Noah (soundtrack)

Last updated

Noah
(Music from the Motion Picture)
Noah (soundtrack).jpg
Film score by
ReleasedMarch 25, 2014
Recorded2013–2014
Genre Film score
Length78:30
Label Nonesuch
Producer Clint Mansell
Clint Mansell chronology
Filth
(2013)
Noah
(2014)
High-Rise
(2016)

Noah (Music from the Motion Picture) is the score album to the 2014 film of the same name directed by Darren Aronofsky. Featuring music produced by Aronofsky's regular collaborator Clint Mansell, the album features 22 tracks from the score and an original song written by Aronofsky and performed by Clint Mansell. The album was released by Nonesuch Records on March 25, 2014. [1] [2]

Contents

Development

On December 11, 2012, at the Marrakech International Film Festival, Aronofsky confirmed that Mansell would score Noah in their sixth film together. [3] While discussing about the film's music, Aronofsky did not want typical epic music, but needed to have that epic scale and wanted to figure out "something timeless". He did not want ethnic instrumentation and specific feel of time and place as the story takes place before culture and "more primal and connected to the earth". They deviated from piano and brass and held a day-long choir to avoid sounding it like "church music" but can be from any period. [4]

Mansell and Aronofsky examined the scene where Noah's family were under captive by the Watchers. He recalled that the Watchers theme should sound primitive which Aronofsky agreed, saying that he need an Ornette Coleman's free jazz-kind of score, reminiscent of Jimi Hendrix's style, as it should be "tension-building, fear-evoking, and mind-expanding". [5] According to Aronofsky, "[t]he creation sequence was so hard, but he [Mansell] came up with this sweet melody". Mansell created several themes that relate to different characters. He needed a theme for Noah (Russell Crowe), which is about living at peace with the planet, a theme for Ila (Emma Watson), which was "the mother of humanity". Along with the orchestra, Mansell roped in Kronos Quartet to contribute to the film score. [6] While the orchestra recorded each portion, Mansell had recorded the score with the Kronos Quartet for a week, blending and mixing the score similar to Jimi Hendrix playing violins, "ripping, shredding and make crazy sounds with their instruments". [4]

Although Mansell felt it as a "big budget" and "high calibre", he found the demands to be "burdensome, and even offensive and insulting". He recalled the executives from Paramount Pictures wanted to fire him as "they didn't feel they were getting what they wanted" although Aronofsky retained him in the project, which he described "Filmmaking at that level is not about art and expressing yourself. It's about maximizing your box office potential. Darren, to his credit, protected me from that to the point that, through lots of shenanigans", the score was recorded without the studio hearing another note or having any more input. Mansell felt that he put the stress and creative frustration to good use, as the score was "very heavy, angry and dark". [7]

Track listing

No.TitleLength
1."In The Beginning, There Was Nothing"4:08
2."The World Was Filled With Violence"1:29
3."The End Of All Flesh Is Before Me"2:14
4."Sweet Savour"4:27
5."The Fallen Ones"3:57
6."For Seasons, And For Days, And Years"2:25
7."Make Thee An Ark"5:09
8."Every Creeping Thing That Creeps"5:46
9."I Will Destroy Them"2:53
10."Flesh Of My Flesh"1:42
11."The Wickedness Of Man"1:38
12."In Sorrow Thou Shalt Bring Forth Children"3:55
13."Your Eyes Shall Be Opened,And Ye Shall Be As Gods"2:23
14."The Flood Waters Were Upon The World"3:00
15."By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed"3:32
16."The Judgement Of Man"2:44
17."The Spirit Of The Creator Moved Upon The Face Of The Waters"2:59
18."Forty Days And Nights"3:19
19."What Is This That Thou Hast Done?"2:10
20."The Fear And The Dread Of You"4:23
21."And He Remembered Noah"4:18
22."Day And Night Shall Not Cease"5:49
23."Mercy Is" (Patti Smith)4:10
Total length:78:30

Reception

Music critic Jonathan Broxton complimented: "the larger concentration on the orchestral core, the much less severe electronic and experimental aspects, the significantly heightened emotional content, and the generally improved dramatic sensibility that Mansell has developed over the course of the last eight years make Noah, a much more fulfilling experience". [8] Josh Goller of Spectrum Culture commented "The Noah soundtrack unfortunately doesn’t reach the soaring heights of psychological terror found in the latter film’s leitmotif “Lux Aeterna,” but it’s a watertight score that surges and drifts along, transporting the listener into legend-minded headspace." [9] John Robb of Louder than War gave a 10/10 rating calling it as a "masterpiece". [10] Thom Jurek of AllMusic reviewed "Noah is an exceptional score, noteworthy even in Mansell's distinguished oeuvre." [11] Filmtracks.com wrote "The entire score takes the best intentions of the thoughtfulness behind The Fountain are translates enough of Sahara 's instrumentation and motific adherence to norms into the equation to produce an entertaining middle ground [...] Mansell really has excelled at matching Aronofsky's continued, eccentric views on life, and, in Noah, that work yields a solid listening experience on album." [12]

Mark Kermode of The Guardian wrote "Underneath all the madness is Clint Mansell's surging, swirling, haunting score, featuring a recurrent refrain that reminded me of the aching longing of David Bowie's Warszawa (some of the instrumental soundscapes from Low were originally intended as incidental music for The Man Who Fell to Earth – another genetic link to sci-fi). With its blend of eerie futurism and ancient bombast, Mansell's music lends harmony to the cacophony of human voices." [13] Matt Goldberg of Collider commented it as "must-own score". [14] Soctt Foundas of Variety commented it as "richly orchestrated score" that "alternates thunderous percussive beats with New Age-y twangs and hums". [15] Choire Sicha of The Awl criticised it as the "worst score to date". [16]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Terry Riley</span> American composer and performing musician (born 1935)

Terrence Mitchell "Terry" Riley is an American composer and performing musician best known as a pioneer of the minimalist school of composition. Influenced by jazz and Indian classical music, his work became notable for its innovative use of repetition, tape music techniques, and delay systems. His best known works are the 1964 composition In C and the 1969 album A Rainbow in Curved Air, both considered landmarks of minimalism and important influences on experimental music, rock, and contemporary electronic music. Subsequent works such as Shri Camel (1980) explored just intonation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Darren Aronofsky</span> American filmmaker

Darren Aronofsky is an American filmmaker. His films are noted for their surreal, melodramatic, and often disturbing elements, frequently in the form of psychological fiction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clint Mansell</span> English musician and composer

Clinton Darryl Mansell is an English musician, singer, and composer. He served as the lead vocalist of alt-rock band Pop Will Eat Itself. After the band's dissolution, Mansell moved to the United States and embarked on a career as a film score composer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kronos Quartet</span> American string quartet

The Kronos Quartet is an American string quartet based in San Francisco. It has been in existence with a rotating membership of musicians for 50 years. The quartet covers a very broad range of musical genres, including contemporary classical music. More than 1,000 works have been written for it.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nonesuch Records</span> American record label company

Nonesuch Records is an American record company and label owned by Warner Music Group, distributed by Warner Records, and based in New York City. Founded by Jac Holzman in 1964 as a budget classical label, Nonesuch has developed into a label that records critically acclaimed music from a wide range of genres. Robert Hurwitz was president of the company from 1984 to 2017.

<i>The Fountain</i> 2006 American film by Darren Aronofsky

The Fountain is a 2006 American epic romantic drama film written and directed by Darren Aronofsky and starring Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz. Blending elements of fantasy, history, spirituality and science fiction, the film consists of three storylines involving immortality and the resulting loves lost, and one man's pursuit of avoiding this fate in this life or beyond it. Jackman and Weisz play sets of characters bonded by love across time and space: a conquistador and his ill-fated queen, a modern-day scientist and his cancer-stricken wife, and a traveler immersed in a universal journey alongside aspects of his lost love. The storylines—interwoven with use of match cuts and recurring visual motifs—reflect the themes and interplay of love and mortality.

<i>Requiem for a Dream</i> (soundtrack) 2000 soundtrack album by Clint Mansell

Requiem for a Dream is the soundtrack album from the 2000 film Requiem for a Dream. It was composed by Clint Mansell and performed by the Kronos Quartet. The music for the film is noted for its minimalist qualities in which it uses constant harmonies, a steady pulse, and often variation of musical phrases to drive a point. The album is best known for the track "Lux Aeterna."

Lux Æterna is an orchestral composition by Clint Mansell. Performed by the Kronos Quartet, it forms a leitmotif in the 2000 film Requiem for a Dream, and is the penultimate piece in the movie's soundtrack.

<i>Heat</i> (soundtrack) 1995 soundtrack album by Various artists

Heat is the soundtrack album to the 1995 film Heat. The score is compiled mostly with Elliot Goldenthal's orchestrations although there are a variety of other artists featured including U2/Brian Eno project Passengers, Lisa Gerrard, Moby and Terje Rypdal.

<i>The Fountain</i> (soundtrack) 2006 soundtrack album by Clint Mansell with the Kronos Quartet and Mogwai

The Fountain: Music from the Motion Picture is the soundtrack album to the 2006 film The Fountain directed by Darren Aronofsky. Released on November 27, 2006, through Nonesuch Records, the album is a collaboration between contemporary classical composer and frequent Aronofsky collaborator Clint Mansell, classical string quartet the Kronos Quartet, and post-rock band Mogwai. The score received mixed reviews from critics and was nominated for several awards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kronos Quartet discography</span> Band discography

The discography of the Kronos Quartet includes 43 studio albums, two compilations, five soundtracks, and 29 contributions to other artists' records. The Kronos Quartet plays classical, pop, rock, jazz, folk, world and contemporary classical music and was founded in 1973 by violinist David Harrington. Since 1978, they are based in San Francisco, California. Since 1985, the quartet's music has been released on Nonesuch Records.

<i>Dracula</i> (album) 1999 soundtrack album by Kronos Quartet

Dracula is a soundtrack performed by the Kronos Quartet, with music composed by Philip Glass, for the 1931 film Dracula.

<i>Requiem for a Dream</i> 2000 American psychological drama film by Darren Aronofsky

Requiem for a Dream is a 2000 American psychological drama film directed by Darren Aronofsky and starring Ellen Burstyn, Jared Leto, Jennifer Connelly, Christopher McDonald, and Marlon Wayans. It is based on the 1978 novel of the same name by Hubert Selby Jr., with whom Aronofsky wrote the screenplay. The film depicts four characters affected by drug addiction and how it alters their physical and emotional states. Their addictions cause them to become imprisoned in a world of delusion and desperation. As the film progresses, each character deteriorates, and their delusions are shattered by the harsh reality of their situations, resulting in catastrophe.

<i>Black Swan</i> (film) 2010 film by Darren Aronofsky

Black Swan is a 2010 American psychological horror film directed by Darren Aronofsky from a screenplay by Mark Heyman, John McLaughlin, and Andres Heinz, based on a story by Heinz. The film stars Natalie Portman in the lead role, with Vincent Cassel, Mila Kunis, Barbara Hershey, and Winona Ryder in supporting roles. The plot revolves around a production of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake by the company of New York City Ballet. The production requires a ballerina to play the innocent and fragile White Swan, for which the committed dancer Nina Sayers (Portman) is a perfect fit, as well as the dark and sensual Black Swan, which are qualities better embodied by the new rival Lily (Kunis). Nina is overwhelmed by a feeling of immense pressure when she finds herself competing for the role, causing her to lose her tenuous grip on reality and descend into madness.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carly Paradis</span> Canadian–British musician and composer

Carly Paradis is a Canadian-born British composer, songwriter and pianist. She composes soundtracks for movies, TV series and solo albums.

<i>Black Swan: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack</i> 2010 soundtrack album by Clint Mansell

Black Swan: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is the soundtrack album to the 2010 film Black Swan.

<i>Noah</i> (2014 film) 2014 American biblical epic film directed by Darren Aronofsky

Noah is a 2014 American epic biblical drama film directed by Darren Aronofsky, who co-wrote the screenplay with Ari Handel. Inspired by the biblical story of Noah's Ark from the Book of Genesis and the Book of Enoch, it stars Russell Crowe as Noah, along with Jennifer Connelly, Ray Winstone, Emma Watson, Logan Lerman, and Anthony Hopkins.

<i>Pi</i> (film) 1998 thriller film by Darren Aronofsky

Pi is a 1998 American conceptual psychological thriller film written and directed by Darren Aronofsky. Pi was filmed on high-contrast black-and-white reversal film. The title refers to the mathematical constant pi. The story focuses on a mathematician with an obsession to find underlying complete order in the real world and contrasting two seemingly irreconcilable entities: the imperfect irrationality of humanity and the rigor and regularity of mathematics, specifically number theory. The film explores themes of religion, mysticism, and the relationship of the universe to mathematics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mother!</span> 2017 film by Darren Aronofsky

Mother! is a 2017 American fantasy drama film written and directed by Darren Aronofsky, and starring Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem, Ed Harris, Michelle Pfeiffer, Domhnall Gleeson, Brian Gleeson, and Kristen Wiig. It follows a young woman whose tranquil life with her husband at their country home is disrupted by the arrival of a mysterious couple.

<i>The Imitation Game</i> (soundtrack) 2014 film score by Alexandre Desplat

The Imitation Game (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is the score album to the 2014 film of the same name. The film is scored by Alexandre Desplat who replaced the original composer Clint Mansell before the film's production commenced. The London Symphony Orchestra performed the original score that featured various instruments such as keyboards, clarinets, strings, arpeggio and bombe. The album was released on November 7, 2014 by Sony Music Entertainment. The album received critical acclaim and was nominated for several awards, including the Academy Award for Best Original Score but lost to The Grand Budapest Hotel, also composed by Desplat.

References

  1. Fusilli, Jim (March 28, 2014). "Listen to Clint Mansell's Music For 'Noah'". Wall Street Journal. ISSN   0099-9660. Archived from the original on March 29, 2014. Retrieved June 22, 2023.
  2. "Clint Mansell's Soundtrack to Darren Aronofsky Film "Noah" Out Now on Nonesuch, Featuring Kronos Quartet, Patti Smith". Nonesuch Records. March 25, 2014. Archived from the original on March 28, 2014. Retrieved June 22, 2023.
  3. Jagernauth, Kevin (December 11, 2012). "Darren Aronofsky Confirms Clint Mansell Is Scoring 'Noah,' Discusses Their Working Relationship". indiewire.com. Archived from the original on December 12, 2012. Retrieved December 11, 2012.
  4. 1 2 Gray, Tim (November 12, 2014). "Darren Aronofsky Salutes His 'Noah' Production Artisans". Variety. Archived from the original on November 18, 2014. Retrieved June 22, 2023.
  5. Friend, Tad (March 10, 2014). "Heavy Weather". The New Yorker. ISSN   0028-792X. Archived from the original on October 17, 2014. Retrieved June 22, 2023.
  6. Rodriguez, Cain (January 27, 2014). "Kronos Quartet Joins Clint Mansell To Score 'Noah' & Max Richter To Tune Up 'Paradise Lost'". IndieWire. Archived from the original on June 22, 2023. Retrieved June 22, 2023.
  7. "Interview: Clint Mansell". The Line of Best Fit. Archived from the original on January 4, 2015. Retrieved June 22, 2023.
  8. "NOAH – Clint Mansell". MOVIE MUSIC UK. April 3, 2014. Archived from the original on July 16, 2014. Retrieved June 22, 2023.
  9. "Clint Mansell: Noah: Music from the Motion Picture - Album Review". Spectrum Culture. April 24, 2014. Archived from the original on June 22, 2023. Retrieved June 22, 2023.
  10. Robb, John (April 1, 2014). "Clint Mansell: Noah Soundtrack - album review". Louder Than War. Archived from the original on October 16, 2014. Retrieved June 22, 2023.
  11. Jurek, Thom. "Review: Noah [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]". AllMusic . Rovi Corporation. Archived from the original on January 24, 2023. Retrieved June 22, 2023.
  12. "Filmtracks: Noah (Clint Mansell)". www.filmtracks.com. Archived from the original on July 4, 2014. Retrieved June 22, 2023.
  13. Kermode, Mark (April 6, 2014). "Noah review – 'a preposterous but endearingly unhinged epic'". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077. Archived from the original on April 14, 2014. Retrieved June 22, 2023.
  14. Goldberg, Matt (March 27, 2014). "NOAH Review". Collider. Archived from the original on March 29, 2014. Retrieved June 22, 2023.
  15. Foundas, Scott (March 21, 2014). "Film Review: 'Noah'". Variety. Archived from the original on March 28, 2014. Retrieved June 22, 2023.
  16. "Why Won't Anybody Say That "Noah" Is Terrible?". The Awl. Archived from the original on July 12, 2014. Retrieved June 22, 2023.