By Jack Garner
Democrat and Chronicle

(February 2, 2001) -- Few people are as responsible for a movie's mood as the composer. And no one has created more moods for the movies than the Italian maestro Ennio Morricone.

His music made Clint Eastwood ominous in A Fistful of Dollars and heroic in In the Line of Fire. He brought angelic choirs to The Mission and ennobled Kevin Costner in The Untouchables.

Morricone's music made us feel the searing pain of Casualties of War, the terror of The Thing and the nostalgic glow of Cinema Paradiso.

In a career spanning four decades, Morricone has penned the music for an estimated 400 films. No other film composer is even close. And this output is from a man who didn't create his first film score until he was 34.

Morricone demurs when I express amazement during a phone interview. "No, it's not incredible. If you think, over 40 years, I made music for 400 films. But what Bach wrote in just 33 years, I haven't even approached."

Morricone's most recent score is for the nostalgic Italian period film, Malena. It marks his seventh collaboration with Cinema Paradiso director Giuseppe Tornatore.

It's no coincidence that Morricone works repeatedly with certain directors. Besides Tornatore, they've included Sergio Leone, Roland Joffe and Brian De Palma.

Morricone says the director is the first factor when he takes a project.

"I consider the name, the esteem I have for him and his work. If you put a screenplay, whether it's good or not, in the hands of many different directors, you'll get many different films. Therefore, it's the style of the director that draws me."

Tornatore long ago passed the first test. Morricone says he was then drawn to the elements of Malena that he would accent with his music.

"First, there's the comic element of the many characters who populated the town. Second, the sensuality of the protagonist. Third, the historical aspect of the film, during World War II -- that period of Italian history. And, fourth, the sentimental part, the relationship between the wife and her husband, who's off to war."

In most cases, music is the last step in the movie-making process. For Malena, Tornatore and Morricone tried something different -- Morricone composed his main themes before shooting began and recorded versions with a small orchestra. Tornatore than used the recordings to inspire his cast.

After Malena was in the can, Morricone fine-tuned the themes and added other music.

Born in Rome in 1928, Morricone studied trumpet and composition before composing for radio, television, the screen and the concert hall. He was one of three men -- the others being Eastwood and Leone -- whose stars rose with the international success of A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

He has since become one of the few film composers whose name has box office appeal and whose scores are routinely found in music shops, with the western scores, The Mission and Cinema Paradiso being particularly popular.

However, when I ask Morricone why my favorite -- the music for Bernardo Bertolucci's epic 1900 -- isn't available on CD, he says, "I don't know why."

After a pause, Morricone detects my disappointment.

"I tell you what: I'll hum it for you." And then, over the phone, he gave me my own solo concert, humming the main theme to 1900.

That's what I call an accommodating interview subject.