Thursday, February 23rd, 2012
Gill McLean reports on a Swan Lake marriage made in dark cinematic heaven.
Cinema is full of classic couplings, my current favourite is Darren Aronofsky and Clint Mansell.
Aronofsky has made five films so far, starting with Pi in 1998, all of them with musical input by Mansell. Their latest project is Black Swan, a retelling of Swan Lake set against the backdrop of a ballet company who are putting on, guess what, Swan Lake.
Although there are only three Mansell tracks in Pi it is these tracks which resonated throughout the film, almost making the featured tracks by the likes of Aphex Twin and Orbital seem redundant.
Then came Requiem For A Dream in 2000, a haunting masterpiece where the music is every bit as important as the cinematography.
The Fountain in 2006 was a commercial flop, although the critically acclaimed soundtrack was, rightfully, nominated for many awards – the film was actually booed by several critics at The Venice Film festival. In 2008 the duo reunited on The Wrestler, which won several awards and resulted in Academy Award nominations for Mickey Rourke and Marisa Tomei in the Leading Actor and Supporting Actress categories.
Black Swan sees Mansell taking Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake and interpreting it in his own way, with impressive results. This sounds like the most ambitious soundtrack oftheir partnership, but it’s possibly the most fitting – and it’s a grandiose follow on to Mansell’s minimalist, perfect, soundtrack to Duncan (Zowie Bowie) Jones’ Moon.
These two men may have made mistakes over their careers, but they seem to work perfectly together – perhaps because they started their film careers together.
If you watch their five collaborative efforts you’ll find yourself agreeing that this is an audio/visual partnership on the same scale as Hitchcock/Herman, Burton/Elfman or Lucas/Williams (not Lucas/Walliams).
What are your favourite movie double acts? Comments welcome.
Gill McLean is a wowdewow blogger.
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Tags: Aphex Twin, Black Swan, Clint Mansell, Darren Aronofsky, orbital, pi, swan lake, Tchaikovsky
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