War & Peace Quote by Trevor Rabin

Rabin is doing something quietly radical for a film composer: he’s praising a director for not speaking his language. In Hollywood, the cliché is that directors communicate music through clumsy metaphors (make it “bluer,” “more like Tuesdays”), and composers either roll their eyes or translate. Rabin flips the script and treats Tony Scott’s non-musical direction as a virtue, because it’s anchored in feeling rather than theory. That’s the subtext: the job isn’t to win a conservatory argument, it’s to land an emotional punch.

The compliment “important director” is standard industry diplomacy, but the more revealing phrase is “ability to express himself.” Scott, famous for velocity, heat, and sensory overload, isn’t being lauded here for technical precision; he’s being credited with clarity of intention. Rabin implies Scott can articulate the emotional destination so cleanly that the composer can find the musical route without being micromanaged. It’s a neat defense of collaboration as translation, not obedience.

Context matters: Enemy of the State is a paranoid, late-’90s surveillance thriller that moves like a chase even in its quieter scenes. Scott’s style demands propulsion, but paranoia also requires vulnerability - dread, isolation, moral vertigo. Rabin’s framing suggests Scott wasn’t asking for “more strings” or “bigger brass”; he was asking for what the scene should do to an audience’s nervous system.

Ending on “I got along really well with him” seals the point. This isn’t just admiration; it’s a report from the trenches that emotional communication makes creative partnerships faster, looser, and better.