In the spirit of Laurie Anderson and John Cage, Clint Mansell makes his own minimalist statement here. He provides the perfect mentalscape for a movie which twitches and writhes, boogies at times, rolls and gently rocks. Dark night of the soul stuff, but also choppily foreward bound. The main theme is entirely memorable and will be repeating itself in your head for days, weeks, years to come! Kudos of course to the always on the mark Kronos Quartet. What can't these musicians play? If this is your initiation into their music, you must check out their huge output of CDs, everything ranging from traditional African music, baroque, to the most progressive modern composers. They are one of our national treasures!
If you're prone to nightmares, however, you might want to play this CD in the light of day, not the really early AM hours. Like the movie, it has a certain fatalistic quality about it. Suicide Hotline soundtrack, perhaps? For that matter, if you're feeling down in the dumps, don't go near the movie, either. It will just convince you that there is no point. Hang it up!
But if the life force is with you and you actually enjoy a little melancholy edge now and again, this may very well be your background music!
BEK
There is no doubt that some wonderful, sometimes unusual music is composed merely to accompany and enhance the visual experience of a movie. Seldom is the music noticed and when the music is so memorable that, on even rarer moments when it is noticed and appreciated, it still is often forgotten by the end of the movie. I do this, everybody does this, it's human nature, however there have been a very few movies where I was so taken by the music, that I made a mental note to follow up on the score. This is one of those truly outstanding creations, in which, Clint Mansill and The Kronos Quartet have created an exceptional score for the movie Requiem For A Dream, a tour de force of movie soundtracks.
After reading a wonderful review of the movie. I was reminded how much I loved the soundtrack. No it's not for everyday listening but when listening to, one cannot help be dragged back to the movie, which was both a wonderful and horrible movie. The music was that powerful. The association between the music and the movie are inseparable.
Yes there are numerous very helpful, five star reviews of this album already in the data base but I figure if Evanescence can have seventeen hundred plus reviews, one more for Requiem for a Dream, won't hurt.
This soundtrack is both subtle and powerful and I guess I should add brilliant. It is subtle in that it compliments the movie perfectly, never taking over but always augmenting the story. It is powerful because the music imbues itself into your consciousness, so when you hear it you can't help but think of the movie. Brilliant in it's simplicity, being a simple refrain which is the underlying melody for the whole soundtrack. To the basic melody Mansill varies length and musical instruments. Of course the melody is not repeated in each of the thirty-three instrumental fugues but it probably is in two thirds of them, sometimes strictly with strings, sometimes with strings and synths for a more electronica sound and on a couple songs with heavy percussion.
A very interesting combination - violins and cellos with an electronic/industrial background. There is even a couple short songs where a conga is used. Of the thirty-three separate facets of the soundtrack many are snippets, under one minute in length. To be sure, only ten songs exceed two minutes and this fact is what some people do not like, or rather I should say, is the reason they do not like the soundtrack more. Hardly anyone doesn't like the the soundtrack, some just wish it had more continuity. This is not an issue for me since the entire soundtrack reminds me of several remixes of the same song.
So who is Clint Mansill and the Kronos Quartet. Composer Mansill, was the singer/guitarist for the British band Pop Will Eat Itself which was known for a union of electronica with neo-classical.
Mansill teams on this album with Kronos Quartet a well reputed String Quartet featuring two violins (David Harrington, John Sherba)a viola (Hank Dutt)and a cello (Jennifer Culp).
Similar to the film, the soundtrack consists of three parts: Summer, Fall and Winter. Summer contains 15 fugues, only two of which, "Summer Overture" and "Hope Overture", exceed two minutes. Of course with violins and cellos the music can't help but feel sad and ominous but a darker transition takes place in the nine fugues of fall. Again mostly snippets as only three songs, "Arnold", "Marion Barfs" and "Supermarket Sweep", exceed two minutes but all of them continue the forboding message endemic in the music. Winter contains five songs over two minutes including two three minute songs, "Meltdown" and "Lux Aeterna", and one four minute song, "The Beginning of the End"
CONCLUSION
Although I find this to be a most compelling composition, it may not appeal to everybody. It is the background music for a story depicting the harrowing lives of four drug addicts. It is atmospheric, melancholy, brooding eventually becoming darkly disturbing almost morose in following the downward spiral of these unfortunate souls.
If you have seen the movie, you know what it sounds like. If not, you have the option of renting the video to hear the music which is exactly the same as the CD but if you do, beware the movie can be disturbing. More so than the music.
