“It’s one thing to write music that reinforces a film, underscores it—the traditional sense of stressing, underlining—or gives it added dramatic muscle. It’s entirely another to write music that graces a film. That’s what Elmer Bernstein does, and that, for me, is his greatest gift. I don’t mean just talent, either; the music he writes is a gift to all of us. In ‘The Age of Innocence’ Elmer’s score had to adapt to the style and pace of the language, as well as meet all the additional and more usual dramatic requirement of composing for the screen. We had no lengthy discussions about this, but when we laid in the score the first time it flowed over the narration like a clear-running brook.”