Composer Morricone glad he re-considered Tarantino's film offer

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[February 01, 2016]    By Philip Pullella

ROME (Reuters) - - Ennio Morricone, who wrote some of cinema's best-known sound tracks, said on Saturday he was glad he agreed to Quentin Tarantino's plea to do the score for the hit film "The Hateful Eight" after first turning him down.

Morricone changed his mind only after a visit by the American director to the composer's home in Rome. Morricone won a Golden Globe for the film and has been nominated for an Oscar.

"I worry a lot when I am asked to write a score for a film," a frail Morricone, 87, said on Saturday as he was given the Golden Globe statuette which he could not travel to Hollywood to get earlier this month.

"When Tarantino called me about a score for the film at first I said 'no' and changed my mind when he came to my house." Morricone said of the Western, which is set in the period after the American Civil War.

"But I told him I wanted a total break with the style of Western films I wrote 50 years. I was worried even after I finished because I didn't know if he would like it because it is more like a symphony in four movements," an emotional Morricone said, his voice cracking at times.

"I think Tarantino liked it and that people liked it too."

Morricone, who has been nominated for an Oscar six times and was given an honorary Academy Award in 2007, composed scores for Sergio Leone's Spaghetti Westerns such as "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," as well as films such as Roland Joffe's "The Mission," and Giuseppe Tornatore's "Cinema Paradiso".

He was handed the statuette at the Rome flagship store of Italian luxury brand Bulgari, which announced it was sponsoring a film on Morricone's life and work to be directed by Tornatore.

Morricone wrote the scores for most of Tornatore's films, most notably "Cinema Paradiso" which won the Oscar for best foreign film in 1988.

Tornatore, 59, who attended Saturday's ceremony, said his tribute to Morricone, called "The Glance of Music", will profile the composer's classical education, his fonts of inspiration, and his relationships with directors.

(Reporting By Philip Pullella)

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