BFI | Sight & Sound | The Best Music in Film

The Best Music in Film

(Composed the music for Heaven's Gate and Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood)

S&S: What is your favourite film soundtrack music and why do you like it so much?: "Anton Karas' The Third Man (1949) because I am a string player and so much enjoy the virtuoso performance on the Austrian zither. And it lives totally independently from the film while serving it perfectly."
S&S: In what ways does music best enhance a film?: "Music best enhances a film when it amplifies the subtext rather than the text, when it has a life of its own rather than mimicking the surface emotions of the actors or the primary emotions evoked by the action. Also less is more."
S&S: Which film either has music that you wished you'd written or is one you would like to rescore and why?: "In an age when film composers are replaced as frequently as screenwriters and are seen as completely disposable the term "rescore" has a rather offensive ring to it. And if there is a film score that I truly wished I'd written, that only means I never could have written it."