Films › Sound and score
Once Upon a Time in the West
Directed by Sergio Leone, 1968
Ennio Morricone wrote the score before shooting and it was played on set, so the performances and camera moves are cut to music rather than the reverse. Each principal character has an assigned instrument, which lets the score identify who a scene belongs to. The opening station sequence is almost silent, built from a windmill, a fly and dripping water. Leone's extreme close-ups exist to give the music room. Because actors heard the finished themes during filming, their pacing and stillness were calibrated to musical phrases rather than to a director's count, which is unusual even for Leone's own earlier work with Morricone. The harmonica motif assigned to Bronson's character functions almost like a leitmotif in opera, announcing identity before dialogue does, and the opening sequence's sparse sound design is frequently cited as proof that a scene can build tension entirely from diegetic noise before a note of score arrives.
What to watch for
Watch the opening ten minutes for a sound design that is entirely diegetic and rhythmically composed.
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