When the systems we expect to help us actually hurt us, we have tragedy.- Carter Burwell
There is not much irony when people are being happy on screen.
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.
The flow of Guiness into the studio was inspirational as well as nutritive.
Performing written music, even when I have written it, is not very interesting to me.
On Being John Malkovich and the cinema of the absurd, I do enjoy it. I wish there were more like it. The very fact that there can't be more like it is one of the reasons it's admirable.
New Yorkers may think they're on some cutting edge, but that is not especially true. It is, however, the most exciting heterogeneous mess of a town I have ever seen.
Music is the subliminal connecting adhesive in film, or at least in narrative feature films.
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.
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.
Learning how to improvise really awakened my interest in music.
John Barry was the first film composer I was aware of. As a teenager I owned several of his Bond soundtracks.
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.
In mainstream romantic comedies, I am usually tearing my hair out. It's just a devastatingly difficult genre for me.
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 am always up for something new.
