Milos Forman Quotes

Ah, 'Pather Panchali' was the most inspiring film that I wrote music for, and it was so spontaneously done. I saw the film, composed on the spot, along with myself and only four other musicians, and everything was done within 4-1/2 hours, I think an all-time record anywhere.

I would love to compose for an entire film because it will be a different experience.

So film music is something I absolutely wanna get involved in.

When you're working on film music, you're only working on 20, 30-minute sections at a time.

I have done songs here and there. But I have never scored a film. That is something I would like to do at some point.

Normally, when people compose for film, you give them the film, and they look at it, and they compose it.

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

When I do the music, I make the musicians listen to what's happening in the film. That way they treat the dialogue as if it was a singer.

Well into the '40s, it wasn't uncommon for big-budget Hollywood movies to contain little or no underscoring, and many of today's directors, following the lead of Martin Scorsese in 'GoodFellas,' accompany their films with pop records, not original music.

Every time I see a film or TV show, I think about how that composer made those choices and how that director envisioned music and how that could work onstage or in a film and how you could support that even further by putting lyrics to it.

In most films music is brought in at the end, after the picture is more or less locked, to amplify the emotions the filmmaker wants you to feel.

I don't know - music in film, for me, is not another part of a soundtrack; it is something that also helps to approach a character, to foresee the type of image - you see what I mean - it's like a part of the process.

I'm a big collector of vinyl - I have a record room in my house - and I've always had a huge soundtrack album collection. So what I do, as I'm writing a movie, is go through all those songs, trying to find good songs for fights, or good pieces of music to layer into the film.

When the movie's done, you talk about either the score or source music over a particular scene, what might work. You just throw a piece of music over the scene, and we both listen to it.

It's a deliberate choice. I am a fervent supporter of the idea that you don't have to have wall-to-wall music in good films.

I never dreamed of writing for concert or opera. I always dreamed, if I was a composer, to write music for films.

I think that purists may regard the '80s and Jerry Goldsmith being the quintessential example of film scoring, but that was also a very prominent type during a time when soundtracks were purely songs, and there was very little score.

I like to write film music that stands on its own.

Without the knowledge of music, it would be very hard to write film music. There are so many films, and each one has a different historical background and everything.

Sometimes you write music to a script or while a film is being edited. Sometimes I write without seeing any images, but that's rare. The approach is often based on practical decisions, but I'm interested in the narrative and physical space that music can occupy in a film or play.

What I love about film music is the variety. On one movie, you might be asked to do a completely electronic score, and then another might ask you to do orchestral only.

So I prefer to do the entire music for a film. And when I'm doing the background score, I can weave the whole film together in terms of themes and songs for a good cinematic feel.

When I compose for any film, I always work with the story in mind.

I think that most films have too much music in them; it overwhelms an audience.

Some producers hang-on to that old cliche that if the audience hears the music, it is no good. I say this is so much talk. Music gives the film another dimension, if it's done with the story in mind.