Review of The Hateful Eight (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) [Explicit]

A melodic theme vague menacing in the air, cut counterpoints increasingly alarming. Short vocalizing without words appear and disappear like lightning, while the strings climb up on the higher register. The orchestration becomes charged, tense, grim. It's the sound of a tragedy that is ensuing. It is the world of "The hateful eight", the soundtrack by Ennio Morricone and performed by the Czech National Symphony Orchestra for the western Quentin Tarantino, in Italian cinemas on February 4th (and in those overseas on Christmas Day). Do not look for Sergio Leone, in here, rather the sound of scary controfagotti advancing menacingly, themes circular, large detached, low vibrations and gloomy representing the subtext of songs that create a strong sense of anticipation.
Set a few years after the end of the Civil War, the film tells the story of two bounty hunters (Kurt Russell and Samuel Jackson), a prisoner to be taken at Red Rock (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and an alleged sheriff (Walton Goggins) who are refuge in a cabin during a snowstorm. There they meet a former Confederate general (Bruce Dern) and three others recorded (Tim Roth, Demian Bichir, Michael Madsen). Already the setting - a mountain pass in Wyoming instead of sunny views of Monument Valley - makes it a western singular. Morricone plays this anomaly with a soundtrack full of tension, austere and dark colors, of which the full version of "The last coach of Red Rock" is the most significant moment, seven minutes of great turmoil sound.
"It's a soundtrack spaghetti western", writes enthusiastically Quentin Tarantino in the liner notes. It's not true. It is something more sinister and disturbing, with a recurring theme of eight notes that creeps into my head like a worm or an omen, a "Overture" anxiety-provoking, a fleeting moment of peace ("rays of sun on the mountain"), a theme solemn trumpet ("The letter of Lincoln") and a short growing dread as final. Music is claustrophobic and gloomy as the rest being announced the film, shot mostly indoors, with the characters undergo a stressful game of mutual suspicion.
Fruit of the encounter between artists from two different generations who s'annusavano long, a collaboration that has sparked a lot of hype and the fantasies of many music fans & cinema, "The hateful eight" has already earned a Golden Globe nomination. It is the first original soundtrack that Tarantino commissions and simultaneously demystifies the process of composing for the screen, not a work of music synchronization with the images, but a group of scores composed on the basis of only the script and a chat with director.
With just one month to hand to write, Morricone has fished out some new compounds to the John Carpenter movie "The thing" (1982) and wrote arrangements and variations of a handful of themes designed specifically for the film by Tarantino. The result was a tense and eerie soundtrack, with brass and wood used in their darker colors. Apart from one notable exception - the 12-minute "Snow", the other key piece of the disc that captures the static character, vaguely hypnotic - the music conveys the pathos of a thriller and the panoramic views of a Western. Frightening, has called Tarantino.
More than the value of the individual compositions, the soundtrack has its charm in color and atmosphere. The music is cohesive, coherent, consistent, but more variety in the topics would be beneficial to listen already fragmented by the introduction of dialogue from the film and four songs, three of which are published. This is not pieces of small value in the context of the film will have a reason to exist, but incorporated into the fabric of the orchestral soundtrack work by anticlimax. It is "Apple blossom" White Stripes of the second album, "Now you're all alone" David Hess and "There will not be many coming home" by Roy Orbison, the latter two linked to other films, respectively " The Last House on the Left "in 1972 and" The fastest guitar alive "in 1967. The actress Jennifer Jason Leigh sings in a rudimentary way the traditional" Jim Jones at Botany Bay "which tells a story similar to that of his character. It is interrupted by the gruff voice of the bounty hunter Kurt Russell takes her guitar and smashes: "Music time's over!".
Surpassed by time the controversy sparked by statements of the Master about the use of his music out of context by the American director, Morricone could go work with Tarantino for his next film. Meanwhile, he gathered at the Abbey Road Studios in London the Czech National Symphony Orchestra for an incision direct-to-vinyl soundtrack that will be printed soon in limited edition. It is already available in stores, in addition to the CD, the version recorded in studio on double vinyl, and the United States comes to the Third Man Records of Jack White. In 2016 Morricone will tour to celebrate sixty years of activity and will be the subject of the documentary film by Giuseppe Tornatore "The look of the music." Meanwhile, with "The hateful eight," he writes one of his darkest and strengthens its role in the imaginary pop.