Mansell - Requiem for a Dream

Composed by Clint Mansell, with the Kronos Quartet and their great violin playing and such, "Requiem for a Dream" is an outstanding score that really gets into your head. It's a score full of dread, sorrow, pain, sadness, fear and paranoia. It has an industrial quality mixed with haunting violins to enhance it even more. (Imagine music by Trent Reznor with violins added to the mix.) A lot of the tracks are short and some are repetitive, but I had no problem with that. Yes, it might've been nice to hear some of the tracks extended, but I really like the overall layout of the tracks and how they appear in the order as the do in the movie.

Although the entire album is amazing, my favourite tracks are as follows: summer overture, ghosts of things to come, hope overture, tense, cleaning apartment, marion barfs, supermarket sweep, sara goldfarb has left the building, winter overture, southern hospitality, ghosts of future lost, meltdown, and lux aeterna. As good as the entire album is, the overtures really steal the show. (Especially "summer overture.")

Of course you'll most likely appreciate it more if you have indeed seen the film, but I can see people who haven't seen the movie enjoying this well-composed soundtrack as well. It's really great music, and you'll never look at music scores in the same way ever again. "Requiem for a Dream" definitely gets added to my list of favourite scores. In fact, this may become my overall favourite. Only time will tell. All I can say is that I am loving every bit of it right now, and I hope that Clint Mansell does more haunting scores like this one. Don't let this remarkable score pass you by. You'll regret it if you do.


A new form of music   April 25, 2003
14 out of 14 found this review helpful

My album of the year for 2001. I thought the film was outstanding, capturing Selby's horrific but humanitarian worldview and adding revolutionary editing techniques. But the star of the movie was the soundtrack. I was shocked to hear Clint Mansell was behind it. To me he was always head goon in PWEI. His additions to the Pi soundtrack stood up well to his more revered trackmates but this is miles ahead of anything he has ever been involved with. The use of the Kronos Quartet is inspired and as ever they play brilliantly and are superbly produced to fit Mansell's own

I love the use of strings, breakbeats and electonica. Of course, The film's structure leads to the OSTs symphonic, coherent structure. It's divided into three sections with memorable, recurring motifs. The clangs introducing the next section are thrilling.

The music is being used everywhere from the Lord of the Rings trailer to almost every documentary on TV, so even if you haven't seen the movie, it should seem familiar.

The music is dark, at time grating, but there is a underlying calm about it. It starts all beats, love interludes, and cool posing bits. By the second movement the feeling of unease has subtlety set in and the opening part of "summer" is my highlight of the album. The third movement is terrifying and very raw but it resolves into an almost catatonic final piece.

It's very ambitious, brilliantly realised and a must have. Buy it whatever the cost.