THEY SHOOT, HE SCORES

How Carter Burwell writes film music that keeps audiences guessing.

- DAVID OWEN

In May, the composer Carter Burwell for Martin McDonagh's new movie, "The Banshees of Inisherin." The sessions took place in Studio Two at Abbey Road the Beatles' old studio. The ensemble consisted of six violins, four violas, three cellos, two double-basses, a flute, a clarinet, and a harp. Burwell, who is sixty-seven, stood on a low platform and opened an annotated copy of the music on a large stand in front of him. He has wavy gray hair and a soul patch the size of a blob of shaving cream, and he was wearing jeans and an untucked collared shirt with a flower print.

"For some reason, there's a magnet and a nail on my music stand," he told the group. "I hope I don't have to use them." "Banshees" is set on a small island

off the Irish mainland in 1923. Early in the film, Colm Doherty, a fiddler, played by Brendan Gleeson, tells his longtime best friend, Pádraic Súilleabháin, played by Colin Farrell, that he no longer wants anything to do with him, because he's so boring.

"The other night, two hours you spent talking to me about the things you found in your little donkey's shite that day," Colm says.

"It was me pony's shite, which shows how much you were listening," Pádraic replies.

Colm threatens to cut off one of his own fingers if Pádraic ever speaks to him again. (Colm owns an ominously large pair of sheep shears, which, just lying on a table, could nearly account for the film's R rating.) When Burwell