I purchased Clint Mansell's soundtrack to The Fountain today from iTunes. I had been wanting to purchase it in album form for a while but everywhere had it for an exorbitant pricetag of roughly $27, which is really just ridiculous in this day and age for a 10-track album. I guess the packaging was really great? Anyway. Why spend $27 on that when I can buy it from iTunes for $17? So that's what I did. Even though it's totally worth $27, I feel like keeping that extra $10, alright!Just listening through it now is extraordinary. It all sounds of epically... epic. I'm not even sure there's ever been a film score like it. At times sounding more like a rock track from the '70s than a traditional film score, it then throws in strings (by the Kronos Quartet, just as they did for the score to Requiem for a Dream). It sounds like it has Angelo Badalamenti-inspired (Twin Peaks, Mulholland Drive) synthesisers and then throws in electric guitars. It's amazing.
"Death is the Road to Awe" is definitely the peak, but they're all so good. "Holy Dread!" and "The Tree of Life" and "The Last Man" and "Work" and "Xibalba"... aah, so good.
I don't think it bests Mansell's Requiem for a Dream score (another Darren Aronofsky film), but on it's own right it's amazing. I also don't think the film it comes from (er, The Fountain) is better than Requiem. Actually, I know it's not. There are some elements from the film that haven't stuck with me quite as I think they should have. Hugh Jackman's performance has. The design and the look sure has. The music most definitely has. But listening to the soundtrack makes me go back to it. It does what all great film scores should do. It should work both in and out of the film. So, even though the film won't be in my Top 10 of the year, Mansell's score is clearly one of, if not the best of the year.
Watch out for it come UMA awards time.
By the way, I believe it was Javier who lamented The Fountain tagline as being "What if you could live forever" instead of the far greater, grander and romantic "What if you could love forever". Well, one thing I neglected to mention on here was that the tagline used in Australia was actually the latter "love" one. It really is better (see below).
