Carter Burwell recently took to discussing his latest in a long line of collaborations with the Coen Brothers on their upcoming Western revenge film “True Grit,” which stars Matt Damon, Jeff Bridges, Josh Brolin and Hailee Steinfeld.
Burwell has scored every film of the Coens beginning with “Blood Simple” and found that when it came to their latest work, things came together quicker than expected. The musician explained to The Film Experience that “we don’t always see eye to eye [but for “True Grit”] we both had the same idea at the same time: Protestant hymns.”
The concept was reportedly chosen as a thematic fit for the righteous journey of the film’s lead, Mattie Ross (Steinfeld), though Burwell noted that he was still only in “research mode” and that everything he’d heard so far “all sound too sweet” for his liking.
One idea he had given thought to was “a sort of call and response feel to the theme, a solo instrument echoing back since Mattie is marching off alone, determined into dangerous territory to find her father’s killer and recruiting others to join her.” The musician did warn that early conceptualizing often differed significant to the final product but hopefully he’s only taking precautions — we’re already growing attached to the idea of absorbing hymns driving Ross’ journey.
As for any connections to 1969’s “True Grit,” Burwell concluded that “we’re trying to go back to the book as much as possible and ignore that film.”
The film is currently shooting in Sante Fe from a script we felt has great potential to be another Coens classic and tonally is somewhere in between “No Country For Old Men” and “A Serious Man.” It’ll hit theaters Christmas Day.