Clint Mansell - Wikipedia

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Clinton Darryl Mansell (/ ˈ m æ n s əl /; born 7 November 1963) ^{1 2} 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.

Mansell partnered with American filmmaker Darren Aronofsky and composed the scores for his films Pi, Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain, The Wrestler, Black Swan, and Noah. Mansell is best known for the Requiem for a Dream soundtrack, particularly the film’s composition ” Lux Aeterna ” and a re-orchestrated version titled “Requiem for a Tower” that was created for The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers trailer, both of which have been featured in multiple advertisements, films, film trailers, video games and other media.

He provided the scores for the Ben Wheatley films High-Rise, Happy New Year, Colin Burstead, Rebecca, and In the Earth. Other films featuring Mansell’s scores include Sahara, Moon and Stoker. He has also composed music for television and video games.

Mansell was nominated for a Golden Globe for his work on The Fountain, and was nominated for multiple Grammy Awards for his work on Black Swan.

Early life

Mansell was born in Coventry, England.¹ His father worked for the electricity board and his mother was a preparer of school meals.³

Inspired by David Bowie ‘s performance of ” Starman ” on the television series Top of the Pops, he started to play guitar at the age of nine.⁴ His foray into punk -inspired music was influenced by the Ramones.⁵ In 2014 he told Beat Magazine “I heard the Ramones and punk rock changed my life.” ⁵ While living in Stourbridge, Mansell played in rock bands as a youth, and at 19 years of age he joined the band that became Pop Will Eat Itself.⁶

Career

Alt-rock career

From the band’s inception in 1986 until their dissolution in 1996, Mansell was a member of grebo /alt-rock band Pop Will Eat Itself (PWEI).³ He served as the band’s lead vocalist, guitarist and one of the band’s main songwriters.^{1 3 7} The band was first introduced to computer-based music in 1988 while working with producer Flood on their album This Is the Day…This Is the Hour…This Is This!.⁸ Their sound evolved to include sampling and electronic music, bringing influences from hip hop, industrial music and other dance genres into their music.⁶ After the band was dropped by RCA, PWEI were signed in 1994 to Nothing Records, a label owned by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails.^{8 6}

Following PWEI’s break-up in 1996, Mansell moved to New York, where he hoped to start a solo career, but struggled creatively.⁵ He was invited by Reznor to move to an apartment in New Orleans owned by Reznor, where Mansell lived for three years, prior to settling in Los Angeles.^{6 9 10} It was there that Reznor mentored Mansell and introduced him to Pro Tools.^{6 9} Mansell also performed backing vocals on Nine Inch Nails’ 1999 album The Fragile.¹

Mansell reunited with PWEI in 2005 for their “Reformation” tour, which included performances in Nottingham, Birmingham and London.¹¹

While still living in New York, Mansell was introduced to director Darren Aronofsky by a mutual friend.¹² Aronofsky was unaware of Mansell’s previous work with Pop Will Eat Itself, however the two men bonded over their love of hip hop and their belief that “film music at the time was terrible.” ¹³

Aronofsky suggested that Mansell write the opening title piece for Pi, Aronofsky’s feature film directorial debut.¹² Aronofsky had intended to use pre-existing electronic music in the rest of the film, but due to a lack of funds, he found it difficult to acquire the rights to much of the music that interested him and Mansell was hired to provide music for the entire film.¹² Mansell’s score for the film won him the City of Birmingham award at the Birmingham Film Festival in 2000.³

Mansell wrote the score for Aronofsky’s next film, Requiem for a Dream, which became a cult hit.¹ The film’s primary composition ” Lux Aeterna ” became a favorite in its own right.¹⁴ A re-orchestrated version of the song, titled “Requiem for a Tower”, was arranged by composers Simone Benyacar, Dan Nielsen and Veigar Margeirsson for the trailer of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.⁶

Both “Lux Aeterna” and “Requiem for a Tower” have been used in multiple forms of media, including the film trailers for The Da Vinci Code, I Am Legend, Sunshine and Babylon A.D.; trailers for the video games Assassin’s Creed and Lord of the Rings: Return of the King; advertising campaigns for such products as Canon PowerShot cameras, Molson Canadian beer; and on television such as in the series America’s Got Talent, So You Think You Can Dance as well as a promo spot the series Flash Forward.^{1 14}

In 2006, Mansell provided the score for the film Smokin’ Aces and he received a BMI Film & TV Award for his work on the film Sahara that same year.^{1 15} The following year, his score for the Aronofsky film The Fountain was awarded Best Original Film Score of the Year and the Public Choice Award at the 7th World Soundtrack Awards.¹⁶ The Fountain ’ s score was also nominated for Best Score in a Motion Picture at the 2007 Golden Globe Awards.¹⁷

Mansell’s score for Aronofsky’s Black Swan garnered him multiple nominations and awards. He was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media as well as Best Original Soundtrack (for Black Swan), and Soundtrack Composer of the Year (for Black Swan, Last Night and Faster) at the 11th World Soundtrack Awards. The score was deemed ineligible for the Academy Award for Best Original Score due to its use of Tchaikovsky ‘s original music from Swan Lake.¹³

Mansell created the film score for Moon, Duncan Jones ’ s feature film directorial debut. Mansell won Best Technical Achievement at the British Independent Film Awards for Moon ’ s score. In 2011 Mansell was hired to provide the score for The Iron Lady, but he was later replaced by composer Thomas Newman.¹⁸ Nevertheless, Mansell’s music from the film Moon was used in the film’s trailer and was also used in the 2012 trailer of the computer game Aliens: Colonial Marines.^{19 20}

Mansell provided the scores for the films Stoker (also featuring music by Philip Glass) and Filth, which were both released in 2013.¹

Filmmaker Ben Wheatley, who was a fan of Mansell’s music for the films Requiem for a Dream and Moon, approached Mansell about providing the score for his 2015 film High-Rise. Mansell also provided the music for Wheatley’s subsequent works Happy New Year, Colin Burstead (2018) and Rebecca (2020) and In the Earth (2021).^{6 21}

Mansell’s film scores have been sampled by such musical artists as Lil Jon, A$AP Rocky, Bastille and Paul Oakenfold.^{14 22}

Having no formal training in musical notation, Mansell constructs his film scores using the method he employs for writing rock music — drums, bass, guitar and vocal lines — in addition to employing an orchestrator.¹¹ Some of his influences include Philip Glass, Trevor Jones, David Holmes, and bands such as Death in Vegas, Mogwai and Unkle.⁹

Symphonic performances

Mansell has performed some of his film compositions live with the Sonus Quartet in the US, the UK and Australia.^{4 10 12} The Kronos Quartet, who performed “Lux Aeterna” for the Requiem for a Dream soundtrack, have also performed some of Mansell’s work live.^{6 11}

Publishing deal

In February 2019, Mansell signed a publishing deal with Decca Publishing, a division of Decca Records.²² This deal brought his catalogue of more than 650 original pieces, including his Pop Will Eat Itself work, under a single umbrella for the first time.²²

Year	Award	Category	Nominated work	Result
2000	Birmingham Film and Television Festival	City of Birmingham Award	Pi	Won
2006	BMI Film & TV Awards	Film Music award	Sahara	Won
	Critics' Choice Movie Awards	Best Score	The Fountain	Nominated
2007	Golden Globe	Best Original Score	The Fountain	Nominated
	World Soundtrack Award	Best Original Film Score	The Fountain	Won
2009	British Independent Film Awards	Best Technical Achievement	Moon	Nominated
2010	Chicago Film Critics Association Award	Best Original Score	Black Swan	Won
	Critics' Choice Movie Awards	Best Score	Black Swan	Nominated
	Satellite Awards	Best Original Score	Black Swan	Nominated
2011	World Soundtrack Award	Best Original Score of the Year	Black Swan	Nominated
	World Soundtrack Award	Soundtrack Composer of the Year	Black Swan, Last Night and Faster	Nominated
	BMI Film & TV Awards	Film Music award	Black Swan	Won
2012	Grammy Award	Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media	Black Swan	Nominated
2014	Hollywood Music in Media Awards	Best Original Score in a Sci-Fi/Fantasy Film	Noah	Nominated
2017	Annie Awards	Outstanding Achievement for Music in a Feature Production	Loving Vincent	Nominated

Discography

• Box Frenzy (1987)
• This Is the Day…This Is the Hour…This Is This! (1989)
• Cure for Sanity (1990)
• The Looks or the Lifestyle? (1992)
• Dos Dedos Mis Amigos (1994)

Live albums

• Weird’s Bar and Grill (Live) (1993) UK No. 44
• The Radio 1 Sessions 1986-87 (1997)
• Reformation: Nottingham Rock City 20.01.05 (2005)
• Reformation: Birmingham Carling Academy 22.01.05 (2005)
• Reformation: Birmingham Carling Academy 23.01.05 (2005)
• Reformation: London Shepherds Bush Empire 24.01.05 (2005)
• Reformation: London Shepherds Bush Empire 25.01.05 (2005)

Film

Year	Title	Director	Studio / Publisher	Notes
1998	Pi	Darren Aronofsky	Protozoa Pictures
2000	Requiem for a Dream		Thousand Words Protozoa Pictures
2001	World Traveler	Bart Freundlich	Alliance Atlantis Eureka Pictures IFC Productions Process Productions
	The Hole	Nick Hamm	Canal+ Cowboy Films Film Council Granada Film Productions Impact Pictures Pathé
	Knockaround Guys	Brian Koppelman David Levien	Lawrence Bender Productions New Line Cinema
	Rain	Katherine Lindberg	Antena 3 Cappa Films Kinowelt Lolafilms Via Digital
2002	Abandon	Stephen Gaghan	Spyglass Entertainment Paramount Pictures
	Murder by Numbers	Barbet Schroeder	Warner Bros. Pictures Castle Rock Entertainment
	Sonny	Nicolas Cage	Gold Circle Films Saturn Films
2003	11:14	Greg Marcks	Media 8 Entertainment New Line Cinema
2004	Suspect Zero	E. Elias Merhige	Intermedia Films Lakeshore Entertainment Cruise/Wagner
2005	Sahara	Breck Eisner	Bristol Bay Productions Baldwin Entertainment Group Kanzaman Mace Neufeld Pictures Paramount Pictures	BMI Film Music Award
	Doom	Andrzej Bartkowiak
2006	The Fountain	Darren Aronofsky	Warner Bros. Regency Enterprises Protozoa Pictures
	Trust the Man	Bart Freundlich	Fox Searchlight Pictures
	Smokin' Aces	Joe Carnahan
2007	Wind Chill	Gregory Jacobs	Blueprint Pictures Section Eight Productions
2008	Definitely, Maybe	Adam Brooks	Universal Pictures StudioCanal Working Title Films
	The Wrestler	Darren Aronofsky	Wild Bunch Saturn Films Protozoa Pictures
	Dream from Leaving	Nathan Cox Rick Gradone J.T. Gurzi Pat Healy Rich Lee Settle Caitlin Strom Eric Watson	wonderwheel, llc
2009	Blood: The Last Vampire	Chris Nahon	Edko Pathé
	Moon	Duncan Jones	Stage 6 Films Liberty Films UK Sony Pictures Classics	Nominated: British Independent Film Award for Best Technical Achievement
	Farewell	Christian Carion
	The Rebound	Bart Freundlich	The Film Department A&F Productions The Weinstein Company
2010	Black Swan	Darren Aronofsky	Cross Creek Pictures Phoenix Pictures Dune Entertainment	Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Original Score Fangoria Chainsaw Award for Best Score Nominated: Alliance of Women Film Journalists Award for Best Film Music Nominated: Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media Nominated: Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Score Nominated: Satellite Award for Best Original Score Nominated: San Diego Film Critics Society Award for Best Original Score Nominated: St. Louis Film Critics Association Award for Best Music Nominated: Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Award for Best Score Nominated: World Soundtrack Award for Best Original Score of the Year Nominated: World Soundtrack Award for Soundtrack Composer of the Year (with Last Night & Faster)
	Last Night	Massy Tadjedin	Gaumont Miramax Films Walmark Films	Nominated: World Soundtrack Award for Soundtrack Composer of the Year (with Black Swan & Faster)
	Faster	George Tillman, Jr.	Castle Rock Entertainment State Street Pictures	Nominated: World Soundtrack Award for Soundtrack Composer of the Year (with Black Swan & Last Night)
2013	Stoker	Park Chan-wook	Scott Free Productions Indian Paintbrush
	Filth	Jon S. Baird	Steel Mill Pictures Film i Väst
2014	Noah	Darren Aronofsky	Regency Enterprises Protozoa Pictures Paramount Pictures	Nominated: Hollywood Music in Media Award for Best Original Score in a Sci-Fi/Fantasy Film
2015	Man Down	Dito Montiel	Mpower Pictures Lionsgate Premiere
	High-Rise	Ben Wheatley
2017	Ghost in the Shell	Rupert Sanders	Paramount Pictures DreamWorks Pictures	Composed with Lorne Balfe
	Loving Vincent	Dorota Kobiela Hugh Welchman	BreakThru Productions Silver Reel Altitude Film Distribution	Nominated: Annie Award for Outstanding Music in an Animated Feature Production Nominated: Polish Film Award for Best Film Score
2018	Mute	Duncan Jones	Liberty Films UK Studio Babelsberg Netflix
	Happy New Year, Colin Burstead	Ben Wheatley	Rook Films BBC Films
	Out of Blue	Carol Morley	Cannon & Morley The Electric Shadow Company BBC Films IFC Films
2020	Rebecca	Ben Wheatley	Working Title Films Big Talk Productions Netflix
2021	In the Earth		Rook Films Neon Protagonist Pictures
	She Will	Charlotte Colbert	Vertigo Releasing
2023	Sharper	Benjamin Caron	Apple Studios A24 Picturestart FortySixty G&T Productions
2024	Love Lies Bleeding	Rose Glass	A24 Film4 Escape Plan Lobo Films

Television

Year	Title	Showrunner	Studio / Network	Notes
2004	CSI: Miami	Ann Donahue	Jerry Bruckheimer Television CBS Productions CBS	Episode: " MIA/NYC NonStop "
2011	United	Chris Chibnall	Lipsync Productions World Productions BBC Two	Television film
2016	Black Mirror	Charlie Brooker	Netflix House of Tomorrow	Episode: San Junipero
2018–2023	Titans	Greg Walker	Warner Bros. Television DC Universe	Theme music & 12 episodes Composed with Kevin Kiner
2019–2023	Doom Patrol	Jeremy Carver		Theme music & 13 episodes Composed with Kevin Kiner
2022–present	Peacemaker	James Gunn	DC Studios (S2 onwards) The Safran Company Troll Court Entertainment	Composed with Kevin Kiner
2024–present	Creature Commandos	Dean Lorey

Video games

Year	Title	Director	Studio / Publisher	Notes
2012	Mass Effect 3	Casey Hudson	- BioWare - Electronic Arts	Composed with Sascha Dikiciyan, Sam Hulick, Christopher Lennertz & Cris Velasco

Short films

Year	Title	Director	Studio / Publisher	Notes
2002	The Hire: Ticker	Joe Carnahan	BMW films
2006	The Big Forever	Robert Glassford Timo Langer	—
2007	In the Wall	Mike Williamson	—
	The Healing Syndrome	Michael Sheehan	High Tyde Productions
	My Mother	Elaine Wickham	Medb Films
2009	The Odds	Paloma Baeza	Abbot Vision Slate 9
	Blue Knight	Mark Anthony	Man of Mistery Films
2010	Fragged	Devon Avery	—
2014	A Rose Reborn	Park Chan-wook	—
2015	Gaslighting	Elaine Wickham	—
	Deathly	Mike Williamson	—

References

External links

• Clint Mansell at IMDb
• Clint Mansell at Rotten Tomatoes

Footnotes

1. Hischak, Thomas S. (2015). The Encyclopedia of Film Composers. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 440. ISBN 9781442245501. MANSELL, Clint (b. 1963)…He was born Clinton Darryl Mansell in Coventry, England, and was interested in rock music as a youth, learning the guitar and playing in amateur bands. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

2. Larkin, Colin (2011). The Encyclopedia of Popular Music. London: Omnibus Press. p. 1988. ↩

3. Young, Graham (23 March 2016). “From dreadlocks to no locks - the amazing transformation of pop star turned Hollywood composer Clint Mansell”. Birmingham Mail. Retrieved 24 December 2022. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

4. Greiving, Tim (16 March 2016). “‘Moon’ and ‘Fountain’ composer Clint Mansell will perform soundtrack pieces at Theatre at Ace Hotel”. Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 21 June 2016. Retrieved 24 December 2022. ↩ ↩²

5. Vogl, Tamara (30 September 2014). “Clint Mansell”. Beat Magazine. No. 1442. Furst media. p. 34. Retrieved 24 December 2022 – via Issuu. ↩ ↩² ↩³

6. Greiving, Tim (16 October 2020). “Requiem For A Theme: Film Composer Clint Mansell On The Sound Of Sadness”. NPR. Retrieved 24 December 2022. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

7. Clayton-Lea, Tony (8 October 2014). “Clint Mansell: “rock music – or whatever you want to call it – is a young person’s game"". The Irish Times. Retrieved 24 December 2022. ↩

8. Godfrey, Alex. “Clint Mansell: Aronofsky, Reznor and Me, Part One”. Sabotage Times. Archived from the original on 23 June 2018. Retrieved 24 December 2022. ↩ ↩²

9. Davies, Mike (14 November 2003). “Culture: Follow that dream; Mike Davies settles scores with Clint Mansell”. Birmingham Post. p. 15. ProQuest 323940184. Retrieved 24 December 2022. ↩ ↩² ↩³

10. Tomich, Matthew (15 September 2015). “Clint Mansell: Eternal Light”. Beat Magazine. No. 1491. Furst media. p. 57. Retrieved 10 December 2022 – via Issuu. ↩ ↩²

11. Culshaw, Peter (20 January 2005). “From pop joker to serious composer”. The Daily Telegraph. p. 16. ProQuest 319783889. Retrieved 24 December 2022. ↩ ↩² ↩³

12. Paphides, Pete (17 July 2009). “Clint Mansell: pop ate itself, and out popped Hollywood”. The Times. Archived from the original on 15 June 2011. Retrieved 24 December 2022. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

13. McNulty, Bernadette (20 January 2011). “Banned from the Oscars: It’s all Tchaikovsky’s fault: ex-rocker Clint Mansell tells Bernadette McNulty why he won’t be nominated for scoring ‘Black Swan’“. The Daily Telegraph. London, England, United Kingdom. p. 26. ProQuest 845325119. Retrieved 24 December 2022. ↩ ↩²

14. Peters, Mitchell (22 May 2010). “Notes From The Underground”. Billboard. p. 22. Retrieved 24 December 2022. ↩ ↩² ↩³

15. “BMI Film & Television Awards Salute Composers of Top Movie, TV, Cable Music”. bmi.com. Broadcast Music, Inc. 17 May 2006. Retrieved 24 December 2022. ↩

16. “Clint Mansell Wins Two World Soundtrack Honors”. bmi.com. Broadcast Music, Inc. 28 October 2007. Retrieved 24 December 2022. ↩

17. “Aronofsky, Mansell to speak at Film & TV Music conference”. Billboard. 18 October 2008. p. 8. Retrieved 24 December 2022. ↩

18. Robey, Tim (6 January 2012). “Iron Lady: The mystery of the replaced composer”. The Telegraph. Retrieved 24 December 2022. ↩

19. Han, Angie (7 July 2011). “‘The Iron Lady’ Teaser - Meryl Streep Clutches Her Pearls”. /Film. Static Media. Retrieved 24 December 2022. ↩

20. Sarkar, Samit (7 February 2013). “Aliens: Colonial Marines video revisits ‘Contact’ trailer”. Polygon. Vox Media. Retrieved 24 December 2022. ↩

21. Thomas, Lou (17 June 2021). “‘In The Earth’ review: Ben Wheatley’s woodland hallucination delivers gore with gusto”. New Musical Express. Retrieved 24 December 2022. ↩

22. Stassen, Murray (14 February 2019). “Decca Publishing signs composer and musician Clint Mansell”. Music Business Worldwide. Retrieved 11 March 2019. ↩ ↩² ↩³