Carter Burwell

Carter Burwell
Birth name	Carter Benedict Burwell
Born	(1954-11-18) November 18, 1954 New York City, U.S.
Occupation(s)	Film composer
Instruments	Keyboards
Years active	1984–present
Website	carterburwell.com

Carter Benedict Burwell (born November 18, 1954) is an American composer of film scores. He has consistently collaborated with the Coen brothers, having scored most of their films, including Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, No Country For Old Men, Burn After Reading, Hail, Caesar! and The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. Burwell has also scored three of Todd Haynes's films, three of Spike Jonze's films, and all the films of Martin McDonagh. He has received Oscar nominations for Best Original Score for Haynes's Carol (2015) and McDonagh's Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017).

Early life and education

Burwell was born in New York City, the son of Natalie (née Benedict), a math teacher, and Charles Burwell, who founded Thaibok Fabrics, Ltd. He graduated from King School in Stamford, Connecticut with George Hofecker and other notables and Harvard College, where he was a cartoonist for The Harvard Lampoon.

Career

As a film composer, Burwell has had a long-working relationship with the Coen brothers, providing music for every film they have made (except for O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Inside Llewyn Davis, which had folk music soundtracks produced by T-Bone Burnett). Among his best known film scores are Miller's Crossing (1990), And the Band Played On (1993), Conspiracy Theory (1997), Hamlet (2000), The Spanish Prisoner (1997), Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007), In Bruges (2008), Twilight (2008), Where the Wild Things Are (2009), The Blind Side (2009), and Breaking Dawn - Part 1 (2011) and Part 2 (2012). Burwell wrote and recorded the original score for the film The Bourne Identity, but his version was replaced by director Doug Liman for one by John Powell.

Ultimately the ethos of the punk rock movement gave Burwell the impetus to start performing. He performed in New York with several bands, notably The Same, Thick Pigeon, and Radiante. Burwell played in Thick Pigeon with Stanton Miranda; the group released two albums, Too Crazy Cowboys (Factory) and tracks on Miranda Dali (Crepuscule), originally released as a Miranda solo project but later reissued as a Thick Pigeon release. On Burwell's soundtrack for Psycho III, Miranda was a featured singer.

By 1986 he had composed the music for a dance piece, RAB, which premiered at the Avignon Festival. At the same time, he was touring worldwide with The Harmonic Choir, David Hykes' experimental vocal group, which specialized in overtone singing.

Burwell used the country music genre as the basis for his score for the Coens' Raising Arizona in 1987. From 1982 to 1987 he worked at the New York Institute of Technology.

His work has alternated between live performance, dance and theater commissions, and film scoring. His chamber opera, The Celestial Alphabet Event, was presented in New York in 1991, and other theater pieces include Mother (1994) and Lucia's Chapters (2007), both with the experimental theater group Mabou Mines.

In April 2005 Burwell composed and conducted music performed by The Parabola Ensemble for the plays Sawbones, written and directed by the Coen brothers, Hope Leaves the Theater, written and directed by Charlie Kaufman, and Anomalisa, written and directed by Kaufman as Francis Fregoli. This was a segment of the sound-only production "Theater of the New Ear", which debuted at St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn, New York, with support from Sirius Satellite Radio. It was also performed at the Royal Festival Hall in London, England, in May 2005, and at Royce Hall in Los Angeles, California, in September 2005, as part of the UCLA Live Festival.

In 2009, Burwell was the recipient of the ASCAP Henry Mancini Award from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. In 2010, he was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score for Where the Wild Things Are.

In 2015, he received the Distinguished Film Composer award from the Middleburg Film Festival, and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association award for Best Music Score for Anomalisa and Carol. He was nominated for the Annie Award for Music in an Animated Feature Production for Anomalisa and the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score for Carol. In 2016, he received the Satellite Award for Best Original Score and the Best Score award by the International Cinephile Society for Carol. Burwell was awarded Film Composer of the Year by the World Soundtrack Awards, and the score for Carol received the Public Choice Award for the Best Score of the Year.

Burwell received his first Academy Award for Best Original Score nomination for Carol, and his second for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.

Personal life

Burwell married Christine Sciulli in 1999.

As of 2022 Burwell lives in Napeague, New York.

Filmography

Films

Year	Title	Director	Notes
1984	Blood Simple	Joel Coen Ethan Coen	N/A
1985	A Hero of Our Time	Michael Almereyda	Short film
	R.A.B.L.	Patrice M. Regnier
1986	Psycho III	Anthony Perkins	Psycho themes by Bernard Herrmann
1987	Raising Arizona	Joel Coen Ethan Coen	N/A
	Pass the Ammo	David Beaird	N/A
	The Beat	Paul Mones	N/A
1988	It Takes Two	David Beaird	N/A
	Checking Out	David Leland	N/A
1990	Miller's Crossing	Joel Coen Ethan Coen	N/A
1991	Barton Fink		N/A
	Doc Hollywood	Michael Caton-Jones	N/A
	Scorchers	David Beaird	N/A
1992	Buffy the Vampire Slayer	Fran Rubel Kuzui	N/A
	Waterland	Stephen Gyllenhaal	N/A
	Storyville	Mark Frost	N/A
1993	This Boy's Life	Michael Caton-Jones	N/A
	Kalifornia	Dominic Sena	N/A
	A Dangerous Woman	Stephen Gyllenhaal	N/A
	Wayne's World 2	Stephen Surjik	N/A
1994	The Hudsucker Proxy	Joel Coen Ethan Coen	N/A
	It Could Happen to You	Andrew Bergman	N/A
	Airheads	Michael Lehmann	Replaced David Newman
1995	Bad Company	Damian Harris	N/A
	A Goofy Movie	Kevin Lima	Composed with Don Davis. Burwell's first score for a animated film.
	Rob Roy	Michael Caton-Jones	N/A
	The Celluloid Closet	Rob Epstein Jeffrey Friedman	Documentary film
	Two Bits	James Foley	N/A
1996	Fargo	Joel Coen Ethan Coen	N/A
			N/A
	Fear	James Foley	N/A
	Joe's Apartment	John Payson	N/A
	The Chamber	James Foley	N/A
1997	Picture Perfect	Glenn Gordon Caron	N/A
	Assassin(s)	Mathieu Kassovitz	N/A
	Conspiracy Theory	Richard Donner	N/A
	The Locusts	John Patrick Kelley	N/A
	The Spanish Prisoner	David Mamet	N/A
	Girls Night Out	Myra Paci	Short film
	The Jackal	Michael Caton-Jones	N/A
1998	Gods and Monsters	Bill Condon	N/A
	Mercury Rising	Harold Becker	Composed with John Barry
	The Big Lebowski	Joel Coen Ethan Coen	N/A
	Velvet Goldmine	Todd Haynes	N/A
	The Hi-Lo Country	Stephen Frears	N/A
1999	The Corruptor	James Foley	N/A
	The General's Daughter	Simon West	N/A
	Being John Malkovich	Spike Jonze	N/A
	Three Kings	David O. Russell	N/A
	Mystery, Alaska	Jay Roach	N/A
2000	Hamlet	Michael Almereyda	N/A
	What Planet Are You From?	Mike Nichols	N/A
	Before Night Falls	Julian Schnabel	N/A
	Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2	Joe Berlinger	N/A
2001	A Knight's Tale	Brian Helgeland	N/A
	The Man Who Wasn't There	Joel Coen Ethan Coen	Nominated—BAFTA Award for Best Film Music
2002	The Rookie	John Lee Hancock	N/A
	Searching for Paradise	Myra Paci	N/A
	Simone	Andrew Niccol	N/A
	Adaptation.	Spike Jonze	N/A
2003	Intolerable Cruelty	Joel Coen Ethan Coen	N/A
2004	The Ladykillers		N/A
	The Alamo	John Lee Hancock	N/A
	Kinsey	Bill Condon	N/A
2006	Fur	Steven Shainberg	N/A
	The Hoax	Lasse Hallström	N/A
2007	No Country for Old Men	Joel Coen Ethan Coen	N/A
	Before the Devil Knows You're Dead	Sidney Lumet	N/A
2008	In Bruges	Martin McDonagh	N/A
	Burn After Reading	Joel Coen Ethan Coen	N/A
	Twilight	Catherine Hardwicke	N/A
2009	A Serious Man	Joel Coen Ethan Coen	N/A
	Where the Wild Things Are	Spike Jonze	Nominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score
	The Blind Side	John Lee Hancock	N/A
2010	Howl	Rob Epstein Jeffrey Friedman	N/A
	The Kids Are All Right	Lisa Cholodenko	Composed with Nathan Larson & Craig Wedren
	True Grit	Joel Coen Ethan Coen	N/A
2011	Midnight Run	Neil Shelley	Short film
	The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1	Bill Condon	N/A
2012	Seven Psychopaths	Martin McDonagh	N/A
	The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2	Bill Condon	N/A
2013	The Fifth Estate		N/A
2015	Mr. Holmes		N/A
	Carol	Todd Haynes	Satellite Award for Best Original Score Nominated—Academy Award for Best Original Score Nominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score
	The Family Fang	Jason Bateman	N/A
	Legend	Brian Helgeland	N/A
	Anomalisa	Charlie Kaufman Duke Johnson	N/A
2016	The Finest Hours	Craig Gillespie	N/A
	Hail, Caesar!	Joel Coen Ethan Coen	N/A
	The Founder	John Lee Hancock	N/A
2017	Wonderstruck	Todd Haynes	Nominated—Saturn Award for Best Music
	Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri	Martin McDonagh	Nominated—Academy Award for Best Original Score Nominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score
	Goodbye Christopher Robin	Simon Curtis	N/A
2018	The Ballad of Buster Scruggs	Joel Coen Ethan Coen	N/A
2019	Missing Link	Chris Butler	N/A
	The Good Liar	Bill Condon	N/A
2021	The Tragedy of Macbeth	Joel Coen	N/A
TBA	Catherine, Called Birdy	Lena Dunham	N/A

Television

Year	Title	Network	Notes
1990–1991	Clash!	Ha! / Comedy Central	Main title theme
1993	And the Band Played On	HBO	Television film
2011	Mildred Pierce		Miniseries; 5 episodes Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Composition for a Miniseries, Movie, or a Special Nominated—Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Main Title Theme Music
2011	Enlightened		Episode: “Pilot”
2014	Olive Kitteridge		Miniseries; 4 episodes
2019–present	The Morning Show	Apple TV+
2020	Space Force	Netflix	Season 1 only

External links

• Carter Burwell on IMDb
• Thick Pigeon bio at LTM