Ennio Morricone, the legendary composer who has written the scores for many classic movies, has admitted that he was “shocked” by the amount of violence in Quentin Tarantino’s new film The Hateful Eight, for which he has provided the soundtrack.

Tarantino has used pieces of Morricone music in his movies before, but the imminently released project constitutes the first time that the Italian composer has written original material specifically for one of his movies. Speaking to The Telegraph at an event at London’s Abbey Road Studios, he spoke of his motivation for working with Tarantino.

Ennio MorriconeEnnio Morricone provides the score for Tarantino's new movie 'The Hateful Eight'

“I have been impressed and even shocked by the violence of some of his sequences,” Morricone said, “but after giving a second thought to that I realised that yes, we are shocked by the horror of this violence but, if we think of the victims of this violence we realise that Tarantino's position is always on the side of the underclass.”

"I thought he deserved something very special for what he had done," the 87 year old said.

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This constitutes something of a reversal in opinion, as Morricone said just two years ago that Tarantino “places music in films without coherence” before adding “I wouldn't like to work with him again, on anything.”

Last month, Tarantino was involved in a media firestorm after he was accused of calling cops “murderers”, having attended an anti-police brutality march in New York City at the end of October. Several police unions have since joined a boycott of his new film.

The Hateful Eight, billed as a ‘winter western’, is out in the UK on January 8th following a US release on December 25th. It stars Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tim Roth and Michael Madsen.

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