“A Tribute to Nino Rota,” Italian Americana Web Issue (Spring 2011), www.italianamericana.

com/Italia-
nAmericana2011/Film.html – © Emilio Audissino

A Tribute to Nino Rota

by

Emilio Audissino, University of Pisa, Italy

This year the world of Film Music celebrates the centennial of composer Nino Rota's

birth. Rota was one of the great names of 20th century Italian culture. Yet his contribu-

tions played a highly influential and widely international role. Rota was astonishingly

prolific in both film and concert music: he penned more than 150 film scores and a sim-

ilar figure – around 107 works – for the concert hall, including 4 symphonies, 11 operas

and 4 Masses. His distinctive peculiarity was the amazing stylistic consistency underlin-

ing his entire output – the opposite, for instance, of “schizophrenic” Ennio Morricone,

whose concert music's modernistic language is radically different from his lyrical film

themes. On the contrary, Rota sounds like Rota both in his works for cinema and for the

podium. The reason for this congruity was that he was completely comfortable with

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“A Tribute to Nino Rota,” Italian Americana Web Issue (Spring 2011), www.italianamericana.com/Italia-
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film scoring, being free from the die-hard prejudice of many high-brow composers.

Rota was a highly trained and highly talented musician, but he was not a high-brow.

Born in Milan on December 3rd 1911, he soon proved to be a child prodigy, composing

an Oratorio at the age of 11. After studying music at the Conservatorio di Milano and at

the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome, he won a scholarship to attend the Curtis Insti-

tute in Philadelphia, and spent two years in the USA. Among his teachers, Alfredo

Casella, Ildebrando Pizzetti, Fritz Reiner. Among his friends, Arturo Toscanini and Igor

Stravinsky. Back to Italy, he graduated in literature at the University of Milan. In 1936

he began a long teaching career, culminating in the directorship of the musical conser-

vatory “Niccolò Piccinni” in Bari, a position he held from 1950 to 1978. He died from

heart failure in 1979. His first film project was Treno Popolare (Raffaele Matarazzo,

1933) – a light comedy about a train trip – but the real start was a decade later, when

film projects began to pile up – with an amazing series of 11 in 1948. Rota was omnivo-

rous, dealing with a vast range of genres:

Ò farcical comedy: Totò al giro d'Italia (Mario Mattoli, 1952)

Ò neo-realist drama: Fuga in Francia (Flight into France, Mario Soldati, 1949)

Ò feuilleton melodrama: Le due orfanelle (The Two Orphans, Giacomo Gentilomo,

1954)

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nAmericana2011/Film.html – © Emilio Audissino

Ò supernatural stories: Fantasmi a Roma (Ghosts of Rome, Antonio Pietrangeli,

1961)

Ò contemporary drama: I sequestrati di Altona (The Condemned of Altona, Vitto-

rio De Sica, 1962)

Ò peplum: La regina di Saba (The Queen of Sheba, Pietro Francisci, 1952)

He worked with such leading directors as:

Ò Mario Monicelli: La grande guerra (The Great War, 1959)

Ò Alberto Lattuada: Il delitto di Giovanni Episcopo (Flesh Will Surrender, 1947)

Ò Elio Petri: Il maestro di Vigevano (The Teacher from Vigevano, 1963)

Ò Franco Zeffirelli: La bisbetica domata (The Taming of the Shrew, 1967)

Ò Luchino Visconti: Le notti bianche (White Nights, 1957), Rocco e i suoi fratelli

(Rocco and His Brothers, 1960), Il gattopardo (The Leopard, 1963)

His most enduring and celebrated collaboration was that with Federico Fellini – from

Lo sceicco bianco (The White Sheik, 1952) to Prova d'orchestra (Federico Fellini's Or-

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chestra Rehearsal, 1978) – which is always cited as an example of a perfect artistic

symbiosis between director and composer. Memorable cine-musical masterpieces by the

famous duo are:

Ò La strada (The Road, 1954)

Ò La dolce vita (The Sweet Life, 1960)

Ò 8 ½ (Federico Fellini's 8 ½, 1963)

Ò Amarcord (1973)

Rota also set his mark internationally, working with:

Ò Edward Dmytryck – Obsession, 1949

Ò Terence Young – Valley of Eagles, 1951

Ò Robert Rossen – Mambo, 1954

Ò King Vidor – War and Peace, 1956

Ò René Clément – Plein soleil (Lust for Evil), 1960

Ò Guy Hamilton – The Best of Enemies, 1961

Ò Koreyosi Kurahara – Hi wa shizumi, hi wa noboru (Sunset, Sunrise), 1973

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Ò John Guillermin – Death on the Nile, 1978

International visibility peaked thanks to the huge success of the theme from Romeo and

Juliet (Franco Zeffirelli, 1968), adapted into the best-selling song “What is a Youth” –

also known as “A Time for Us” – and to the two Godfather films (Francis Ford Coppo-

la, 1972-1974), whose “Love Theme” was another hit. In 1974 Rota was awarded an

Oscar for The Godfather Part II. Rota's music is still alive and inspirational to many

film composers, most notably Nicola Piovani in Italy and Danny Elfman in the USA.

Perhaps his most important legacy is the demonstration that film music can be a perfect-

ly legitimate form of art. Nino Rota was happy with film scoring, he was not ashamed

to do it. And he did it extremely well.

Interview:

We talked to Pier Marco De Santi, associate professor of Cinema at the University of

Pisa, Italy, a Federico Fellini scholar and author of two books on Nino Rota, whom he

knew personally.

Q: How would you describe Nino Rota the man?

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A: He was made of music. I mean, he lived in a kind of musical world of his own. He

was sweet and very helpful, but very absent-minded when dealing with the common,

everyday things. His studio was so untidy, with letters and music paper scattered all

over the floor. Yet, when dealing with music, he was sharply focused and just brilliant.

When he was playing the piano, searching for themes, he was in a trance-like state.

Nino did not use to spot the film at the moviola: he had not the kind of concentration for

the task. Fellini used to tell him the story, what the film was about, and to explain to

him what kind of music would be required. He also used pre-existing music, to make his

view clearer. For Amarcord, it was “Fascination”. Rota would listen and then start im-

provising on the piano, with his eyes closed. And most times, when he had finished, he

couldn't remember a single note. Using a tape recorder was a necessity. Fellini would

say – I witnessed this very thing for Amarcord – “The last one! I'm going to use the last

one for the whole film!” and Nino would stop playing and say “The last one what?”. So

Fellini would rewind the tape recorder till he retrieved the right tune.

Q: What made the Fellini-Rota collaboration so perfect?

A: They liked each other: Federico [Fellini] had the greatest admiration for Nino. He

used to call him “an angel made of music”. On his part, Nino loved to write the kind of

music Federico needed: when they first met, Nino had already composed for the light

theater and was very interested in operetta, circus music and those kind of idioms.

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Moreover, Federico was very fond of american songs, and Nino had a thorough knowl-

edge of the repertoire. He had learned the style while he was studying in Philadelphia.

He also met Gershwin during his stay in the USA. He had a perfect understanding of

Fellini's musical desiderata and enjoyed very much composing them.

Q: How would you sum up Rota's legacy?

A: He was a genius, he could write anything, and he chose to write for the cinema. I

think his greatest lesson is coherence: the simple beauty and the integrity you can find

in all his music. He is an example for everyone working in film music. Miklos Rozsa

was one of his greatest admirers, and even Stravinsky – who disliked film music –

praised the quality of his film works and once called him “the prince of film music”.

Nino wanted to be remembered by quoting this statement of his: “Simplicity is a target

point, not a starting point. In music, to be simple is very difficult.”

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