Even if you’ve never seen Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream there’s a good chance you’ve heard part of Clint Mansell’s iconic score. For a couple years there in the early-‘aughts, the title theme “Lux Aeterna” was everywhere: videogame commercials, action movie trailers (most notably for The Lord of the Rings: Two Motherfuckin’ Towers), as an omnipresent novelty ringtone sung by UK pop sensation Crazy Frog, etc. Typically, these secondary appropriations used a turbocharged, full-orchestra version of “Lux,” but the original Requiem version is still best. Over a ragged mid-tempo techno beat, the great Kronos Quartet wrings every last bit of psychodrama out of their 16 collective strings—the rich, deep, resonance of their wooden instruments spotlighting the empty space around the margins of Mansell’s composition. The effect is one of doomed loneliness; a pre-credits warning that the film’s four junkie protagonists are headed nowhere good. Elsewhere, Mansell and the Kronos Kidz stab, soar, and float, creating moments of tension, romance, beauty, hope, and horror. It’s a diverse range of moods and emotions, but it’s all aesthetically consistent. Put this on your headphones, and life instantly becomes more dramatic. Addictive.
I so intensely detest this film, that its score’s main theme has become the soundtrack of preachiness for me. I understand it made it to the list, though.
Excellent write up for an excellent score, regardless of one’s thoughts on the film and its now tragic fate amongst thousands of youtube “epic fantasy playlist” videos. Especially, “spotlighting the empty space around the margins of Mansell’s composition” is a really good and insightful clause, nailing exactly what it is about this score that just really can’t leave you and ultimately does the heavy work of nailing the emotional reality of a film that is, for all intents and purposes, pure drug-scare melodrama.
I so intensely detest this film, that its score’s main theme has become the soundtrack of preachiness for me. I understand it made it to the list, though.
Excellent write up for an excellent score, regardless of one’s thoughts on the film and its now tragic fate amongst thousands of youtube “epic fantasy playlist” videos. Especially, “spotlighting the empty space around the margins of Mansell’s composition” is a really good and insightful clause, nailing exactly what it is about this score that just really can’t leave you and ultimately does the heavy work of nailing the emotional reality of a film that is, for all intents and purposes, pure drug-scare melodrama.