Ennio Morricone, one of the most famous film composers in the history of cinema, has denied reports that he bashed Quentin Tarantino and The Academy in an interview this week.
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According to the article from the Germany-language Playboy, Morricone has some pretty strong feelings about Tarantino. This came as quite a surprise to many, considering how out of Morricone’s 500+ composer credits, it was Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight that finally won him an Oscar for Best Original Music Score.
They say people become more honest with age, so it wasn’t completely far-fetched that the Italian composer would choose to be so bold on the week of his 90th birthday. The article declared that he found Tarantino to be “absolutely chaotic.”
In addition to bashing Tarantino, the article also claimed Morricone was unimpressed with the Oscar ceremony that provided his big win. They said he called it “boring” and claimed the U.S. was full of “self-inflated pomposities and embarrassments like the Oscars.”
However, an official statement on Morricone’s website denies everything, especially the words spoken about Tarantino and the Academy. “I have never expressed any negative statements about the Academy, Quentin, or his films,” says Morricone, “I have given a mandate to my lawyer in Italy to take civil and penal action.”
“I consider Tarantino a great director,” he says in the statement. This is in direct contrast to the Playboy interview, which claims the following words were said by Morricone: “He only steals from others and puts stuff back together again. There’s nothing original about that. That doesn’t make him a director.”
According to the article in question, the harsh words didn’t stop there. The publication claims Morricone referred to the director as a “cretin” and accused him of having no original ideas. This was especially tough to read, considering Tarantino won two Oscars for Best Original Screenplay (Pulp Fiction in 1995 and Django Unchained in 2013).
Fans of the relationship between Tarantino and Morricone can rest easy for now. “He is courageous and has an enormous personality,” says Morricone in his most recent statement, “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.”
It’s unlikely this is the last we’ll hear of this story since Morricone is threatening legal action.
In the meantime, you can catch the Maestro’s next score in Kim Burdon’s The Centerville Ghost, an animated film based on the short story by Oscar Wilde. Tarantino is also working on this next project, the star-studded Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
