Review Summary: The Good, the Great, and the Amazing.
It's such a rarity for a project to come together in all possible ways. Creatively, it's Murphy's law that says something will go wrong, and often that does happen. With film scores, often they are often empty or filler-full affairs, save for some notable composers. A lot of film music is either cultivated from popular music of the time, or from dreary and bland atmospheric pieces that do not really add anything to the film.
Sometimes though, a film comes along with absolutely everything. A great storyline, a great cast, great productions and script, and a truly great original score. The Godfather is one such film, Taxi Driver is another, but arguably the gem in the Soundtrack genre's crown is Ennio Morriconne's soundtrack to The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly.
Setting up an immediate and universally recognizable motif, Morriconne starts the soundtrack off with the theme, and one that has set the tone for film scores ever since, one that eludes to a single spark of imagination, and carves an entire new world and musical universe around the indelible epicentre. In his own world inhabited by quick drawing, horse riding and cigar chewing proto-gangsters, Ennio creates his own literal soundtrack to the film, at times desperate, in The Desert, the sound of thousands of sand flies swarming around a partially decayed living corpse, thirsty and in need of a shot of bourbon. Or in the absolutely euphoric and stunning Main Title (the Trio), which features some decidedly camp, but utterly devastating and effective mariachi horns and castanets.
The Ecstacy of Gold is an Earth shatteringly tense piece, one that again calls upon Morriconne's now globally famous motif, and builds upon it with groundbreaking intensity, all of which conjures up the scene in the film which is surely one of the absolute greatest in cinematic history, leading up to it's almost mind blowingly spine tingling conclusion, hyperbole aside, this surely ranks amongst one of the greatest moments in film score history.
The soundtrack really doesn't let up pace, on slower numbers like The Sundown and The Story of a Soldier, the tension is more passive, yet it still builds and creates a mood which is utterly captivating, and even better when experienced in context of the film.
Often the trouble with soundtracks, understandably so, is their lack of stand alone appeal. The same literally just can not be said about this though, each song sounds like a genuine attempt of a Brazilian or Spanish band to break into mainstream 60's pop, yet the utterly bewildering thing about it is the fact that it just doesn't sound like anything before, but due to millions of copycats, a lot of things that followed it.
Although the film is undoubtedly incredible, it is the soundtrack in many ways that will be remembered far beyond it's time. The soundtrack which practically invented a genre of cinema, and established Morriconne as possibly one of the great composers of our time. It's depth, beauty and longevity lend it to repeated listens separate from the film, but it somehow manages to stay as gripping when viewed inside the film. A truly breathtaking soundtrack to a truly amazing film.
