NYFF: The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Jason Adams reporting from the New York Film Festival

Anthology films always have a bit of an under-cooked quality - you like a chunk of meat here, a chunk of potato there, but the stew's uneven, the broth skinned over from sitting. Even the very best ones can feel haphazard - you can and should certainly argue that Pulp Fiction is an anthology film, albeit one that's po-mo'd up in glorious fashion, but some days you're just not in the mood for Honey Bunny, ya dig?  The Coens' six-part The Ballad of Buster Scruggs maintains that streak - highs, lows, and everything in between, slapped between two fraying book covers...

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FYC: Ed Lachman for Best Cinematography and Carter Burwell for Best Score in Wonderstruck

By Salim Garami

What's good? It's quite frankly a hell of a shame how little attention and love Todd Haynes' adaptation of young fiction book Wonderstruck has received during this awards season, after its Cannes premiere elicited high hopes about its Oscar chances. Ignoring the unfortunate lack of marketing or campaigning from Amazon Studios (opting instead to push Last Flag Flying and Wonder Wheel -- a decision which didn't do them much good), Wonderstruck's main crime doesn't seem to be any true flaw in its material but the fact that it's such a quiet and small movie. Even its champions give it muted praise rather than rapturous acclaim...

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Interview: Carter Burwell on Composing "Carol" and "Hail, Caesar!"

Carter Burwell gives great soundtrack. The proof is all around us. His scores are everywhere right now, in movie theaters with Charlie Kaufman's Anomalisa and the Coen brothers Hail, Caesar! and in the Oscar mix; his work on Carol brought him his long long overdue first nomination for Best Original Score.

The 60 year-old composer started his music career in the punk scene but after that fateful first collaboration with the the Coens on Blood Simple (1984) he quickly become a film regular. He's composed every Coen brothers score since then with the exception of Inside Llewyn Davis. They aren't the only filmmakers who steadily rely on his gift. He's worked frequently for Bill Condon, Michael Caton-Jones, Spike Jonze, John Lee Hancock, and Todd Haynes among others.

I asked him how he keeps his work fresh with so many projects and how he approached the recent challenges of the "ridiculous" comedy of Hail, Caesar! and the restrained drama of Carol.

Our interview follows after the jump...

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