"There's always a question of duration, there's a question of who the orchestra is. No one is free to write what you want - you collaborate on a film score, and one of the good things is that someone else's work is motivating you"
About this Quote
Nyman isn’t romanticizing the lone genius; he’s quietly dismantling it. The line starts in the weeds - duration, instrumentation, “who the orchestra is” - because that’s where power lives in film. A score isn’t just music, it’s logistics: budgets, unions, studio schedules, the director’s taste, the sound mix that can swallow your favorite theme whole. By foregrounding these constraints, he frames “freedom” as a marketing myth in an art form built from negotiation.
The bluntest admission lands like a corrective: “No one is free to write what you want.” It’s not self-pity. It’s a statement about authorship in cinema, where composers are often treated as late-stage problem-solvers, hired to supply emotion on command, and judged by how invisibly they serve the cut. Nyman’s phrasing implies a hierarchy without naming it: the image leads, the music follows, and the composer’s autonomy is always conditional.
Then he pivots, and the subtext turns unexpectedly generous. Collaboration isn’t framed as compromise but as propulsion: “someone else’s work is motivating you.” That’s Nyman the minimalist and pragmatist, describing limitation as an engine. The director’s rhythm, the editor’s pacing, the actors’ silences - these aren’t obstacles to musical expression; they’re prompts that force specificity. The intent is almost ethical: stop pretending film scoring is pure self-expression and start valuing it as a responsive craft, where meaning is co-authored and the best ideas arrive because you can’t do whatever you want.
The bluntest admission lands like a corrective: “No one is free to write what you want.” It’s not self-pity. It’s a statement about authorship in cinema, where composers are often treated as late-stage problem-solvers, hired to supply emotion on command, and judged by how invisibly they serve the cut. Nyman’s phrasing implies a hierarchy without naming it: the image leads, the music follows, and the composer’s autonomy is always conditional.
Then he pivots, and the subtext turns unexpectedly generous. Collaboration isn’t framed as compromise but as propulsion: “someone else’s work is motivating you.” That’s Nyman the minimalist and pragmatist, describing limitation as an engine. The director’s rhythm, the editor’s pacing, the actors’ silences - these aren’t obstacles to musical expression; they’re prompts that force specificity. The intent is almost ethical: stop pretending film scoring is pure self-expression and start valuing it as a responsive craft, where meaning is co-authored and the best ideas arrive because you can’t do whatever you want.
Quote Details
| Topic | Music |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
More Quotes by Michael
Add to List
