Ennio Morricone Slams Quentin Tarantino, Hollywood And The US – Or Does He?

UPDATE: Ennio Morricone has issued a statement claiming that they got it all wrong in the Playboy Germany interview. He has issued the following statement:

“It has come to my attention that Playboy Germany has come out with an article in which I have stated extremely negative comments about Tarantino and his films, and the Academy. I have never expressed any negative statements about the Academy, Quentin, or his films — and certainly do not consider his films garbage. I have given a mandate to my lawyer in Italy to take civil and penal action.

I consider Tarantino a great director. I am very fond of my collaboration with him and the relationship we have developed during the time we have spent together. He is courageous and has an enormous personality. I credit our collaboration responsible for getting me an Oscar, which is for sure one of the greatest acknowledgments of my career, and I am forever grateful for the opportunity to compose music for his film.

In London, during a press conference in front of Tarantino, I clearly stated that I consider Quentin one of the greatest directors of this time, and I would never speak poorly of the Academy – an important institution that has given to me two of the most important acknowledgments of my career.”

EARLIER: Composer Ennio Morricone was in a grumpy mood during his interview with Playboy Germany, attacking director Quentin Tarantino, Hollywood, and the US, all of which have provided him much career success.

In a “tell those kids to stay off my lawn” diatribe, the 90-year-old Morricone – whose scores graced such spaghetti westerns such as The Good, The Bad and The Ugly – called Tarantino’s work “trash” and described him as a “cretin” whose output was “not original.”

Morricone provided the score to Tarantino’s Western, The Hateful Eight, winning his first Academy Award for the work.

“The man is a cretin,” Morricone complained. “He just steals from others and puts it together again. There is nothing original about that. And he is not a director, either. So not comparable to real Hollywood greats like John Huston, Alfred Hitchcock or Billy Wilder. They were great. Tarantino is just cooking up old stuff.

Tarantino was present at Morricone’s Hollywood Walk of Fame star unveiling in 2016, so the enmity is relatively new and apparently related to the pressure of grinding out a score.

“He calls out of nowhere and then wants to have a finished film score within days, which is impossible,” Morricone said. “Which makes me crazy! Because that’s just not possible.”

Morricone said he no longer desires to travel “to this dreadful America, with these pompous pomposities, these embarrassments like the Oscars and the whole frippery.”

The composer’s last score was The Correspondence, an Italian-English film starring Jeremy Irons and Olga Kurylenko.