Nicolas Winding Refn Quotes

Music is the life of a film.

Music or sound in a film is a character as important as another character.

Music is half the film.

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

Music has been more a solitary, creative thing. The acting side of things and working in movies has helped me collaboratively with music in terms of helping me get ideas across to other people and making it more of a team efforts.

When I write music for a film, I'm not writing a solo album, and I'm not writing a personal piece. I'm part of a team of artists. So I think like a filmmaker more than a composer.

For me, the score is one of the main characters of a film.

If you watch a film without music, there's nothing that you can connect with.

If you talk to any director, they'll say music is fifty percent of the movie.

As far as an actor-director connection, I think those can develop, and when they do, they're really great, and you just cultivate it like you would any relationship or friendship. If you find that something special, it helps down the line when you want to do more projects with each other.

Usually when I am approached to do a score for a horror movie, it's to attempt a repeat performance of what I did way back on 'Hellraiser' or 'Jennifer 8' - one of those really orchestral scores.

Robert Fripp and I will be recording another LP very soon. It should be even more monotonous than the first one!

Sports without music, it's nothing but a game. Music adds the emotion.

I start with the music before I start writing the movie. It's such an important part for me, emotionally, to set up the tone for the movie.

Music is so crucial to every film, I think.

I want to produce the music to a movie that I'm working on, like what Prince did with 'Purple Rain.'

I worked with Jim James on my film 'I'm Not There' - he sang 'Goin' to Acapulco' with Calexico backing him up. We just hit it off, and it's such a beautiful moment in that film.

Kanye West is a brilliant poet and artist. He and I work in a very similar way. We feel the vibration, the power of something, and it inspires us to create, whether it is music or design. It is the same process. Working with Kanye is a joy and great privilege. In 2012, we did collaboration together.

When you go into something like a space movie, you think there's going to be no music or little music.

When Kubrick called me about 'The Shining,' it was very strange. He first asked me to write music for his film, but I instead gave him suggestions about some of my pieces. I told him about 'The Awakening of Jacob,' which he did use in 'The Shining.'

'Sing Street' was the first time I'd worked so collaboratively.

Nothing's ever easy about composing for other people's projects, but I like it. I've been lucky to have worked with adventurous directors who trust me.

DSP is not only a music director for many of my films, but he is also a very dear friend.

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.