: (Clint Mansell) Whether you are a devout
fundamentalist Christian or a godless secular liberal, you have to
admire the audacity of director, writer, and producer Darren Aronofsky,
who, with the help of writer Ari Handel, took a very brief passage from
the Bible and managed to flesh it out into a pensively timeless action
affair in
. While the 2014 film was destined to stir
discontent from certain sectors of the Christian right (not to mention
its total ban in Islamic nations), Aronofsky's vision manages to examine
the tale from both evolutionary and environmentalist perspectives,
essentially applying the concept to modern cultural advancements. Some
involved with the production viewed their efforts as a contemporary
re-imagining of the source material while others went so far as to
allude to the possibility that
is vaguely enough conceived
that it could take place in the far future. Regardless of the backlash,
an anticipated issue that caused significant friction between Aronofsky
and Paramount in the post-production of the film (you can only imagine
the test screenings for religious audiences that came back negative),
the movie was a hit with many critics and mainstream audiences,
validating the director's liberal interpretations of the story and its
shifting into the action realm. In that regard, it isn't significantly
different from any fantasy adventure topic of deeply contemplative
origins. That perspective is clearly how composer Clint Mansell
approached the project's music. The regular musical collaborator of
Aronofsky, the pop musician-turned-film composer has received the bulk
of his acclaim from the industry for his unconventional music for
Aronofsky favorites like
in the latter half of the 2000's.
These scores, aside from the adaptation of Piotr Tchaikovsky's "Swan
Lake" in
, have proven to be an acquired taste,
Mansell's style of composition experimentally atmospheric and relying
upon cerebral blends of traditional and electronic instrumentation to
produce what many listeners refer to as glorified sound design. That
isn't to say that Mansell hasn't attempted a typical motific film score;
the comparatively brainless
is a rousing adventure work
that is more the sound of orchestrator and conductor Nicholas Dodd than
anything else.
Given Mansell's unpredictable history of film score
writing, the first thing any learned genre collector may do is
investigate the orchestrator, arranger, and conductor of
Noah. In
this case, it is Matt Dunkley, which should tell the collector that the
ambient style of this score will jettison the bolder tones of Dodd's
work for David Arnold in favor of the weightier, melodramatic tone of
Craig Armstrong's music, for which Dunkley has been often been a
contributor. Upon listening to
Noah, the structural connections
between Mansell's product and the fluidly orchestrated, long crescendos
of a typical Armstrong dramatic cue are to be heard. It's important to
discuss first, however, what the music for
Noah is
not.
Some listeners will be grateful while others crushed by the simple fact
that
Noah is not
The Fountain. The cerebral restraint and
unconventional instrumentation is still there, but whereas
The
Fountain is an ambient mess best understood while on drugs,
Noah actually makes perfect sense for the chemically unaided
listener and follows more conventional scoring procedures. On the other
hand,
Noah is not a blow-by-blow action score, tackling its
scenes with greater emotional appeal through lengthy development of
thematic ideas and textures that don't adhere to specific
synchronization points. Additionally, Mansell makes no attempt to create
a soundscape authentic to the era of the original tale, completely
bypassing the Mychael Danna route in favor of a continued blend of the
orchestral and synthetic that relies once again upon the composer's
relationship with the Kronos Quartet to enunciate the emotional heart of
the score. That said, there is more orchestral beef to this score than
in most Mansell efforts, and the application of the electric guitar and
synthesizers to the work confirms his aim at making the score as
timeless as the picture attempts to be. Some listeners will be offended
just as much by the music as they are the modern interpretation of the
tale simply because of Mansell's handling of the instrumentation. Before
anyone blasphemously compares this music to the hideous
inappropriateness of the scores in the
300 franchise, it's
important to recognize that Mansell has successfully navigated his
chosen route by making the specialty elements in his work, whether the
quartet and acoustic guitar or the electric guitar and grating
electronic textures, only a contributing part of the soundscape instead
of defining elements of it.
For listeners who balk at the contemporary edge to
Noah's music, consider, for a moment, the music provided by Hans
Zimmer and Lorne Balfe for the popular miniseries "The Bible" in 2013
(and its spin-offs thereafter). Whereas the Zimmer and Balfe music was
sterile, synthetic muck on a shoestring budget, Mansell has produced a
properly tuned score that is more effectively appropriate for any topic
out of the Bible. Why should Zimmer be praised and Mansell therefore
vilified by Christian communities? Some may argue that the easy
inspirational themes of the Zimmer and Balfe effort appeal better to a
primordial sense of goodness, but that's taking the cheap route. Mansell
writes several themes for
Noah, including a long-lined identity
for the titular character that becomes especially pronounced in the
second half of the score, a two-note descending minor third for the
villain, Tubal-cain, and an appropriately meandering identity for God
that is sparingly applied. The first two themes are present throughout
the score and await your discovery in many forms. They may not receive
heralded, triumphant performances in the way Alfred Newman or Miklos
Rosza would have enunciated them for the biblical epics of yesteryear,
but that doesn't mean that Mansell doesn't unleash them in full-blown
satisfactory harmony at times; both "Make Thee an Ark" and "Day and
Night Shall Not Cease" are extremely attractive cues that exude the
necessary historical importance of the moment while also incorporating
an electric guitar and other synthetic accompaniment. Specifically,
"Make Thee an Ark" is likely the highlight of Mansell's career to this
point, his blend of vaguely ancient tones and modern sensibilities
extremely astute, especially with the addition of the choir and Taiko
drums at the end. The entire score takes the best intentions of the
thoughtfulness behind
The Fountain are translates enough of
Sahara's instrumentation and motific adherence to norms into the
equation to produce an entertaining middle ground. The song at the end,
while not written by Mansell, is arranged and orchestrated by him and
Dunkley and uses the score's motifs and general tone in the background.
Interestingly, Patti Smith's vocal characteristics (and the sadness of
the composition) will remind heavily of Angelo Badalamenti's eerie "Who
Will Take My Dreams Away?" from
The City of Lost Children. This
song, along with the score, will leave a sour note with some listeners
expecting more blatant reverence or action, but Mansell really has
excelled at matching Aronofsky's continued, eccentric views on life,
and, in
Noah, that work yields a solid listening experience on
album.
**** @Amazon.com: CD or
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