Famed composer is recording the score for ‘Hateful Eight’ with the CNSO
Ennio Morricone was back in Prague this weekend to conduct the Czech National Symphony Orchestra on the score of The Hateful Eight, a new western film by director Quentin Tarantino.
The director was also in Prague to supervise the work.
The Hateful Eight, which stars Kurt Russell, Tim Roth, Samuel L. Jackson and Bruce Dern, is scheduled for a Christmas 2015 release in 70 mm before going wider in digital format on Jan. 8, 2016.
The original score will be Morricone’s first for Tarantino, who has used archival clips of previous scores by the famed composer before in five films.
Morricone was critical of Tarantino’s use of his archival songs in 2013, complaining about the “incoherent” placement of a song in Django Unchained. He later clarified the remarks, saying that they had been taken out of context and misconstrued. He said he had “great respect” for Tarantino. “I am glad he chooses my music,” he said, according to music magazine Rolling Stone.
This also will be the composer’s first score for a western film in more than 30 years. His last in that genre was for Buddy Goes West in 1981.
The prolific composer and conductor Morricone, now 86 years old, came to international fame for his work on Italian-made spaghetti westerns in the 1960s, with the “dollars trilogy” of films starring Clint Eastwood and directed by Sergio Leone being the most famous.
First reports that Morricone would be working on the new Tarantino film came just last week when Tarantino made the announcement at Comic-Con in San Diego, California. All of the director’s films to date have used previously recorded orchestral music or popular songs. Morricone’s score for The Hateful Eight will be the first original score for one of Tarantino’s films.
Tarantino had asked Morricone to write the score for Inglorious Basterds in 2009, but the composer was already booked to work on Giuseppe Tornatore’s Baaria.
The Hateful Eight, sometimes spelled H8ful Eight or Hateful 8, takes place in Wyoming after the Civil War and involves people seeking refuge in a stagecoach a mountain pass during a blizzard. While the title is a riff on the famous western film The Magnificent Seven, the film itself is inspired by 1960s TV series such as Bonanza, The Virginian and The High Chaparral.
The film was shot in Colorado at the start of 2015, after being pushed back several times.
The CNSO has worked with Morricone previously on the 2013 film The Best Offer, also known as Deception. The Italian-made film starred Geoffrey Rush, Jim Sturgess, Sylvia Hoeks, and Donald Sutherland.
The CSNO also toured Europe with Morricone at the start of 2015 and also have a 60 Years of Music Tour concert scheduled for Jan. 15, 2016 at O2 Arena in Prague.
