Amid his coverage of the Nashville Film Festival, Nathaniel Rogers at The Film Experience served up a nice little nugget on composer Carter Burwell, the subject of a much-deserved individual tribute at the fest. Naturally, there was much emphasis on his ongoing collaboration with the Brothers Coen, which will continue this year with “True Grit.”
His score for the film is still in the conceptual stages, but his current source of inspiration suggests something typically singular is in the works:
“We don’t always see eye to eye.” Burwell noted when discussing his 14th collaboration with Joel and Ethan Coen. But when it came to the conception of the True Grit score “We both had the same idea at the same time: Protestant hymns.” The composer went on to explain that the lead character, Mattie Ross (to be played by Hailee Steinfeld) was so convinced of her own righteousness that they all thought Protestant hymns would be a fine way to play with her misplaced rectitude … He’s currently looking for appropriate hymn recordings but griped that “they all sound too sweet.”