ENNIO (2022) opens Friday

I take flack some times because I speak my mind when it comes to films. The trouble comes when I speak not from my head but my heart. I will say things that some people think is over the top or for effect, but I don't do that, I say what I feel.  And when it comes to Giuseppe Tornatore's ENNIO I can only speak from my heart.

Simply put, the experience of seeing ENNIO is a theater with big sound and big images was like seeing God. Getting to see the long career of Ennio Morricone play across my eyes and ears was a religious experience. Seeing the whole life of one of the greatest composers in the universe left me in absolute awe.

God bless Giuseppe Tornatore.  

Turning the camera on Morricone he managed to get the man to open up and talk about what he did as well as why and how. Watching him explain how one piece of music lead to another was like watching the doors to the secrets of the universe open. I've never seen any composer/artist explain how his masterpieces all came about like this. This is like looking into the mind of God as created the world.  It's all counterpointed with the words of his contemporaries and fans who lay out how Morricone changed music, nay, the world, as we know it.  

And make no mistake by the end of the film you will understand that Morricone really changed the world because his music changed how everyone hears the world.

If you want to know why this film hit me so hard you have to understand that one of my most favorite moments in all of the movies is in Tornatore's CINEMA PARADISO, or rather the end of the film. The final sequence as we see all the cut pieces of film and watch  Salvatore see his life before him is one of the most bittersweet and glorious moments ever put on film. Its a moment in which every movie lover, I mean hardcore movie lover, loses their minds and sobs in recognition because that's our lives up there being played back to us. It is like we too are seeing every film we ever saw and loved. ENNIO is our version of that moment for every film lover..

Now the music for CINEMA PARADISO was written my Ennio Morricone.  And for myself and a lot of people  Morricone's music was a large part of the soundtrack of our lives. Morricone began writing movie music three years before I was born so I was alive as all his iconic music was coming into the world. He literally was shaping my life as I grew up.  As a result watching ENNIO is a 153 minute extension of the end of CINEMA PARADISO, but its not one piece of music but dozens. Watching ENNIO was for me, and I suspect for others in the audience being Salvatore as our whole lives played out before us.

It was and is pure cinema magic.

I don't know what else to say except this is one of the greatest films on creation I've seen, it's one of the greatest films on film I've ever seen. 

It is a masterpiece.

Highly recommended.

(One note: If you are seeing this at home and have a good stereo set up- crank the volume. If you are watching this on a laptop or computer  wear headphones)