Elmer Bernstein Quotations

When you stop to think about it, so many films today where we don't have that kind of contact are films about alienation. About alienated feelings. We are much more alienated from our colleagues nowadays.

I'm generally pessimistic about the dumbing down of America - especially with summer movies.

I thought in terms of the enthusiasm of doing it. I didn't think about whether I was ready.

Today you have something like A Film by Joe Harry. That is patently asinine and ridiculous.

I would do the occasional score. I thought it was the most thrilling thing. It was instant. You made the music and they played it right away to millions of people. I found it thrilling.

There's no way I can compete with someone who can write rap or rock and roll. Nor do I wish to. But I've always kept up to date with music changes. I worked very hard not to type myself.

I did 10 years of comedies and 10 years of Westerns. I really like to stay away from car chases. I prefer the more intimate film. You have a much more direct association with the emotions.

It was a great way to work. In those days, you had to be there. It was your world. It was your club. Your friends were there, your associates were there, your security was there.

I made my way on to a grey list, a black list even. That's something I'm very proud of, actually.

One of the things that happens in the business is that success is a very strange thing in that if you are involved in something very successful the next person wants you to repeat it.

Victor Young had been hired to write the score for the dances of The Ten Commandments but he became very ill. You were then hired to write the score. But at the same time you'd written The Man with the Golden Arm score.

You wouldn't think it would but my parents were really balanced about that. When it came time for me to be out of the house and out on my own they were very supportive.

Jerry Goldsmith is the #1 composer working now. He's open to new ideas and always inventing.

All of a sudden I found myself doing things like 'Robot Monster' and 'Cat-Women of the Moon,' and I didn't know what the devil was going on. But if you're going to do areally bad movie, at least you do one that is at the top of the all-time bad-movie list.