Morricone: The Great Silence

Ennio Morricone is il maestro of the movies. As bravura as he was prolific (more than 400 scores for film and TV over six decades), the late Italian composer’s work enlivened film music with insidious earworms, innovative instrumentation (think whip cracks and whistling) and an unerring gift to speak directly to the emotions. This Picturehouse Re-Discover season showcases some of his masterpieces and unsung gems, celebrating perhaps the most original, distinctive voice in film music.

On an unforgiving, snow-swept frontier, a group of bloodthirsty bounty hunters, led by the vicious Loco (Klaus Kinski) prey on a band of persecuted outlaws who have taken to the hills. Only a mute gunslinger named Silence (Jean-Louis Trintignant) stands between the innocent refugees and the corrupt killers. But, in this harsh, brutal world, the lines between right and wrong are not always clear, and good does not always triumph. Featuring superb photography and a haunting score from maestro Ennio Morricone, director Sergio Corbucci’s bleak, brilliant and violent vision of an immoral, honour-less West, is widely considered to be among the best and most influential Westerns ever made. A mute gunfighter defends a young widow and a group of outlaws against a gang of bounty killers in the winter of 1898, as a grim, tense struggle unfolds.