Top 11 Quotes & Sayings by Alex North

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American composer Alex North.

Last updated on December 22, 2024.

Alex North was an American composer best known for his many film scores, including A Streetcar Named Desire, Viva Zapata!, Spartacus, Cleopatra, and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? He was the first composer to receive an Honorary Academy Award, but never won a competitive Oscar despite fifteen nominations.

American - Composer | December 4, 1910 - September 8, 1991

Source: Wikipedia

Today it's not culture; it's box office.

Alex North

When I decided to go to a country that subsidized music, I went to the Soviet Union for two years.

Alex North

There are scores you have to write objectively without getting involved.

Alex North

I like what I hear as a resulting combination of these two strands... something of a combination of familiarity and, for lack of a better word, strangeness.

Alex North

I prefer to write music for family films. I like people.

Alex North

Being an old radical, I like films like Spartacus. I could relate to the hero.

Alex North

Fear is a problem with film music and films; people want to be conventional, and there's more commercialism today. If you are not daring in your art, you're bankrupt.

Alex North

Composers today get a TV script on Friday and have to record on Tuesday. It's just dreadful to impose on gifted talent and expect decent music under these conditions.

Alex North

The United States and Turkey are the only two countries that don't have some kind of subsidy for the Arts. The whole culture in society has made certain films more acceptable. I turned down so many films in the '60s and '70s.

Alex North

My best film composing experience was with Elia Kazan.

Alex North

There are so few directors who are musical who appreciate music.

Alex North