At the Jesuit Church in Palermo One Day

The Jesuit Church in Palermo, Sicily

When in Sicily last month we sought out the Jesuit church in Palermo, the Chiesa del Gesu.  We discovered a magnificent space, filled with figures and patterns of stunning craftsmanship carved in white marble.  It is perhaps the most ornately decorated church I have ever seen. 

Inside a wedding was taking place.  From the back we could see the ceremony way up front in the distance.  There was movement and talking.  The priest spoke, in Italian of course.  Then a woman rose and began singing, in a clear, strong voice.  The melody jarred me for a moment, as I recognized it as the hauntingly beautiful wordless vocals used as a leitmotif for the character Jill, the prostitute yearning for a better life, in Sergio Leone's masterpiece Once Upon a Time in the West (long one of my favorites).  The composer was the great Ennio Morricone.

The melody is first heard as Jill arrives in a very unfamiliar place to attend her wedding reception and start a new life.  As beautiful as the music is, it is sad and melancholic, the most penetrating Morricone melody I have heard.  There's a wistfulness as well, all befitting the emotional state of the character Jill, played by the Sicilian actress Claudia Cardinale.   The film is a story of vengeful justice and the banality of evil, all played out in a most violent way in the old American West.  And Jill is caught in the middle of it all.  But she is a remarkably strong and resilient woman amidst great tragedies and dangers.  

So there it was, in a remarkable church on a sunny April afternoon in ancient Palermo, Jill's Theme, sung strong and clear echoing though the ornate, very Italian space.  A curious choice, perhaps, but certainly a perceptive and assertive one ... befitting no doubt a strong woman, like Jill, arriving to start a new married life.

R Balsamo

Here is a montage of scenes with Claudia Cardinale from Once Upon a Time in the West, with voice-over vocals of Jill's Theme by Patricia Janeckova.