) is an Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 film composer.

In the early 1950s Ortolani was founder and member of a jazz band of national Italian renown. His first score he wrote for the 1962 Paolo Cavara

Paolo Cavara

Paolo Cavara has been a screenwriter and a movie director. He was born in Bolognain 1926.-Biography:During the Fifties, he studied architecture in Florence University, then he realized documentaries for scientific trips, and emerged as a pioneer of the underwater cinematography Paolo Cavara has...

 and Gualtiero Jacopetti

Gualtiero Jacopetti

Gualtiero Jacopetti was an Italian director of documentary films.He was born in Barga, in northern Tuscany...

 pseudo-documentary Mondo Cane

Mondo cane

Mondo cane is a documentary written and directed by Italian filmmakers Paolo Cavara, Franco Prosperi and Gualtiero Jacopetti. The film consists of a series of travelogue vignettes that provide glimpses into cultural practices around the world with the intention to shock or surprise Western film...

, whose main title-song More earned him a Grammy and also was nominated for an Oscar as Best Song.

The success of the soundtrack of Mondo Cane led Ortolani to score films in England and the United States such as The 7th Dawn

The 7th Dawn

The 7th Dawn is a 1964 drama film starring William Holden, Capucine and Tetsuro Tamba. The film was based on the novel The Durian Tree by Michael Keon.-Plot:...

(1964), The Yellow Rolls-Royce

The Yellow Rolls-Royce

-External links:, a promotional short subject for the film...

(1964), The Glory Guys

The Glory Guys

The Glory Guys is a 1965 motion picture based on the novel The Dice of God by Hoffman Birney. Filmed by Levy-Gardner-Laven and released by United Artists, it stars Tom Tryon, Harve Presnell, Senta Berger, James Caan, and Michael Anderson, Jr. The film's screenplay was written by Sam Peckinpah long...

(1965) and The Spy with a Cold Nose

The Spy with a Cold Nose

The Spy with a Cold Nose is a 1966 British comedy film directed by Daniel Petrie.-Cast:* Laurence Harvey as Dr. Francis Trevelyan* Daliah Lavi as Princess Natasha Romanova* Lionel Jeffries as Stanley Farquhar* Eric Sykes as Wrigley...

(1966). Another world famous track was his main-title for the movie O Cangaceiro (1970).

Ortolani scored all or parts of over 200 films, including German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 westerns like Apache's Last Battle (Old Shatterhand

Old Shatterhand (film)

The film Old Shatterhand is a very successful Eurowestern based on the character Old Shatterhand invented by German novelist Karl May. It is a French, Italian, Yugoslavian, West German co-production filmed in 70mm. With about 5,000,000 DM in production the film was the most expensive Karl May...

, 1964) and a long series of Italian giallo

Giallo

Giallo is an Italian 20th century genre of literature and film, which in Italian indicates crime fiction and mystery. In the English language it refers to a genre similar to the French fantastique genre and includes elements of horror fiction and eroticism...

, spaghetti western

Spaghetti Western

Spaghetti Western, also known as Italo-Western, is a nickname for a broad sub-genre of Western films that emerged in the mid-1960s in the wake of Sergio Leone's unique and much copied film-making style and international box-office success, so named by American critics because most were produced and...

s, Eurospy, exploitation

Exploitation film

Exploitation film is a type of film that is promoted by "exploiting" often lurid subject matter. The term "exploitation" is common in film marketing, used for all types of films to mean promotion or advertising. These films then need something to exploit, such as a big star, special effects, sex,...

 and mondo film

Mondo film

A mondo film is an exploitation documentary film, sometimes resembling a pseudo-documentary, usually depicting sensational topics, scenes, and situations...

s.

Other films Ortolani has scored include Il Sorpasso (1962), Io ho paura (1977), Castle of Blood (1964), Anzio (film)

Anzio (film)

Anzio, also known as Lo Sbarco di Anzio or The Battle for Anzio, is a 1968 war film about Operation Shingle, the 1944 Allied seaborne assault on the Italian port of Anzio in World War II...

, The Bliss of Mrs. Blossom

The Bliss of Mrs. Blossom

The Bliss of Mrs. Blossom is a 1968 British comedy film directed by Joseph McGrath. The screenplay by Alec Coppel and Denis Norden was adapted from a play by Coppel that was based on a short story by Josef Shaftel, who served as the film's producer.-Plot:...

(1968), Sette orchidee macchiate di rosso (1972), Africa Addio

Africa Addio

Africa Addio is a 1966 Italian documentary about the end of the colonial era in Africa. The film was released in a shorter format under the names "Africa Blood and Guts" in the USA and "Farewell Africa" in the UK...

(1966), Addio Zio Tom

Addio Zio Tom

Goodbye Uncle Tom is a 1971 Italian/Spanish film directed by Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi and features music by Riz Ortolani.Addio Zio Tom is a pseudo documentary where the filmmakers go back in time and visit antebellum America, using period documents to examine, in graphic detail, the...

(1971), House on the Edge of the Park (1980), and Cannibal Holocaust

Cannibal Holocaust

Cannibal Holocaust is a 1980 Italian horror film directed by Ruggero Deodato from a screenplay by Gianfranco Clerici. Filmed in the Amazon Rainforest and dealing with indigenous tribes, it was cast mostly with United States actors and filmed in English to achieve wider distribution...

(1980).

Scores of Riz Ortolani have recently been featured in Grand Theft Auto: London 1969 (1999), Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003), Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004) and Drive

Drive (2011 film)

Drive is a 2011 American crime neo-noir drama film directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, starring Ryan Gosling as the principal character, with Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston, and Albert Brooks...

(2011).

External links