.
When he was making The Hateful Eight, precisely that happened
– and probably to his own surprise given the rather unflattering
comments Morricone has made about Tarantino in the past (hurriedly
retracted in the interview rounds for this movie), the legendary
composer accepted the job. He initially didn’t think he would
be able to do it, then thought maybe he could write one theme
but nothing more, and he suggested the director use parts of his
largely-unused music from The Thing, which has been widely reported
and subsequently Chinese whispers have somehow led to similarly
widely-reported (but entirely inaccurate) reports that the original
music he wrote for this film is actually not original at all,
but based on that score. In fact, while there is music written
for The Thing (and Exorcist II) contained in The Hateful Eight,
there’s a substantial amount of original music too, 50 minutes
of which finds its way onto the soundtrack album.
|
| Morricone
wrote the music – as with many of his great scores – without
watching the film, basing it entirely on the script and
allowing Tarantino to do as he wished with it. That one
theme he initially promised the director is what became
the exceptional album opener “L’Ultima Diligenza di Red
Rock”. Tarantino said that the composer told him the piece
“would have a forward momentum that would suggest the stagecoach
moving through the winter landscape, but with an ominous
sound overall that would suggest the violence to come.”
And frankly that’s the perfect description. It opens with
a growling bassoon set against a slightly discordant pedal
note from the violins, drums adding that momentum Morricone
talked about. Plucked cellos and basses join, some ominous
lower brass too, then staccato strings begin to accompany
that bassoon melody, swirling around. Finally after a couple
of minutes comes a pause in that momentum before the central
melody is taken up now by a pair of trumpets, a hint of
The Untouchables about the way they dance off each other.
A new, urgent B phrase of the theme comes up, male voices
enter, the melody becomes more and more intense before an
explosive cacophony of brass |
|
| pushes
the pressure valve even tighter. The frantic B phrase alternates
with the main melody to the conclusion. It’s an exceptional
seven and a half minutes of film music – of music – that
recalls the composer’s great crime scores of the 1970s and
80s, displaying a remarkable intensity and vigour. A second
piece later on the album with the same title focuses on
the most overtly violent part of the cue, with the brass
and the voices, and is a nice little version of it in vignette
form. In “I Quattro Passaggeri” it’s the bassoon section
that is the focus, with the drum kit accompaniment.
|
|
|
| After this comes the
score’s second main idea, introduced in the “Overture” but heard
throughout, a swirling theme for strings (quite Herrmannesque) which
in that piece includes a ticking clock motif (if truth be told one
of the score’s few similarities to the composer’s previous westerns).
It’s tense, slow-paced but with a distinctively violent undercurrent
and it forms the backbone of the whole score. It was written to
play in counterpoint to the main melody of “L’Ultima Diligenza”
and that’s exactly what happens in “Narratore Letterario”, which
sees the two themes running in parallel until a dissonant passage
of orchestral violence. The fullest exploration of the melody comes
in three pieces called “Neve”, the first of which (subtitled “Versione
Integrale”) runs for twelve minutes and is exceptionally tense,
swirling round in psychological horror style.
|
|
|
While
much of the score is constructed from the building blocks
of those two themes, there are some standout moments that
aren’t. “Sei Cavalli” is an angry, gruesome blast of dissonance
which leads into the much quieter, but in its way no less
violent, “Raggi di Sole Sulla Montagna” which features
some remarkably florid writing for winds in particular.
There are two versions of a piece called “L’Inferno Bianco”
(great title!) which is where the score is at its most
Herrmannesque, especially the ghostly strings and winds
– the percussion, not so much – in fact that’s again very
reminiscent of Morricone’s crime scores of 30-40 years
ago. The first take is subtitled “synth” (which means
“synth”), the second “ottoni” (“brass”). I will leave
you guessing as to the difference between the two. By
far the warmest moment of the score (in fact, perhaps
the only moment of warmth at all) comes very late, in
“La Lettera di Lincoln”, with a gorgeously noble trumpet
solo. The album ends brilliantly, with the briefest of
cues – “La Puntura della Morte” is only 27 seconds but
wraps things up with a delicious few bars of suspense
to close things off.
|
|
| Inevitably, the album
is not just about Morricone (indeed you have to squint quite hard
to even see his name on the front cover of it, and the spine reads
“Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight – Morricone/Tarantino”) with
the director having decided for whatever reason that people would
love to hear snippets of dialogue from the film, mercifully indexed
separately. (Perhaps he is not yet aware of the comparatively recent
innovation home video, which allows people to relive dialogue from
their favourite films by watching them.) There’s a small smattering
of songs, the best of which is undoubtedly “There Won’t Be Many
Coming Home”, a 1967 recording by the great Roy Orbison.
|
|
| I
don’t really believe this was the type of music Quentin
Tarantino dreamt of when he gave Morricone the job and it
wouldn’t surprise me if the composer absolutely loved that
fact, but to Tarantino’s great credit he just left Morricone
alone to do whatever he thought was best. It’s excellent
film music and in “L’Ultima Diligenza di Red Rock” has a
truly remarkable piece, but by design large parts of it
are rather uncomfortable to listen to and so I can’t honestly
say it is going to have the same repeat-play value as some
of the other best scores of the year (including the other
one by Morricone himself). It’s scarcely believable that
an 87 year old could write music of this intensity and at
times this anger, but Ennio Morricone is hardly a typical
87 year old and if as seems likely he wins a reasonable
number of the awards given out early in the new year then
they certainly won’t be a kind of “career award”, they will
certainly be for the quality of this music. (More
see here)
|
|
|
|
