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In Memoriam: Ennio Morricone
Please join us for a podcast special on the life and work of the maestro, Ennio Morricone. 🎼 🇮🇹 🎞
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On July 6, we lost a great artist composer Ennio Morricone will long be remembered for the way he revolutionized how music would be used in westerns. And most will say that all post Morricone Western scores have had a small if not sizable influence on their compositions up until this day. He will long be remembered for molding the spaghetti western alongside Sergio Leone, but also for his versatility in scoring a host of other movies, thrillers, mysteries, arthouse and horror films, romances, and even exploitation. A composer of over 400 film scores. His music took a much more prominent role and films, but it never upstage the moving images before you. He wants said, I don't describe images with my music. When there's an important movie. It is key that the music says what isn't said and what you cannot see. So Ken and I would like to devote this entire episode to this great man, this artist with a legendary career that spans 60 years. Thank you for your beautiful compositions. Riposare in pace. Well welcome Ken and Gosh, a special here we are one episode in and we already have a special
Ken Tabacchi :and what a great one. It's gonna be.
Michael Green :Yes. And you know we you called us yesterday and I just I sat there after I received the news and you know, whistling once upon a time in America in my head. Even Malena which is kind of something that people forget about and I'll talk about that a little bit later but good call.
Ken Tabacchi :Yeah, this is this is a guy who's really behind the scenes quiet man and you've definitely heard of his music if you're alive. You've heard of it. But you may not know his name. And he was he was Ennio Morricone, who, who passed away this week at the ripe age of 91. He was intimately involved with Sergio Leone's westerns. But not only that, he became famous and iconic for that, but he's made classical you know, film scores for decade upon decade, 60 years and just non stop to me, there's two people in film score. There's john Williams, there's Ennio Morricone, and then there's everybody else. You look at guys like you know, Hans Zimmer, and they everyone else was was influenced or copying these two guys. So anyways, just a giant he was he was such an influence on popular culture. How often has the spaghetti western good bad in the ugly dollars trilogy. Come up, whenever there's a standoff in any movie Any any movie, you think of that and often they borrow the score. Without Morricone, you don't have bands like Metallica covering it in their concert or the Ramones or a guy like Coolio sampling it. Okay, he's so endemic you don't and you may not know his name, but you definitely know his music. You don't have a guy like Tarantino without Morricone absolutely you don't have a movie geek you know in in the in the in the rental store going through tape after tape after tape of these westerns and and and eventually he ends up making movies and doing in homage to these to these films. And and even getting Morricone in you know to score some of his later movies Tarantino so I truly believe that he was a huge influence on him and we wouldn't see these kind of movies from Tarantino without Sergio Leone and Ennio Morricone.
Michael Green :you are right my man I mean, what what what else do you think that Tarantino would would consider like a, his influences. Well, if Okay, let's just say Morricone passed away before Kill Bill. Is there someone else that could have taken that place and, and created something compose something that was along those lines and then still allow Tarantino to have that influence,
Ken Tabacchi :no imitable, you know, you and I get up every morning, put our pants on one leg at a time, and so did Morricone, but this is troupey but, you know, he wrote iconic film scores, like, like I breathe, it was just somehow was just in this man inside of him and it just needs to come out
Michael Green :and in beautiful fashion. I mean, each score is akin to nearly all those compositions, if not all, but they're also very different. So it there's this definite signature that's outside of the you know, the standoff. the good, the bad, the ugly, or the harmonica, and once upon a time in the West, there's much more of that there's this undercurrent of his love of Italian cinema. The
Ken Tabacchi :interesting thing about Morricone is that you can consider, definitely, you can consider the score as another character or another performer in the movie, and therefore, somebody like Leone could rely on that to provide the emotional background to to what was happening. So, you know, he didn't have to have a lot of a lot of exposition via dialogue, to get the emotional point of the movie across. For example, in once upon a time in the West, we not told the female protagonist, whole backstory of why she was moving from New Orleans to the west to the wild west to the desert, but we understand that she had a hard time and she was, she had hoped and she was trying to make a new life for herself, and it's not really told in dialogue, but we understand that because of the score, so Leone could rely on that storytelling device, just because of the score. At one point, Kubrick had made a had made a comment to Leone. He said, How did you get the music so appropriate for once upon a time in the West? And Leone says, Well, we wrote the music first. So that is really a testament to Ennio.
Michael Green :was that his normal method was to write it first. I don't, because i and this is not off topic, but I thought I was gonna ask you this later, but I might as well ask you now since you bring it up, that once upon a time in the West, did the harmonica become something from Leone's writing or did Morricone write it?
Ken Tabacchi :I like to imagine that the script was modeled around the soundtrack, which is, which is the converse
Michael Green :of most movies, because a harmonica was a signature part of his instrumentation.
Ken Tabacchi :Well, he was he was more innovative and he used non orchestral instruments as opposed to someone like john Ford. You know, just voices, Jews harp bells, and just whatever he could find he was he was on a shoestring budget. But he just took that and made let me brilliant music because I think it was just inside of him. It wasn't, wasn't about the instrumentation. It was it was about this music that was basically inside this man.
Michael Green :Well said my man, and you know, I took the status over soul music to an assortment of his movies. And I saw once about time in the west for the third time about six months ago, and immediately since I had Apple Music, I went on, and I downloaded the soundtrack. And when I'm listening to it, I know it sounds a little bit kind of cheesy to say but it does transport me back to the Those images, those scenes, and it's almost as if I mean, someone may argue that the music upstages the moving images.
Ken Tabacchi :You maybe you can make that argument,
Michael Green :but that was never his intention. He never wanted to take that away from, you know, especially working with Leone. And, and even later on in his, in his twilight years was never his intention. But as a just a beautiful composer. You couldn't help but think that you're focusing on the music rather than what's on the screen.
Ken Tabacchi :It's a huge part, at least 50% of what of the experience that you're seeing is, is the audible, you know, watch, watch one of those. The dollars trilogy, Fistful of Dollars, few dollars more good bad in the ugly, and you turn the sound way down, you don't get the same experience. You certainly do not get the same experience and it might not Don't even be that interesting of a movie to you.
Michael Green :The movie Milena released in 2000, with Monica Bellucci. Mm hmm. I remember opening the page of the LA Times, calendar section, full page ad, all of the quotes from the critics were about the music. It was it was nothing about the movie, maybe in small print at the bottom, but everything just in bold, you know, and all caps, you know, the best film score, and that's hyperbole, you know, from Ennio Morricone to say that his best film score, but it was pretty amazing. And I have the soundtrack. I still listen to it. But of course, I don't whistle it as much as say, you know, once upon a time in America, or even in the West.
Ken Tabacchi :I take crap from my weightlifting buddies about the music that I play, and sometimes it's classical and sometimes, sometimes it's stuff like this The You have to help me check the Ecstasy of Gold. Okay, I mean, to me that gets by the hair stand on end and it gets me gets me pumped up.
Michael Green :Sure. Why not? I mean, classical music and just amazing film scores can just put you in that frame of mind. And I got to say, you know, in the late 80s I'll just share a few stories about my discovery with Ennio Morricone. And in 1984, once upon a time in America came out Luckily, I didn't see it in the theater. And my dad was a huge movie fan. He would have taken me, most likely he went to see it maybe with my mom. I'm glad I didn't see it. It was cut down from three hours and 49 minutes to 90 minutes, bought the soundtrack, and it became my favorite soundtrack of all time. I actually cobbled up together $18 to purchase it. And I kept playing it and playing it and playing it, and even had some big man music on there. And later on, I found out that it was trimmed down to 90 minutes, which was a travesty. And I'm wondering if that most likely seriously affected the flow of his music being trimmed out? I can't imagine it surviving. In just such a horrifically trimmed down cut. What do you think about that?
Ken Tabacchi :Are you saying the the soundtrack was trimmed?
Michael Green :No, the film itself from nearly four hours?
Ken Tabacchi :Yes. The three hours and 49 minutes version is available for download right now. And that's the one I've seen.
Michael Green :And thankfully, that's the only version available right now. Okay. Yes, good. No, you can't, you cannot, unless there's some, you know, way you can locate it. special order, but it's As far as streaming and iTunes and everything, that nearly four hour version is just, you know, and the music is just so great. I know you don't, perhaps you it's not one of your favorites. But when I've, when I listen to that I not only think of the movie, I just think of his body of work.
Ken Tabacchi :The film in the movie, in this case, the film of the movie, or just one symbiotic thing.
Michael Green :Sure. Now did he work with? I know I believe he worked with Fellini. Did he work with the Sega and Bertolucci that you know? I don't know of the countermeasure Bertolucci been contemporaries that perhaps he was a writer composer or rain something but couldn't find that so I want to ask you, I didn't find that. And on that note, you know, going back to Milena, unfortunate it's not worth your while can but if you can buy the soundtrack or download the soundtrack, who was the male lead Monica Bellucci and Monica Bellucci and A kid I forgot his name. It was a bit of an off tone to seek a copycat. Like some of the tone was muddled. The characters are pretty uninteresting. It tried to instill some, some comedic elements, like some classic light comedy elements of Italian cinema, but it just didn't work. But the score is I remember, I just remember that. When I listened to it, I was almost in a way ignoring the movie itself. It's like I want to close my eyes and just listen to the sound true.
Ken Tabacchi :Yeah. One of those soundtracks Well, the pacing of the movies, it may be slow for some for some people. However, you know, you just, you just have to kind of see it as like a eating a nice and big Italian meal. You don't rush through. It's not a Pizza Hut. You know, shove it down your throat. It's this is this is enjoying antipasti, zuppa, pasta, carne. You know, dolce, digistivo. Yeah, I've every bit one after the other and don't rush it. And at the end of three hours, you're satisfied and full and you want to take a nap.
Michael Green :And you know what if that was made today, it would be cut down. Unless it was made by, you know, Martin Scorsese, or Tarantino who get to indulge a bit, it would be cut down, and I never found myself bored with once about time in America, or once upon a time in the West, and the mission. And I know that extra time is a bonus, quite frankly.
Ken Tabacchi :Let's talk about not being bored. This is amazing to me. I had shown my daughter Bella, the intro to once upon a time in the West. And it was mostly like, hey, look at this. Look at the pacing. Look at this opening scene, which is so interesting and look at this beautiful camera shot where it sweeps over the station and suddenly you're in the West and here's all this stuff in the school. swells up to a crescendo and look at this feeling like Isn't that great? And we watched about maybe 30 minutes of it and went to bed and the next day what move we're gonna watch I don't know we'll see cuz I already seen once upon a time I was just preparing it for her. And she's can we watch once time? Once upon a time in the West, please? Like please and begging me please Come on. Come on. Let's watch it. I'm like, Are you kidding? A 13 year old girl in 2020 is begging me to watch this movie if that's not a timeless classic, I don't know what the hell is
Michael Green :and our listeners should be reminded that Bella watched Barry Lyndon two times, three times now three times. So I think that the the patient's level is extraordinary and you planted that seed my friend. It's fantastic. So okay, so with that said, you continued on you finished it. Did she give you a little mini review? How does she feel that she comment on the music
Ken Tabacchi :The music I pointed out some were in popular cultures like we, you know, the kids loved The Lego Movie. And the scene were in there in the Old West and they, they go in and the girl spits in the spittoon. And, and some of these make these standoff scenes and the music all comes from this, it's all influenced by this.
Michael Green :And so she recognized that as well. Wait a minute, here's the influence. Here's the Oh gee,
Ken Tabacchi :if you will, this is how you get someone interested in movies. as you point out the history. You say this, this influence this, then then that and that's how you become hooked. This is how you become what watching the credits, who directed this, who did the music for this. Now, I want to see that movie that he did over there who started with this? Sure. And it's fascinating that, at least for us, that's how it that's how the love of movies materialized.
Michael Green :And it's almost a trope in itself just to hear that music or think of that standoff. But It's just so iconic. And you know, I didn't really get into the spaghetti westerns until much later and I didn't appreciate them till much later. Yeah. And when you hear that Jews harp on that twang, that's borderline over the top. It's so fitting for that scene with the three with Eli. Now
Ken Tabacchi :I thought it was cheesy. I never felt there was an ounce of provolone. I just thought it was appropriate. Exactly, appropriate,
Michael Green :right? wide open space, what's going on? it reflected what was the urgency in their hearts and minds. And it also created not a false sense of what or kind of cue to the viewer what may happen. But this sort of giving this Okay, this ultra intense moment, you know, what's going to happen and I just, I've always appreciate it.
Ken Tabacchi :Yeah, and like I said, we only can just rely on the score. To set the tone, he's got beautiful cinematography, and great pacing. But ultimately the score is the character. It's really acting its ass off.
Michael Green :So did you ever feel that his scores were ever upstaging?
Ken Tabacchi :No Never Never ever felt that way myself? No. And I really love and once upon a time in the West and by the way, I feel like if you're going to see one Western it should be this should be this movie. It's by far away my favorite Western. But I love the fact that Leone was able to make fun of his own movie, his own, and Morricone his contribution in the dollars trilogy, with a harmonica and he uses it as a as a almost a humorous device, because, you know, there's there's the initial standoff scene, and Charles Bronson doesn't show up. So the three guys turn around to go away and you hear this harmonica music. It's ominous. And then in the guys on the screen. Hear it too. They stop in their tracks and turn around. And the train pulls away and Charles Bronson is out on the other side of the track. He's actually playing the harmonica.
Michael Green :Jackie Lamb, Willie Strode
Ken Tabacchi :it doesn't. He's making fun of his own movies. Sure, but it doesn't. It's not cheesy at all.
Michael Green :And that's like still in the beginning of his career relatively.
Ken Tabacchi :Oh, he became a star. It It was great for him that Eastwood decided not to do another Western gave him the opportunity. Just I kind of like some some iconic lines. What would you say you brought to to too many horses.
Michael Green :One horse too many. Yeah, this is classic. And then, you know, Eastwood put that in terms of the stoic, taciturn, leading man in a Western. I mean, before then we had high noon. You know, we had Rio Bravo. We had the john wayne classics, but they're quite talking We had a lady man not talking and then the score was doing the talking. Yeah,
Ken Tabacchi :yes. Yes.
Michael Green :I would say that. Wouldn't you say that Charles Bronson's character was sort of a nod to Clint Eastwood being taciturn being sort of the man with no name.
Ken Tabacchi :Yes, yes, it was, I want to talk about the there was another movie, man without a name. What was that? I can't remember. But that goes all the way back to Homer's The Odyssey. where, you know, he kills the Cyclops. And he takes the Cyclops asked him what's his name and says My name is nobody. And then he throws a spear in the Cyclops eye and he's suffering and they're they're in a cave and the cave has a rock in front of it to close it is his ogre, his his cyclop friends on the outside and what's going on? What are you what are you struggling? And he said, Nobody is killing me.
Michael Green :It was a joke.
Ken Tabacchi :And they said, Well, okay, He's nuts. And so they let them stay there and die. And I think that story that little story goes all the way along through white. It was kind of an homage to that. Just as you know, once upon a time in Hollywood by Tarantino was, was a nod to Leone and Morricone
Michael Green :a little overtly for my taste but I I can still consider it an homage
Ken Tabacchi :way we talk about homage. This is once upon a time in the West was a revenge story with a strong female protagonist. There was there was three main protagonist and when was female,
Michael Green :what was essentially the co-lead Claudia Carbonell.
Ken Tabacchi :Yeah,well, name Amman name a movie in recent his memory that has that kind of a theme. Kill Bill besides Kill Bill. Well, I was thinking about Kill Bill. But Kill Bill is partly an homage to to the to this genre or Even some of the like you, you send me this picture where there's this Henry Fonda he's approaching it's a wide shot. Sure, out of focus as he walks into focus, and that that scene that shot was was was basically recreated. with Uma Thurman
Michael Green :in the heat waves are very apparent it's Yes, yes, yes. Yeah. And I like it. Some people may may chastise Tarantino for doing that, but I think it's an homage
Ken Tabacchi :the history of film is a history of copying. Sure, as long as you make it, you make it your own.
Michael Green :Mosel say that all post Morricone Western scores have had a small if not sizable influence on their compositions up until this day.
Ken Tabacchi :Yeah. Like I said, john Williams and Ennio.
Michael Green :Right. So I got a question, Ken. And you may or may not have a story to share. But did you ever purchase a soundtrack in your teens? 20s by Ennio Morricone.
Ken Tabacchi :No, no, it was later.
Michael Green :I had this phase in the mid late no late 80s I was buying soundtracks. So the first five that I bought was James Horner's, Glory. Trevor Jones his last of Mohicans. And, of course, Ennio Morricone's the mission and then once upon a time in America, I played those in my carousel player non stop. They were in there for a year. But I always had the mission on repeat. And when I would whistle, Gabriel's Oboe out loud. People, I don't know where that's from. Did you know it's the same composer who did the spaghetti westerns? Really? Absolutely. Absolutely. So I say this because even though there's much similarity in his compositions, there's still a great deal of difference and despairity
Ken Tabacchi :he just like I said, he just we would just get up and make iconic film scores it. He made it seem so easy.
Unknown Speaker :Like you said, I like second nature. Absolutely. Okay. Well, let's talk a little bit about the, I mean, it's not once upon a time of Hollywood is not a part of the trilogy, of course just so we get our listeners to understand that and I'm sure they already know if they're listening to this podcast, but Ennio Morricone was still involved. He wrote the and he was credited as the writer for the bed. And once upon a time in Hollywood, and very fitting given that he was involved in the three films with the once upon a time in the title in cinema history. And it was just, it was good that in his twilight years, I mean in his 90s, late 80s, still composing, and just as beautiful, as
Ken Tabacchi :he composed The Hateful Eight A few songs in Inglorious Basterds Django.
Michael Green :I believe he ended up not being able to work on in glorious because he just told Tarantino look you're not giving me enough time.
Ken Tabacchi :I'm not gonna hatch he had. He had prior commitments. But he did. There are a few songs that ended up in the film that he did compose. Oh really. He didn't post the entire score. But I read that there were eight entries that came from Morricone, so and Tarantino must have been overjoyed ecstatic sure that he got Morricone for his movies. This is basically a hero to him, sitting in that video store, going through tape after tape after tape of these classic movies
Michael Green :can imagine what he was feeling and perhaps an inspiration even before Reservoir Dogs when he was penning scripts, you know, thinking about that score, perhaps playing them while he was writing.
Ken Tabacchi :Maybe he was playing the soundtrack just as you were
Michael Green :just like me. I'm always writing I would play them to homework. So when I was working at the video store in 1990, I was making $4 an hour. This was my freshman year of high school worked only three hours a week. And I didn't have enough money to buy the mission soundtrack. So here's what I did Ken, across the street from the video store,
Ken Tabacchi :you spent it all on girls and booze?
Michael Green :No, not quite. I think I spent it on Del Taco and movie.
Ken Tabacchi :Yes. I would have done that too.
Michael Green :And then across the street was a music plus. Now that as far as my memory goes, music plus was the first to have used movie titles shortly after the release, because they would either buy or have so many available for rent, so they had to get rid of them. And they were selling them cheap, but I couldn't afford the soundtrack, the CD soundtrack. So I went across and I asked for the mission. Do the mission. Yes. We had the mission. It's $5 not the soundtrack. I mean, I liked the movie, but I just want the soundtrack. I only had $5 I bought the soundtrack. I would play it at night, I would put it in the VCR I would turn the brightness all the way down. And I would listen to it. There you go. And there's your budget solution to not having enough money to buy.
Ken Tabacchi :That's the sense so apropos because this whole thing was created on a budget. Sure. We haven't even mentioned The Untouchables.
Michael Green :The professional I didn't know. I mean, I was working in three video stores back to back in the late 80s and early 90s. I didn't know that he did the untouchables until much later.
Ken Tabacchi :That is my point about the quiet genius.
Michael Green :And perhaps it was you know, I wasn't looking at credits much those days. And I think I would have known had I heard some Thing Akin, whether in instrumentation or something that resembled even remotely another one of his scores, but it's completely different.
Ken Tabacchi :Yes.
Michael Green :Okay, so Ken your favorite film of okay let me start with Sergio Leone.
Ken Tabacchi :Once upon a time in the West don't have to think about it
Michael Green :Favorite Ennio Morricone score of Sergio Leone films.
Ken Tabacchi :I think it's called Nascita di una Citta. The birth of a city is the swelling. crescendo when she gets off the train she's looking for the guys are supposed to pick her up, they don't show up. She goes into the little station house talks to the guy and he points to the direction of where she can get a ride. And there's nothing there's it's a train a track and a station is a crane shot and it slowly pulls up in over the roof of the station. Suddenly there's this this whole town that's been built up All the bustling activity going on and my hair stand on end. I must I'm a sap for like, big emotional scenes which would surprise you because I'm more of an even keel kind of not sure your emotion guy, but that that really speaks to me.
Michael Green :Well if it's a heart hugger, I mean, come on.
Ken Tabacchi :So what about you?
Michael Green :Well, I'm gonna have to go with once upon a time in America. And a combination of it, the nostalgia. And me having lived on that music, literally doing homework in my room needed to calm down, whatever it may be. I played that soundtrack and I felt completely at ease. And you know, the movie is good. I mean, it's To me, it's a small masterpiece. It's not one of my favorites. I mean, but I like the fact that the It took its time the only took his time.
Ken Tabacchi :He's telling you a story.
Michael Green :And it's got like, I remember, I was really excited when I bought the soundtrack cuz it had like 23 tracks. You don't normally get like, what? 15? Yeah, I mean for a soundtrack. I was like, oh, wow, I got, you know, 13, 14. Once upon a time in America had 23 tracks that I can remember maybe 22 Okay, the title is Poverty on the soundtrack. And it's just just so beautiful. And I my mom was was listening to it while she would hear in my room, and then she wanted to borrow it and I just took it back and said, we'll get your own copy.
Ken Tabacchi :You are. You were more mature than I. I remember, I was listening to Led Zeppelin and my mother was complaining because she understood what the innuendo meant.
Michael Green :Sure. So Ken I I gotta say, I'm gonna mention one of my mud holes right now and you're probably gonna be Be a bit disappointed with me. And I have it but I have not seen it yet. And this definitely bears mentioning on the special episode. I have not seen anyone take a guess I'll narrow down. Okay, I'll narrow down between 1987 and 1992
Ken Tabacchi :The Untouchables
Michael Green :Nope.
Ken Tabacchi :Okay. I don't know what is it?
Michael Green :Cinema Paradiso.
Ken Tabacchi :I haven't seen it either. So
Michael Green :Oh, Ken's chasm chasm and mud hole so I, I haven't seen it. It goes on iTunes was like five bucks. Right? You know what? I gotta see this and then it wasn't a recent that I discovered that he composed the music on there.
Ken Tabacchi :And you seen pure, pure, pure Peir Paolo Pasolino's Salo
Michael Green :Yes, nope. Have not.
Ken Tabacchi :I have not either. Apparently, Morricone did the score for that as well.
Michael Green :What year was that?
Ken Tabacchi :Uh, in the 70s the English titles 120 days of Sodom. I believe and it's it's a it's a real shocker.
Michael Green :If you haven't I will have to borrow from you my friend. Along with your favorite that you mentioned, his his first film credits composer was for death of a friend in 1960. And his last film credit was as the writer for the music entitled The bed as I mentioned, and once upon a time in Hollywood, but he's listed as the composer but in his later years, it was as a writer and arranger, so do you have any comments on that?
Ken Tabacchi :Maybe it means he worked with someone, and arranging has to do with how the different pieces of music fit together, basically, and you can kind of sometimes you can, they're like puzzle pieces or puzzle pieces, but you can you can mix and match them, you can move them around, you can change the end of one such that it flows better into the beginning of the next. So that's arranging it, so it made me I think that means he was working with somebody,
Michael Green :okay, because like 87, 88, and beyond, he's no longer listed as composer. So,
Ken Tabacchi :at this point in his life, he's done what he wants to do. He's done everything. He's still working, still enjoying still having fun.
Michael Green :Okay, so Ken interesting juxtaposition with Jason Robard's character, and of course, with Charles Bronson and his harmonica, so what do you think?
Ken Tabacchi :I love the fact that there was these two outlaws and they have kind of the moral authority. They they're outlaws but they They're morally good, they do good things and they help they actually help Claudia kind of cardinality as opposed to Henry fund his character who was just plain old bad. Wow. And and I grew up in the 80s. And I remember Henry Fonda is On Golden Pond. You know, my mom and her friends just kind of fawning over that movie. And he got a lifetime award and he got Academy Award. He was sick at the time, he couldn't even make it and Jane Fonda did the acceptance speech for him. And I remembered that Henry Fonda when I saw once upon a time in the West, I was blown away. Henry Fonda is a badass.
Michael Green :Now were you blown away or
Ken Tabacchi :just blown away? Not traumatized? Well, he
Michael Green :was a borderline family man, you know before that, and
Ken Tabacchi :and he did not wear suspenders and belts at the same time.
Michael Green :12 years later, On Golden Pond came out. I mean, that's not too far off. He looked about late 50s and once upon a time In the West
Ken Tabacchi :He was playing an old man, but he was pretty advanced,
Michael Green :and his eyes were piercing.
Ken Tabacchi :These long takes we talked about the pacing, but these long takes with the close up of Charles Bronson's eyes. And he's remembering what, what Frank did to him before and then Frank realizing, oh, this is my come up. And I remember what I did to this kid 20 years earlier. It's really a revenge theme. And it's it's common in westerns. But it really works so well in this movie.
Michael Green :And kudos to Charles Bronson for being so stoic. He probably saw the spaghetti westerns on Wait a minute. Leone is gonna let me be this deadpan this stoic. And the scores gonna emote for me.
Ken Tabacchi :Right, exactly. Yeah, I love these shots even good, the bad the ugly. When is the three way shoot out? Three way standoff in the end. And there's a note. From each character's perspective. There's an over and over Over over the shoulder shot of the other guy, one of the other guys, and it's this triangle. And it just goes on and on. And, of course, Eastwood's thought everything through ahead of time. He's planned everything out. But we don't know this.
Michael Green :And those three characters, I mean, Eli Wallach character of Tuco is pretty broad. The other two are pretty cool. A Blondie Blondie been more cool and more collected. But there's kind of a bit of you're rooting for. You could probably root for one or the other.
Ken Tabacchi :There's moral ambiguity. But like clockwork orange, you root for the bad guy? Sure. You know, and Goodfellas makes makes mention of this, "Jimmy was the kind of guy who rooted for the bad guys in the movie". But that was the genre of westerns.
Michael Green :And of course, that movie came out in 1967. And just eight or nine years earlier, the Twilight Zone debuted and Lee Van Cleef was in a Western themed episode. And he was essentially playing the same character. And I was thinking of the music.
Ken Tabacchi :What was that episode?
Michael Green :The grave with James Best. Lee Marvin.
Ken Tabacchi :Gosh, I think you've seen every episode.
Michael Green :Yeah, of course.
Ken Tabacchi :Like me and the Sopranos.
Michael Green :But when I was watching Eli Wallach he looks a little bit younger and I couldn't help when he was in the saloon. And when he was outdoors, I couldn't help but think of Ennio Morricone. I'm like, this soundtrack just needs to kick in.
Ken Tabacchi :Mm hmm. Yeah, that's iconic. Hey, let's, let's get off of the westerns and talk about something else. Sure. He know. He did horror as well.
Michael Green :You know, I did not know that Ken.
Ken Tabacchi :He wrote the score for John Carpenter's the thing. And the thing is quite literally, it has scared me the most. I, I got this DVD from a Halloween party costume contest I won the contest. I went as the Grim Reaper. And the prize was this DVD called the thing as well. Okay, thanks. took it home. I figured Oh, this is probably some cheesy 50s not a you know horror movie knockoff. It was still like when I when I started the movie, it had gone dark. By the time the movie ended. I didn't get up to turn the lights on. At the end of the movie. I'm sitting there in the dark, petrified. I don't want to get up and go by the window to turn the light on.
Michael Green :And how old are you?
Ken Tabacchi :27
Michael Green :You're like last week
Ken Tabacchi :quite literally the scares. The movie that is scared me the most is john Carpenter's the thing. And part of the reason for that half of the reason is the score. It is so creepy. There's just there's an electric bass and it just goes, boom, boom, boom. It's a heartbeat. And it's just insidious. Kubrick kind of came up with the same thing with Wendy Carlos in The Shining, there's kind of a heartbeat there.
Michael Green :But strangely enough, though, John Carpenter does most of his movie scores. So I'm wondering if you work together with him or if he just let the maestro do the magic.
Ken Tabacchi :That would be an interesting documentary.
Michael Green :I mean, I'd be bowing I'd be like you just do what you do just work your beauty and, you know, create something just astounding.
Ken Tabacchi :He making a movie like that was was really involved with the practical effects and working with the artists. So I tend to think he let Morricone do his own thing, only that. There just wasn't time. Because he did write the score for Halloween. Did he? Yes. Okay.
Michael Green :Carpenter. Yeah. Yes, that's a score for budgetary purposes, but subsequent Halloween sequels. I believe he is If he Carpenter the second or third Halloween, but I remember seeing in the mid 80s, late early 90s, even movies like The Fall was the early 80s. But I saw that John Carpenter, you know, did the score for that. So, it's fantastic, though. You know, I didn't know that Ken had no idea that he composed that. And I would imagine that composing that's probably his first. That's his first one. unofficially, it was first composition for a horror film. But of that magnitude, being quite ghastly with with horror and gore. I would imagine just kind of not wanting or reading the script and then saying, Well, how am I going to do this?
Ken Tabacchi :No, he captured the emotion and the feeling
Michael Green :to the point where you didn't want to turn on the lights for a couple days.
Ken Tabacchi :I still do. What are you talking about?
Michael Green :So Ken, when did you embrace classical music, and it's soundtracks scores, and not just any Morricone, but when did that light switch just go off and say, wait a minute.
Ken Tabacchi :I think I took a course in music appreciation in college. And it was it was it was historical. So Grigorian Bach to Beethoven kind of stuff. But there are pieces that really moved me. There. There are pieces that move me when I'm being peaceful, trying to relax. There's pieces that move me when I'm exercising and full of testosterone. O Fotuna, Ride of the Valkyrie. Parts of Beethoven's Ninth.
Michael Green :Which by the way, I'll have many things to say about Ride of the Valkyries when we talk about Apocalypse Now.
Ken Tabacchi :Oh, and and Thus Spoke Zarathustra, of course. I mean, that's my dead lifting song. That the whole song is is just a rising crescendo and the deadlift is where you pick up a heavily loaded barbell off the floor from the floor to a standing position where the bar is hanging about your about your waist and that slow to stay with it don't give up this is hard but you can do it that's track as simply inspires me so whenever I go for like a personal record it's that's my go to
Michael Green :so some of those those tracks just kind of squeeze in an extra rep just when you think you can't
Ken Tabacchi :know they get you they get my blood going the testosterone up a little bit. Some people who lift say I want to I don't I don't do music. I don't do Pump me up music because I want it to come from myself. Sure. And there's that's a valid that's a valid opinion. However, if I can pump myself and then the music can bring me that much more pumped then why not?
Michael Green :Absolutely. I just in the gym, I don't. I end up listening to news which I know I shouldn't But, you know, I, I'm going to try to listen to a classical piece at the gym next time. lately it's been empty. So I wonder if that might kind of change the scenery a bit
Ken Tabacchi :depends what you're doing. Are you doing like long cardio or what? What are you doing? recommend something based on what you say.
Michael Green :arms, chest and back, shoulders. legs and ABS day. And it's generally empty and then I'll do some cardio for half hour after that.
Ken Tabacchi :Ninth Symphony, Fourth Movement. starts out slow by the end you're just banging your head. Long hair.
Michael Green :A metal hairstyle? Sure. Oh, yeah. There you go. Totally. All right. Anything else you want to touch upon?
Ken Tabacchi :I think I covered everything.
Michael Green :Well, we have lost a great artist but our his music is still in our hearts. So folks do yourself a favor add a Sergio Leone movie or two to the top of the queue while you're at it, and Ennio Morricone soundtrack right up there as well. All right, Ken. Well, until next time,
Ken Tabacchi :this has been a really great opportunity to talk to you about a really great man.
Michael Green :Thanks a bunch. Till next time, folks.