Quotes By Carter Burwell

I think being a little nuts is helpful.

Any film which views the darker side of life, which is death with a sense of humor, is very much to my taste.

I don't generally find myself listening to the music of a film unless there's something awfully wrong with it.

Even if I went off to some other career, I hope I would still be doing Coen films.

Los Angeles is an industry town, and it has great facilities and personnel. The disadvantage is that everyone there seems to talk about the same subject matter.

I had piano lessons when I was a kid, like most people. And hated them, like most people. And quit, like most people.

Death is always around the corner, but often our society gives it inordinate help.

I like business and personal life to be distinct.

Learning how to improvise really awakened my interest in music.

Carefully execute every instruction given to you by the director, producer, and studio. But that would be a life not worth living.

All my music is very simple in that melody is usually clearly stated.

Most films I work on, the people making the film are constantly second-guessing the executives of the studio, the producer, and the audience. It is very hard to accomplish anything in that situation.

I don't personally see my work as being dark. What interests me is a balance between light and dark.

The flow of Guiness into the studio was inspirational as well as nutritive.

I just love the sheer mess of New York.

A carefree quality is a whole aspect of life that I will never understand. I don't think I have ever been carefree and can't see the pleasure of it.

When the systems we expect to help us actually hurt us, we have tragedy.

There is not much irony when people are being happy on screen.

If not bliss, ignorance can at least be fun.

The jarring change going from an urban environment to an extremely remote natural environment is extremely inspiring. It's constantly stimulating, it's like a slap in the face.

I write music to please myself. Hopefully the director's enjoying it too.

Hopefully each film can be given a musical voice of its own, which is not to say that the instrumentation is always unique, but that the relationship between the sound and the image is unique.

I think I've only done one horror movie, Psycho III. That was a walk in the park compared to a romantic comedy.

Music is the subliminal connecting adhesive in film, or at least in narrative feature films.

Connection is what one is after in probably most media, but certainly in film, which is an immersive medium.

John Barry was my hero when I was about 13. His scores to the James Bond movies were the scores of my life back then.

I like the fact that New York looks a bit backwards, toward the Old World, rather than resolutely forwards.

If someone suddenly lost their director the day before shooting and wanted me to step in, I'd be willing to. But I'd do brain surgery the same way. I'm always up for something new.

I almost never try to make the audience comfortable. I wouldn't want that if I were in the audience.

I prefer a life in which we don't take ourselves too seriously.