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| The Fountain | 
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| Creators: Clint Mansell, Kronos Quartet, Mogwai
Label: Nonesuch
Category: Music
List Price: $18.98
Buy New: $13.38
You Save: $5.60 (30%)
Buy New/Used from $13.38
Avg. Customer Rating:  (57 reviews)
Sales Rank: 3568
Format: Soundtrack
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5
MPN: 79901
UPC: 075597990126
EAN: 0075597990126
ASIN: B000IU3YKU
Release Date: November 21, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
Shimmering fountains April 6, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
You can tell a lot about a movie by its soundtrack -- comedies get cute pop tunes, action gets harder stuff, and drama has somber compositions.
But the exquisite genre-bender "Fountain" was graced with a sweeping, celestial collection of songs, which were a collaboration between composer Clint Mansell's group, the Kronos Quartet, and the Scottish experimental group Mogwai. It's filled with the sorrow of death, the joy of love, and all the feeling that music can muster.
It opens with a gentle piano solo, which trickles into a web of slow, ominous strings. "The Last Man" opens the album on a somber note, and moves down the emotional scale from jagged unhappiness to a gentle, slightly achy sound. As it blossoms out into a rising violin solo, your heart will be breaking.
Then it dips into more uncomfortable turf -- the eerie "Holy Dread," with its hints of chants, dark drums and rattly noises, and the shimmering swirling guitars of "Tree of Life." But then Mansell and Mogwai move back into the orchestral mood -- sweeping, shimmering melodies with a sort of spacey feel, and dark-edged neoclassical instrumentals.
It rises to a heart-pounding climax in "Death is the Road To Awe," with the music getting louder and more intense, and picking up tempo... before exploding into what sounds like an angelic rock song. The final song is very different in tone -- very quiet, mellow and almost happy.
Well, Darren Aronofsky's movie is full of death, war, sorrow, love, space travel, and immortality. Somehow it's not too surprising that a normal soundtrack wouldn't do, and that a mixture of neoclassical instrumentals and space-rock are needed to really accentuate the beauty on the screen.
The music is full of emotion -- sorrow, yearning, love, pain, and loneliness, climaxing in the exultant chorale and explosively soaring "Death is the Road...". To achieve this, Mansell uses some pretty simple instrumentation, with some sort of ambient melodies played with classical instrumentation. He layers plenty of shimmering strings and rippling piano into a sweeping web, and adds in some odd electronic sounds and some tribal drums for atmosphere.
Best of all? Though the soundtrack mirrors the development of the movie's events, it can be enjoyed on its own merits, for its own beauty, and not just for way it makes you think of what happened in the movie.
One of the best things about "The Fountain" is that soaring, emotion-packed soundtrack, which is almost as good on its own as it is with Aronofsky's movie. An exquisite, powerful experience.
Very beautiful film music March 15, 2007
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Fascinating, beautiful and moving music from the Kronos Quartet and rock band Mogwai.
I played this CD all day yesterday, and I am listening to it now at 6:18 AM in the morning before work. How to describe it? A little like Ambient music, only played on acoustic instruments rather than synthesizers, not that I would have objected if it was all done electronically.
Moody and spaceous music. The best soundtrack I've heard since Princess Mononoke.
wonderful March 8, 2007
this CD is amazing. When I received it I listened to nothing else for nearly a week. I just couldn't get enough. The movie is beautiful too.
A great score to a great film. March 3, 2007
This is the most moving score i have ever heard. I have alot of film scores but none as great as this one. this is the kind of score that helps make a movie become even greater than it is. cause everyone know that with out a great score the movie does not feel as emotional as you intended it to be.
A score that by far outshines the film February 18, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The film the Fountain, is a rather puzzling affair, that left me rather unsatisfied. The one thing that you will remember long after this film fades from memory is the mesmerising soundtrack.
I can only liken the experience of the visuals and music in absolute harmony to Phillip Glass' perfect score music for the last half hour of the Scorese film Kundun.
There are two main themes to the film and both are very moving and stirring at the same time. As someone else has mentioned in their review it might pay to see the movie to apprecitate the score at first. This is one moody score that I will be playing over and over.
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