When I was a student looking at Leonardo DaVinci and all those guys - Italian, Dutch, or whatever - it's incredible how each piece of the painting fits to the main theme that they want to express.
We're always looking for the backbone, the central idea, and once you have that you know everything can circle around it.
To me, the essence of the music is the most important thing.
Stories aren't the icing on the cake; they are the cake!
Try to reach for a simple, visual phrase that tells you what the picture is all about and evokes the essence of the story
Everybody has a theme. You talk to somebody awhile, and you realize they have one particular thing that rules them. The best you can do is a variation on the theme, but that's about it.
Conceptually, I've always gravitated towards arrangements that weren't just presenting one idea. I like to look at my songs as having a main part, an interlude, and almost like another song at the end.
My models, my human figures, are never like extras in an interior. They are the main theme of my work. I depend absolutely on my model.
The occasion of this sadness is expressed in a word, but must be considered in many more, as being the principal concernment both of the Text and Time.
There are a lot of limitations so you have to ultimately focus on what you think the most important storyline is.
I used to teach at the Columbia journalism school, and I would tell my students that every book has to have a sentence that motivates it.
The best movies have one sentence that they're exploring, a thesis, something that people can argue about over dinner afterward.
The melody is generally what the piece is all about.
It's about the music for us. Always has been. The bottom line is the music.
I think possibly the first film that has music as its leading character.
