This is a very strange story. Why would Playboy Germany make this whole thing up? What would be in it for them? And if they did, they certainly couldn't expect that it wouldn't come out. Was the real meaning lost in translation? Did somebody impersonate Morricone? Was Morricone hopped up on NyQuil?
This is a very strange story. Why would Playboy Germany make this whole thing up? What would be in it for them? And if they did, they certainly couldn't expect that it wouldn't come out. Was the real meaning lost in translation? Did somebody impersonate Morricone? Was Morricone hopped up on NyQuil?
Ecstasy of Gold from Sergio Leone’s Two Glorious Badgers?
Yavar
LOL, yeah... it's the literal translation of the German title for GOOD, BAD, UGLY: "Zwei glorreiche Halunken".
Yet another example for the fact that translation is a delicate thing.
In the case of westerns translation is indeed a delicate thing.
Out of six well-known Sergio Leone movies, Germany got three titles right: For a Fistful of Dollars - Für eine Handvoll Dollar (=For a Fisful of Dollars) For a Few Dollars More - Für ein paar Dollar mehr (=For a Few Dollars More) The Good, the Bad and the Ugly - Zwei Glorreiche Halunken (=Two Glorious Rascals) Once Upon a Time in the West - Spiel mir das Lied vom Tod (=Play Me the Song of Death) Duck, You Sucker/A Fistful of Dynamite/Once Upon a Time the Revolution - Todesmelodie (=Death Melody) Once Upon a Time in America - Es war einmal in Amerika (=Once Upon a Time in America)
But there are things far far worse that the Germans did to some Italo westerns...
They are not outright saying that those remarks are wrong and I am pretty sure that they are not. Nothing in the history of that interviewer leads us to think that.But the PR and legal departments at the mag are freaking out, that is all that means.
A lot of those 'harsh' remarks about QT make absolute sense. I am sure that there is effort to recast those now. But his observations seems very rational and logical with what we already know.
They are not outright saying that those remarks are wrong and I am pretty sure that they are not. Nothing in the history of that interviewer leads us to think that.But the PR and legal departments at the mag are freaking out, that is all that means.
A lot of those 'harsh' remarks about QT make absolute sense. I am sure that there is effort to recast those now. But his observations seems very rational and logical with what we already know.
As I have said elsewhere, reading close to 50 years of Morricone interviews I have never heard anything like this one. When Morricone gets pissed it is in a nerdy way. He gets impatient with questions he deems absurd or simplistic. He rails against interviewers who don't seem to be familiar with his work. But terms like "cretin", "trash" and "kiss my ass" are practically foreign to his temperament. The words in the interview above in "Die Zeit" sounds exactly like the interviews I have read over the years and, as you see, they repudiate much of this controversy. But nothing in there would get a headline.
But since we are speculating let's think about a journalist who sees the nature of what he does quickly changing. And unless you can elicit some provocative answers in an interview your pay may not be as lucrative as those who can. So let's tweak some of Morricone's phrases and words to make them slightly more provocative and adversarial. Then pass the article to whomever does the English translation and, being the good journalist, he tweaks that translation into something even more provocative. It gets headlines. Playboy then backs it's journalist since anything else would not look good for the magazine. Finally their lawyers conclude that there is quite a leap in the translation and we better apologize or lose a chunk of money.
Now what this journalist concocted may be very close to how you feel. I could argue the logical part you state. But without a doubt the Morricone that has come across in hundreds of interviews is not on view here. And Morricone agrees, he does not do lawsuits that often.
yeah, well, I bet the truth is something a long the lines of he was under the impression that he was commenting as off the record, and the reporter put it on the record, which is wrong of course, but I doubt the nugget of his remarks are false.
yeah, well, I bet the truth is something a long the lines of he was under the impression that he was commenting as off the record, and the reporter put it on the record, which is wrong of course, but I doubt the nugget of his remarks are false.
That would make Morricone the liar, which you apparently would know more about than I. I have never seen that side of him. Self-righteous beyond belief but not a liar.
Seems fairly typical of a low-brow, tabloid magazine like Playboy. I'm surprised Morricone accepted the interview request from them in the first place.
