"When I do the music, I make the musicians listen to what's happening in the film. That way they treat the dialogue as if it was a singer"
About this Quote
Figgis is smuggling a manifesto about power into an anecdote about workflow. By forcing musicians to listen to the film first, he’s stripping away the usual hierarchy where score arrives like a velvet robe draped over a finished cut. The move is blunt: the movie isn’t asking music to decorate it; the music is being conscripted into acting.
The key provocation is in that last clause: treat the dialogue as if it was a singer. It’s not just a cute metaphor. It implies dialogue has melody, rhythm, breath, phrasing, even improvisation. If actors are vocalists, then composers aren’t painting moods over scenes; they’re building accompaniment, counterpoint, and rests. That shift changes everything: tempo becomes emotional truth rather than generic tension, and silence stops being an absence and starts functioning like a held note.
Subtextually, Figgis is also defending dialogue in an era that often treats it as expendable - something to be drowned in drones, pulses, and “cinematic” swell. His instruction asks musicians to respect the spoken word the way they’d respect a lead vocal: don’t step on it, don’t sentimentalize it, don’t smooth out its rough edges. Support it, push against it, leave it space to be ugly or funny or fragile.
Context matters: Figgis comes out of a jazz sensibility and an actor-forward cinema (Leaving Las Vegas, Timecode) where performance is the engine. This approach makes scoring less like wallpaper and more like ensemble playing - a band locked in with the room’s most human instrument.
The key provocation is in that last clause: treat the dialogue as if it was a singer. It’s not just a cute metaphor. It implies dialogue has melody, rhythm, breath, phrasing, even improvisation. If actors are vocalists, then composers aren’t painting moods over scenes; they’re building accompaniment, counterpoint, and rests. That shift changes everything: tempo becomes emotional truth rather than generic tension, and silence stops being an absence and starts functioning like a held note.
Subtextually, Figgis is also defending dialogue in an era that often treats it as expendable - something to be drowned in drones, pulses, and “cinematic” swell. His instruction asks musicians to respect the spoken word the way they’d respect a lead vocal: don’t step on it, don’t sentimentalize it, don’t smooth out its rough edges. Support it, push against it, leave it space to be ugly or funny or fragile.
Context matters: Figgis comes out of a jazz sensibility and an actor-forward cinema (Leaving Las Vegas, Timecode) where performance is the engine. This approach makes scoring less like wallpaper and more like ensemble playing - a band locked in with the room’s most human instrument.
Quote Details
| Topic | Music |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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