Carter Burwell

[Kevin 22]

I'm a casual fan of Carter Burwell. I think his three best scores have been Conspiracy Theory, Miller's Crossing and True Grit. But there's more of his career that I need to explore. My favourite score by him is Conspiracy Theory, for sake of how ridiculously enjoyable it is. And the 'End Titles' cue from Miller's Crossing is very lovely with how it interpolates the folk tune into the orchestra.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uv1MHTP8_YU

[King Mark 2616]

I forgot to add him in the other threads I only like 1 score of

Simone (some cues)

[QMM 3]

I'm a fan of his score to In Bruges

[Koray Savas 1737]

In Bruges and Where The Wild Things Are are great, as well as his work with the Coen brothers.

[Charlie Brigden 5]

He's very good, and 'True Grit' is amazing.

[Richard Penna 1271]

Not exactly a 'fan', but I do like some of his work: A Serious Man, Fargo, bits of In Bruges, The Alamo, Where the Wild Things Are.

And True Grit is currently my absolute favourite score right now (although the OST/promo is a little frustrating - each has cues the other doesn't, meaning that since I wanted to give Burwell some money for the effort, I had to swap some cues out for completeness).

He absolutely has a voice, very pastoral. It gets a little too 'soft' for my tastes sometimes.

[Melange 446]

Only his score for Rob Roy, which I got in the mid 90s, is in my collection.

Great mixture of music on that soundtrack (and a truly great film, too).

[filmmusic 784]

My favourite score is "Before Night falls". Although there is no proper release for that..

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10237]

Only his score for Rob Roy, which I got in the mid 90s, is in my collection.

Great mixture of music on that soundtrack (and a truly great film, too).

Best...swordfight...EVER!

[Jacob 0]

Rob Roy is the only score of his I'm familiar with also. It's quite good I think.

I wouldn't take it over, say, Braveheart. But still, it's quite good.

[crocodile 4839]

I know some of his scores, but only from the movies. I remember the music from Coen brothers' movies: to Fargo, Burn After Reading, and some others like Being John Malkovich. They certainly draw attention to themselves, in a good sense. But, sadly, I haven't got a single CD of his.

Karol

[Richard Penna 1271]

The only bit of music from Being John Malkovich that stood out to me was the Bartok piece at the start.

Not to denigrate Burwell's score - it fits the film like a glove and is pretty much unnoticeable to me.

[crocodile 4839]

I might be actually thinking of the Bartok piece you just mentioned... Me bad...

Karol

[Naïve Old Fart 4622]

"Rob Roy" is a good score, and I like his work with the Cohen brothers.

Is "Psycho III" available?

[BurgaFlippinMan 7]

A Goofy Movie anyone?

[Hitch 47]

Psycho III. Great Burwell score and a great start in his early career. Only available on LP.

[TownerFan 2927]

Miller's Crossing is indeed a very good score imho.

[Ollie 695]

I think I have a cue or two from him on several compilation CDs. That's it.

[filmmusic 784]

I just found out about this composer's site.

It has from what i understand unreleased cues too to listen.

http://www.carterburwell.com/main/projects_date.html

Still I enjoy very much his score for "Before Night Falls".

(you can find 4 cues in there)

[Koray Savas 1737]

Yeah, his site is the only way to get his Ladykillers score.

[Disco Stu 10283]

This doesn't actually have much to do with Burwell, but I was watching this 2013 panel with him and the Coens and Alec Baldwin earlier today and wanted to call out a specific "WTF?!" moment.

 

Here Baldwin is talking about how "unique" the composer/filmmaker collaboration of the Coens and Burwell is and actually says:

Quote

I don't think anybody has had the relationship you guys have had in terms of 15 consecutive films.

And no one contradicts him!

 

 

These are all smart people who know movies very well.  How do you say something like that without thinking of Spielberg/Williams (whose streak is 19 consecutive films I think, Empire of the Sun - Lincoln), the most famous composer-director relationship ever!  So weird.

[Thor 3563]

True, that is weird. 

 

As for Burwell, he's very hit/miss for me. My favourite remains ROB ROY, which is also -- in many ways -- quite untypical for him.

[Fancyarcher 339]

Not to mention the other long-running director composer collaborations both past and present, that have worked on more then 15 films. 

 

That's a rather ignorant and strange remark, especially when Burwell work with The Coens in the past decade seems to have less prominent, and often times a lot of his main themes are based off classical older music and hymns. I like a lot of his work, but really? That's just a bizarre thing to say. 

[Disco Stu 10283]

And especially from Baldwin, who's kind of well-known as both a music-lover and a major movie buff.  He regularly hosts on TCM for instance.

[Fancyarcher 339]

It's definitely a slap-worthy comment. I mean Burwell has does 17 movies with the Coen Brothers, while Spielberg has worked with Williams on 28 films in total, there's no comparison, and lets not forget the long-running director composer teams like Shore / Cronenberg, Burton / Elfman, Silvestri / Zemeckis etc..., and even some of the classic "teams". It's not even a debate.

[Koray Savas 1737]

Who cares? It’s a throwaway compliment. 

[Disco Stu 10283]

I mean it's not keeping me up at night, but as a member of an internet messageboard devoted to John Williams I felt dutybound to report my findings.

[Fancyarcher 339]

1 hour ago, Koray Savas said:

Who cares? It’s a throwaway compliment. 

 

It's a message board. Complaining about comments is what we do best. 

[thestat 49]

Burwell is a fine composer but many of his greatest hits tend to be adaptations. Fargo, It Happened to You etc. I have yet to hear a great composition from him. Conspiracy Theory gets there as does the unreleased The Jackal but I wonder how much of that pumping score was his, considering that he is not exactly 'pumping'. But then again he did replace Barry on Mercury Rising to replace what the producers described as tedium with 'pumping'. This is the description of the score he did to The Jackal, so the 'pumping' must have been his work, right?

[Koray Savas 1737]

How is Fargo an adaptation?

 

Burwell is a fantastic composer. 

[KK 2790]

He's quite an intelligent one. One of the more underrated voices of the industry.

[mrbellamy 4294]

On 10/25/2017 at 7:40 PM, Koray Savas said:

How is Fargo an adaptation?

 

Burwell is a fantastic composer. 

 

The main theme is taken from a Norwegian folk song

 

 

But I agree, I'm actually finding Burwell one of the most reliable film composers lately. He's been doing good work the last few years with unique projects.

[Koray Savas 1737]

I was disappointed when he was kicked off Gangster Squad and Thor 2. The former would have been something special, but we got a Jablonsky phone-in instead. The latter would have been interesting to see how he would have tackled a studio blockbuster. I imagine that’s not really the side of the industry he wants to be involved in, though. He’s one of the composers left that has still maintained his director collaborators (Coens, Haynes, McDonagh).

[publicist 3731]

9 hours ago, mrbellamy said:

But I agree, I'm actually finding Burwell one of the most reliable film composers lately. He's been doing good work the last few years with unique projects.

 

Even with awful ones: