Barry Sonnenfeld

The story goes that composer Carter Burwell owes his fortuitous, ongoing collaboration with the filmmaking's Brothers Coen to one crucial requirement: he worked cheap. But the Coens' low-budget film noir debut, Blood Simple (which also launched the career of cinematographer-turned-director Barry Sonnenfeld), certainly got the best of the bargain, a wonderfully less-is-more score highlighted by a compelling solo piano theme. For the Coens' next film, Raising Arizona, a darkly goofy kidnapping-themed comic vehicle for Nicolas Cage and Holly Hunter, Burwell veered bravely into the ozone, mixing heavily Gothic organ, soaring sopranos, bluegrass banjo, whistlers, synths, yodelers, and samples of what sounds like a tin can being kicked down the longest hill in the world into a delightfully heady farrago that recalls Morricone at his most mischievous.