Gunshots, bells, whip cracks, whistles, chants and wordless voices, a mariachi trumpet, violently percussive acoustic guitars – such are the predominant sounds in Ennio Morricone’s soundtrack for Sergio Leone’s 1960s Dollars Trilogy. Each successive film in the trilogy is bigger, longer, and more ambitious in story, cinematography, and music. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966), the trilogy’s third film and the seminal work of the spaghetti western genre, best represents the stark contrast to the Old West that Hollywood had been romanticizing for decades. The music, too, was different – raw, dirty, and wild; less heroic yet still epic, grand, and other-worldly.
Read More