Thursday Token Themes

Welcome a new weekly feature here at Movies With Abe. I’m a hugely enthusiastic fan of film scores, and music is far too often an element of cinema that goes unrecognized. Therefore I present a platform for a look – or rather, a listen – to some fantastic film scores. I’ll be selecting a composer and one or more of their film scores for your listening pleasure, embedded from YouTube.

This week, we’ll start with Carter Burwell, a composer who has scored every Coen Brothers film. He specializes in foreboding themes for movies that blur the line between laugh-out-loud comedy and dark, deadly terror, and the music always enhances the feeling of the film and sticks with you long after the closing credits roll. For diversity’s sake, here are four mesmerizing scores, two from Coen Brothers films. The scores from those two are among my favorites, and I even used the track from “A Serious Man” to score my Oscar movie montage from 2009. And I still have flashbacks to a panicked Ethan Hawke driving away from the scene of the crime in that underrated 2007 film whenever I hear Burwell's theme. Also, listen to some samples from "Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus," an underrated 2006 film starring Nicole Kidman and boasting a mesmerizing theme by Burwell.

A Serious Man (2009)



In Bruges (2008)



Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (2007)



Fargo (1996)