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The Pawnbroker had as complex a score as I’ve ever worked on. In the opening scene, Sol Nazerman, a Jewish refugee from Germany, is sitting in a suburban backyard, soaking up the sun. His sister asks for a loan so she and her family can take a vacation in Europe that summer. To Nazerman, everything…

As I said earlier, I don’t want to “mickey-mouse.” I want the score to say something that nothing else in the picture is saying.

For instance, in The Verdict, nothing much was ever revealed about Paul Newman’s background. At one point there’s an indication that he went through a rough divorce an…

When the score is predictable, when it duplicates in melody and arrangement the action up there on the screen, we call it “mickey-mousing.” The reference is obviously to cartoon music, which duplicates everything down to Jerry kicking Tom’s teeth in. Pictures with scores like that are probably not …

From everything I’ve mentioned so far, it’s apparent that preplanning extends to the editing phase as well. However, one of the joys of the cutting room is that sometimes the editing can help turn a scene that isn’t working into one that does. This often involves shortening it. Other times, a shift…

But in a movie, every shot is preceded or followed by another shot. That’s why the juxtaposition of shots is such a great tool. In the agonizing, soul-baring fights in Long Day’s Journey Into Night, the shots kept getting wider and wider as father and son found themselves telling each other the cru…