Clint Mansell on film scoring: "You don't just wake up and find them under your pillow"

"I wouldn’t say I enjoyed it," Mansell - who will perform some of his cinematic scores with a live band at London's Barbican Centre tomorrow (October 6) - said, during a recent phone interview, about the vast resources provided for his stint on the recent Biblical blockbuster Noah. He added: "Every film is different. If we’d had the budget on Pi that we did on Noah, I still wouldn't have approached it differently, because what it needed was that small, electronic, isolationist score. Whereas Noah has that grander scale. It’s really just a case of what the film requires."

And while working on a big budget flick like Noah may be a dream come true for many composers, Mansell found the demands of such a high calibre project to be burdensome and, on occasion, even offensive and insulting.

"The studio wanted to fire me because, at times, they didn't feel they were getting what they wanted," Mansell said of his tenure on Noah, adding that Darren Aronofsky - the film's director, and his frequent collaborator - came to his rescue. "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, we recorded the score without the studio hearing another note or having any more input."

But Mansell said he managed to put that stress and creative frustration to good use: "Noah's score was very heavy, angry and dark. I wear my heart on my sleeve a bit, and it's difficult for me not to respond, in my work, to the things going on in my life. That's how you get material that has substance to it. The scores for films like Noah, Black Swan or Moon, you don't just wake up and find them under your pillow. It takes a lot of effort, pain and soul to get to that point."

Mansell began that cathartic process in the mid 90's. At the time he was the lead singer of the Stourbridge alt-rock troupe Pop Will Eat Itself. But he found little fulfillment working in England's scrappy indie rock scene. "It was very difficult, I was very depressed, broke, and unsure of what I was doing with my life. It was a miserable time," Mansell says of those bleak early days.

The band found some success, touring with esteemed American industrial outfit Nine Inch Nails. NIN frontman Trent Reznor was so impressed by their unique blend of electro punk, which they dubbed "grebo" at the time, that he signed them to his Nothing Records label. But that momentum slowed and Pop Will Eat Itself split in 1996. By then, Mansell had reached his mid-thirties and felt that he had outgrown the dreadlocked rock rapper persona that had been so integral to Pop Will Eat Itself's inception. As he plodded along in one of New York's numerous fringe arts scenes, Mansell had a chance meeting with aspiring auteur Darren Aronofsky. The pair bonded over their love of hip hop and an even deeper shared scorn for the day's film scores. When Aronofsky needed composer for his debut flick - an offbeat, surrealist psychological thriller with a budget of $60,000 - he called on Mansell, who was more than happy to oblige.

Pi was lauded by critics, and Aronofsky won the Directing Award at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival for his work on the film. He invited Mansell to work on his follow up flick, 2000's Requiem for a Dream, a jarring and deeply raw depiction of drug addiction. It was an even bigger hit with critics and at festivals, and the success of Mansell's score nearly eclipsed that of the film. His primary composition for the score, dubbed "Lux Æterna" (Latin for "eternal light") had a dire but sweepingly grandiose tone, and before long it was adapted and used in numerous movie trailers, including an famous teaser for 2002's Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.

Since then, Aronofsky has recruited Mansell to score all of his films, including Oscar contenders like The Wrestler and Black Swan, and more mainstream fare like 2006's The Fountain and this year's Noah.

Of his ongoing partnership with Aronofsky, Mansell said: "We have a certain style that complements each other. His filmmaking style leaves room for my musical style. It's not something I think about too much, but essentially I sit and respond to his work, and write something that his work brings out of me."

His success with Aronofsky led to work on cult hits like last year's Filth and 2009's Moon. The latter, which was directed by David Bowie's son Duncan Jones and stars esteemed character actor Sam Rockwell, was particularly praised by critics. A writer for wegotthiscovered.com described it thusly: "your tears are 50% Sam Rockwell’s heart-breaking performance, and 50% Clint Mansell’s mournful piano melodies."

Bur the composer shrugged off that praise, saying: "It's easy to score a good film, and impossible to score a shit one. It was such a good film, and I really responded to it. If you're awake to it, sometimes the film just lets you know what it needs."

And while he enjoyed working on Moon, Mansell prefers a more immersive, hands on experience. He contributed early songs to Noah while Aronofsky was still working on its storyboards. And for Filth, he talked at length with director Jon S. Baird and star James McAvory about the abrasive notes that would properly compliment the film's depravity.

I spoke to Baird about Mansell's work on Filth, whose complimentary tone speaks for itself: "I knew Clint could deliver a dark and brooding score in the more serious parts of the film, however he had a bit less experience with the lighter, more comedic touches. It was therefore these pieces that most impressed me. In fact, it was Clint's idea to change the first musical number from a very serious violent drone, to a slightly comedic version of 'Walking In a Winter Wonderland.' It just goes to show the range and depth of the guy's talent."

Mansell was equally pleased with the project, adding with rueful glee: "I'd never used bagpipes in a score before." He especially savors the chance to work with Baird, Jones and Aronofsky because, despite having wildly varying visual styles, they each have a rare appreciation for music that complements those images.

"Music is usually the last thing to be added to a film, and it's often just treated as wallpaper," Mansell said, adding: "They usually cut funding for it to pay for an actor's driver, or some shit like that. And what they fail to realise is that the music is the last creative element to be added to a film. It's your last chance to elevate the scenes and take them somewhere new."

Baird concurred, before adding: "I think that, in budgetary terms, music can often be an after-thought. Producers sometimes don't see the value in devoting serious resources to the score, and that very nearly happened on Filth, had it not been for the intervention of Trudie Styler [the film's producer]. Trudie paid for a large part of our music budget out of her personal pocket, when most others were turning the opposite way. I think both myself and Clint will always be grateful to her for helping us to deliver such a great score."

Mansell said he is grateful to have worked with such collaborators, who share his joy in marrying sound and vision. For him, a film's score is as crucial as its props or casting, a point that too few filmmakers concur with. Aronofsky is one of the rare exceptions, and Mansell cited Black Swan as an especially successful blend of music and character development.

"I thought its music should all be a bastardised version of Swan Lake," Mansell said of the ballet anthem underpinning the film and adding an edge to star Natalie Portman's already bristling, Oscar winning performance. The composer said he wanted the score's rhythms to meld with her character's dark devotion, adding: "This girl's obsessed with getting a role in this ballet. So she's rehearsing all day, hearing Swan Lake all day, and I thought that music should still be in her head when she's walking home. I thought it should tease and torment and taunt her. So cutting up Swan Lake into all those forms was really inspiring for me."

And just like Portman's haunted ballerina, Mansell often finds himself consumed by his work. Fretting over the tone and progression of his pieces, and how they sync up with the films' images, can leave him feeling isolated, even when he has the rare joy of working with a supportive director and crew.

That stress is part of what prompted his upcoming live renditions of those scores, a tour that follows his acclaimed premiere gig at Union Chapel in 2009. Mansell said the new performances will feature the snippets from scores that he has worked on since his preceding live shows. But he added that the live versions will differ from the silver screen originals. Noah's score, for instance, was recorded with a 100 piece orchestra, a massive choir and countless overdubs. Mansell won't attempt to mimic that scale with his nine piece live band, explaining his wish to "try to accentuate the best things in the film's score, and retain the melodic and dynamic elements of the original."

Having an audience for that process is the perfect reprieve from the pitfalls of his day job. "It’s a celebration of listing and playing and enjoying music," Mansell said of the live shows, adding, "whereas writing tends to be a solitary existence. It's stressful to find ideas and inspirations. Even though the music is melocncholy in spots, hearing it live, loud and with other people is a great experience."

And while he enjoys forging that bond with a live audience, it's one of the few occasions where he gives any consideration to their response.

"I'm not trying to write music to help an audience experience a film. I'm writing the music that the film makes me write," Mansell said, adding: "I don't worry about what will make it accessible. I just want to make it pure."

Mansell tours the UK this week with his band - starting with a sold out show at London's Barbican Centre tomorrow night (October 7). Head here for dates.