Riz Ortolani brings Tarantino an attack-driven, propulsive score whose specific origins are as important as its immediate force.
A piece from the Italian western with a distinct identity
I giorni dell’ira, known in Spanish as Los días de la ira, is a film by Tonino Valerii released in 1967 with music by Riz Ortolani. Its theme appears reused in Tarantino’s world, especially in Kill Bill and Django Unchained. It is not a composition by Ennio Morricone, although both composers share a presence in the repertoire of the Italian western.
Precision about the name matters because Ortolani developed a very wide career and cannot be reduced to an imitation of another composer. His music circulated across different genres, from drama to exploitation cinema. Tarantino selects one part of that catalogue; the later popularity of the borrowing does not make that selection a complete description of his work.
The theme from Los días de la ira has a direct, forceful energy. The accents and the projection of the melody create a sense of resolve that can be recognised quickly. That quality is useful when a film needs to heighten a gesture without pausing to build a long musical progression. The entrance can function almost as a statement of strength.
The recording also preserves the texture of its era. The interest is not only in the notes that could be played again, but in the sound of a performance and a production from an earlier time. By incorporating it, Tarantino introduces a material memory of Italian cinema. The past is heard within the new scene, even if the viewer does not immediately identify the original title.
A brief accent in Kill Bill and an impulse in Django
In Kill Bill, Ortolani’s music forms part of a selection that can shift register very quickly. A piece does not have to accompany an entire fight to be meaningful. A short fragment can intensify an entrance, a reaction or a movement, and disappear before the viewer experiences it as a stable background.
That fragmentary use is especially important when comparing the film with a record. Hearing the full theme allows its development to be appreciated, but does not necessarily reproduce the experience of the edit. Tarantino can use only part of its energy and turn it into an accent. The identity of the piece remains, while its duration and its relation to the action change.
In Django Unchained, I giorni dell’ira accompanies the protagonist’s training and physical assertion. The association with the western is more explicit, but a transformation still takes place. The music no longer belongs to Valerii’s story or to his characters; it takes part in building Django as someone capable of acting effectively after having been treated as property.
The musical drive helps the practice feel like more than a neutral sequence of exercises. Repeated actions gain direction and confidence. The theme can bring together changes of shot and situation under a single sense of progress, without the need to explain each step through dialogue. The energy of the older repertoire is put at the service of a new identity.
Reuse and its limits
That comparison makes it possible to hear two scales of editing. In a brief use, the theme acts as a burst of energy that transforms an instant. In a block of training, it provides continuity across several actions and helps an evolution to be perceived. The difference is not that one piece is better or worse for each film, but how much time it receives and what relationship it establishes with the character’s movements.
Tarantino’s reputation for violence can lead people to describe any borrowing as music for a slaughter. In Ortolani’s case, it is worth paying attention to the scene and to the actual length of the fragment. Learning, preparing, challenging or finishing off a gesture are different functions. Musical intensity alone does not prove that the image depicts a massacre.
The connection with the culture of exploitation cinema also does not allow every well-known theme by the composer to be included in Tarantino. Ortolani wrote music that has been reused by other directors, and those uses must be kept separate. A thematic compilation or a list of affinities is not a film credit. Each attribution needs a specific piece and a specific film.
It is also important to distinguish selection from commission. The use of I giorni dell’ira does not mean that Ortolani composed an original score for Kill Bill or Django. The creative work had already been done; Tarantino intervenes by choosing the new context. Recognising both moments makes it possible to value the composer without attributing to him narrative decisions made decades later.
The most fruitful connection emerges when one listens to what the piece retains and what the edit changes. What remains is a decisive energy born in the Italian western; what changes is the body, the gesture and the story that receive that impulse. Ortolani contributes something more precise than a retro atmosphere: a musical form capable of making convincing the moment when a character stops waiting and starts acting.
Back to the Tarantino music collaborators guide.