Arts & Ideas

Carter Burwell is famed for scoring the films of the iconic Coen Brothers, from 1984's Blood Simple to Raising Arizona, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, and No Country for Old Men; they have one of the longest standing collaborations in the industry. Burwell was born in New York City where in the 1980s he played in a number of punk bands and worked at the New York Institute of Technology where he was first approached by the Coens. He talks to Tom Service about how he goes about approaching each score, for the Coen Brothers as well as other regular collaborators Bill Condon (The Twilight Saga, Breaking Dawn, Gods and Monsters), Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation), and Martin McDonagh (In Bruges, Seven Psychopaths).

As part of the BBC's Sound of Cinema season, Tom Service talks to ten-time Academy Award nominee James Horner. Horner was born in Los Angeles but spent his early years in London and studied at the Royal College of Music before returning to California to pursue a doctorate in composition. Having initially intended composing concert music he fell into the film industry more or less by accident. His award winning collaboration with James Cameron has spanned three decades, from Aliens in 1986 to the biggest selling soundtrack of all time Titanic, and most recently 2009's Avatar, and he has also regularly worked with Ron Howard (A Beautiful Mind, Apollo 13), and Mel Gibson (Braveheart, Apocalypto).

Acclaimed director Ken Loach and composer George Fenton have collaborated on fourteen films together in the last two decades. Beginning in 1994 with Ladybird Ladybird, they have worked together on titles including Sweet Sixteen, My Name is Joe, Looking for Eric, and the Palme d'Or-winning The Wind that Shakes the Barley. Currently working on a new release for 2014 being filmed in Ireland, they take time out to talk to Tom Service about the role of music in Ken's films - how it can make the specific universal and bring to the fore real emotions rather than false ones.

In the light of recent revelations about feuding in the Labour party does it make sense to demand or even expect loyalty from people in public life? Two former newspaper editors, Andreas Whittam Smith and David Yelland will be joining Philip Dodd to give their opinions. Also in the programme the historian, Tom Holland, will be sharing his passion for Herodotus; Tim Clark and Rosina Butler will be discussing the evolution of the Japanese erotic print; and the Magnum photographer, Martin Parr will be paying tribute to one of his gurus - the late Tony Ray Jones.

In the first of three special programmes from ZSL London Zoo, Matthew Sweet examines the Zoo as cultural institution. Matthew discusses the Zoo's current incarnation as conservation centre with ZSL's Zoological Director David Field and head of the Tiger Conservation Programme Sarah Christie, and takes a tour of the Zoo with architecture critic Ellis Woodman to explore the peculiarities of designing housing for animals.

A Landmark edition recorded in front of an audience at the British Film Institute as part of the Sound of Cinema season: Matthew Sweet is joined by the film's stars Peter Wyngarde and Clytie Jessop, psychoanalyst Susie Orbach, writer and critic Christopher Frayling and stage and screenwriter Jeremy Dyson to examine the British horror classic The Innocents. They explore how the combination of cinematography, the script of William Archibald and Truman Capote and Georges Auric's original music and the direction of Jack Clayton created a masterpiece that terrified even the critics.

Actor Rory Kinnear, currently playing Iago at the National Theatre, discusses the challenges of writing his first play. Samira Ahmed talks to the Australian Art exhibition curator at The RA and to Edmund Capon, former director of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, whose television series The Art of Australia starts next month. Kit Davis assesses a landmark of American cinema, Michael Roemer's 1964 film Nothing But A Man. And Roger Highfield and Eliane Glaser discuss the idea of the scientist as hero and curator of wonder.

Anne McElvoy talks to celebrated Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood whose latest novel MaddAddam competes her dystopian trilogy that began a decade ago with Oryx and Crake and continued six years later with The Year of the Flood.

Historian Simon Schama joins Philip Dodd to discuss his book and TV series The Story of the Jews. Stephen Hopgood and Clive Stafford Smith debate the pros and cons of the human rights industry, and whether it has shifted to serve Western interests. Director Beeban Kidron on her documentary InRealLife, which explores the impact of the internet on children and young people.

John le Carré, celebrated British novelist of Cold War espionage, discusses his life and the origins of The Spy Who Came In From The Cold. He explores Berlin spycraft, betrayals like Philby, the moral costs of intelligence work, Snowden and whistleblowers, outsourcing of security, corporate influence on politics, and how personal history shaped his fiction.