| CLOSE WINDOW |
|
FILMTRACKS.COM
PRINTER-FRIENDLY VIEW 
Review of Noah (Clint Mansell)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you respect Clint Mansell's ability to reflect the
eccentricities of director Darren Aronofsky in his music, in this case
yielding the typically thoughtful result while also striving for
satisfyingly engaging emotional extroversion.
Avoid it... if you are either a Christian fundamentalist looking as usual for any reason to find offense with contemporary interpretations or, conversely, if you expect Mansell to stew solely in ambient sound design akin to some of his prior heralded works.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Noah: (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 Noah. 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 Noah 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 Requiem for a Dream, The
Fountain, and Black Swan in the latter half of the 2000's.
These scores, aside from the adaptation of Piotr Tchaikovsky's "Swan
Lake" in Black Swan, 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 Sahara 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. ****
TRACK LISTINGS:
Total Time: 78:30
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert includes a list of performers but no extra information about the score or film.
Copyright ©
2014-2024, Filmtracks Publications. All rights reserved.
The reviews and other textual content contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Christian Clemmensen at Filmtracks Publications. All artwork and sound clips from Noah are Copyright © 2014, Nonesuch Records and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 4/20/14 (and not updated significantly since). |
