| CLOSE WINDOW |
|
FILMTRACKS.COM
PRINTER-FRIENDLY VIEW 
Review of Requiem for a Dream (Clint Mansell)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you fully appreciate the mind-numbingly depressing
demeanor of the film and are prepared for an equally heavy and sparsely
abstract score from Clint Mansell, a clear precursor to his music for
The Fountain.
Avoid it... if you demand clarity of direction, complexity in construct, or redemption at the end of this extremely dulling, morbidly ambient listening experience.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Requiem for a Dream: (Clint Mansell) Does anybody
wonder why the suicide rate in America is so high these days? Is it
because of the population's collective struggles with addiction? Or is
it, perhaps, in part due to extraordinarily depressing depictions of
addiction and personal collapse like Darren Aronofsky's 2000 film
Requiem for a Dream? If you're a hopeless optimist, then films
like this exist only as a result of the alternatively sick-minded
segment of society, one willing to visualize the destruction of people
in order to make statements about the nature of addiction and other
unsavory topics. Indeed, Requiem for a Dream is as depressing a
film as any you could imagine, telling of four lives ruined by
everything from heroin to weight-loss pills and delusion. Aronofsky's
unconventional methods of shooting and cutting the film, using extreme
close-ups and rapid cuts to convey the haphazard consciousness of each
character, is almost as disturbing as the content itself, which was
based on a 1978 novel of the same name. As a piece of art, Requiem
for a Dream excels, but it does so by exploiting a subject matter
that is more likely to repulse the mainstream public than induce the
desired provocation of thought. Because of graphic sex incorporated into
the film, Aronofsky had to fight the dreaded NC-17 rating handed down by
the MPAA, eventually choosing to release it without a rating rather than
sacrifice the integrity of the work. Not unexpectedly, Requiem for a
Dream was destined to be embraced by only a cult following, and its
$4 million budget led to $7 million in grosses despite some attention
from various awarding bodies for its acting performances. Met with an
equally cult-like reception was Clint Mansell's music for the film.
While much praise has been showered upon the composer for the sparse,
but effective approach he took toward addressing the incredibly somber
tone of Requiem for a Dream, the limiting of the performing group
to the string group Kronos Quartet and the composer himself on
electronics was as much a financial decision as it was an artistic one.
Mansell, once a vocalist for the British group Pop Will Eat Itself, and
Aronofsky had collaborated previously on Pi (resulting in a
meandering electronica score) and the composer's score for the
director's forthcoming The Fountain would yield a fan response
similar to that of Requiem for a Dream (but exceeding it in terms
of volume).
The music for these films features such a distinct, neo-classical blend of electronics and chamber music that it gains attention simply for being different, not to mention that this style compliments the dream-like environment that Aronofsky so often exploits. Mansell has a knack for assigning an appropriate "stream of consciousness" sound to the director's sometimes ambiguous narrative flow. If the film oppressively strikes you over the head like a blunt instrument, Mansell's music does precisely the same in a more confined period of time on album. You have to laugh at all of the rabid fans of this score who claim that it is a "complex" or "complicated" piece of work. Such descriptions come from those for whom this kind of music is mesmerizing but difficult to actually quantify. In fact, the reason it works for these people is because of exactly the opposite of their claims. Being different in tone doesn't necessarily mean there was any complex thought process behind a musical creation. Not only is the depth of this composition hindered by the five performers, but the constructs are repetitive and simplistic and the mix is extremely intimate. For the handling of a topic like addiction, which requires a single-minded focus on only one thing at a time, this simplicity is vitally important. The same music phrases are pounded into you by the composer because the film entails a hopeless spiral of personal defeat that is tethered by a similar lack of freedom. Mansell applies the quartet as he would basic loops from his synthesizers, never allowing them any significant exploration outside of harsh, staccato strikes in patterns that usually restrain themselves to basic minor third progressions that are boneheaded in terms of intelligence. His motifs in Requiem for a Dream include a rising three-note phrase in "Summer Overture" and thereafter, a longer, more nebulous ghost phrase heard in cues of that title (and this is where the only sense of fluid movement almost exists), and a barely keyboarded, airy dream motif existing in cues likewise of that title. The primary, three-note motif is overlayed by the minor-third alternating motif in "Lux Aeterna" to produce the score's highlight, a piece that, despite its morbidly desolate nature, has worked its way into several high profile movie trailers since. These motifs, while usually present in some form or another, are generally overshadowed by the heavy ambient tone of the string performances and Mansell's electronics. Some cues dissolve into very basic synthetic droning with random plucks and strikes at low volumes. To say that Requiem for a Dream has anything more than a "mood-setting score" is giving it too much credit, for it structurally doesn't strive for much development. There is a rolling sense of the inevitable that Mansell does manage to incorporate into the work, however, with the desperation on screen leading to portions of "The Beginning of the End" and "Meltdown" that are so horrific in their synthetic manipulation of the quartet that they are completely unlistenable. The two "Conga" cues are equally obnoxious to a purposeful end. Ultimately, too much of the score for Requiem for a Dream is unanchored by anything other than its depressing tone to be appreciated by anyone outside of the sphere of people attracted to the film. It's so morbidly tense and traumatic in some places and numbing of the brain in others that it cannot receive any kind of blind recommendation. Some praise was given to Mansell for his application of hip, dance-like rhythms to the quartet, highlighted by the early "Party" cues. Unfortunately, this material is so infrequent in Requiem for a Dream that it becomes a curiosity on the side. It owes much to Craig Armstrong's blending of organic sounds with super-cool loops for settings like this, but Armstrong, as in Plunkett and Macleane, has produced this sound with so much more romantic warmth (the symphonic and choral power helps, of course) that it's difficult to appreciate similar ideas stripped back to such basics. What many listeners regard as a "radical" score for Requiem for a Dream is actually an adept but very simplistic musical soundscape for a film as depressing as any in recent history. Some will claim this music to be hypnotic, but those will consist of fans who can mellow out to this music while turning their attention to something else. If you're looking for the kind of intrigue that Elliot Goldenthal conjured with the help of Kronos Quartet in Heat, then you will be disappointed. Even more than The Fountain, Requiem for a Dream is a frightfully overrated work. A schizophrenic album presentation that mixes all of the short cues together to form several difficult moments of discord in transition was eventually accompanied by a remix album two years later that pushed many of Mansell's ideas into the heavy dance and trance genres. For film score collectors accustomed to structural and performance depth, Requiem for a Dream will slap you the face with its repetitively simplistic and generally unpleasant character. That, of course, makes it functional for the film... but, then again, who watches films like this for mere entertainment value? **
TRACK LISTINGS:
Total Time: 50:32
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert includes no extra information about the score or film. The album
concludes with sound effects attributed to the waves and seagulls of Coney Island,
with no musical element whatsoever in the concluding track.
Copyright ©
2009-2024, 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 Requiem for a Dream are Copyright © 2000, Nonesuch Records and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 10/10/09 (and not updated significantly since). |
