Pop Smart - Old-timey music”: the music of the Coen brothers’ movies”
(Photo courtesy Universal Pictures)
One of the striking aspects of the Coen brothers’ masterful new No Country for Old Men (reviewed here) is the near-absence of music. A mariachi band makes an incongruous appearance late in the film, and the Coens’ longtime composer Carter Burwell is credited with a score, but it’s so stealthy as to go unnoticed. The taut cat-and-mouse scenes tend to take place in chilling silence, accompanied only by creaky floorboards, careful intakes of breath and the explosions of weapons.
With the reasoning that you never appreciate something until it’s gone, here’s a retrospective on the use of music in the films of Joel and Ethan Coen, thanks to a little help from YouTube.