Clint Mansell wasn’t into doing movie scores at first but was turned onto it not long after his band, After Pop Will Eat Itself, disbanded. Daron Aronofsky was the man that got him into the groove by having him compose the score to Requiem for a Dream, which was very well received despite how messed up the movie really was when you look at it. All in all though he’s made a very successful career from that first go around and has become one of the top composers in the business, having produced a good number of musical scores that have been very impressive to date.
Here are just a few of his very best.
5. Ghost in the Shell
In a future where humans are continually augmented with cybernetics and upgrades the likes of which make them nearly superhuman one woman has become a test subject for a program that essentially makes her a ghost in the machine. Her entire consciousness has been placed into the machine, making her stronger, faster, and far more capable of reasoning and abstract thought than any machine could possibly be.
4. Filth
Robertson is perhaps one of the worst human beings imaginable but still harbors some good intent towards at least a couple of people in his life simply because they touched a soft spot in him. Otherwise he’s simply horrible as he doesn’t relate to anyone and tends to rub everyone the wrong way out of sheer petulance and desire to be the biggest jerk that anyone has ever laid eyes on. He seems to get off on it really.
3. Faster
It’s a very simple and to the point movie but it’s also powerful in a way that a lot of people didn’t seem to take notice of as it involves a man that’s just been released from prison and has only one thing on his mind. He aims to find the people that killed his brother, no more and no less. His status as a ‘ghost’ inside the prison system is something that affords him a good deal of terror in the hearts of those he’s seeking out, and makes him seem that much tougher.
2. Smokin’ Aces
It’s amazing what people will go through in order to get to one person. Buddy Israel is the most wanted man in this film as teams of bounty hunters seek to track him down and deliver him to their various employers. Even the FBI are in on the grab, but they’re the only ones that know just why Buddy is such an important person. For everyone else it’s just a payday, but for the FBI it’s something much more important.
1. Black Swan
Perfection is the name of the game in Black Swan, and is followed closely by obsession on a level that has been set as a dangerous precedent. Throughout the movie the lead character continually finds herself becoming more and more unhinged the deeper she falls into her own self-inflicted psychosis.
There’s something very dark and foreboding about Mansell’s work, but it’s also something that you can’t help but admit is very compelling as well.
