You know that bit of music, that bit that you keep hearing? The stirring orchestral strings, swelling, making the images of that trailer look like the best film ever made? Chances are it’s
Lux Aeterna from
Requiem for a Dream. For ages I thought it was from the
Sunshine soundtrack because of it’s use in the
trailer. It just turned up, again, on the poor looking
Babylon A.D. trail. It’s a great piece of music and since it was written in 2000 for
Darren Aronofsky’s drug fulled downward spiral, it’s been on quite a journey. British born
Clint Mansell of
Pop Will Eat Itself fame composed it, and although he has a musical background, Requiem was only his second soundtrack, which is bloody impressive. He’s scored all of Aronofsky’s films and has gone on to carve a good sounding Hollywood career including scores to
Sahara,
Smokin' Aces and the up and coming sci-fi film
Moon with
Sam Rockwell and
Matt Berry about a man stranded on Earth's only natural satellite.
Most famously Lux Aeterna was re-arranged and re-recorded for the bloated
Lord of the Rings 2 trailer using a full choir. It was named Requiem for a Tower. I’m sure most Rings fans think it was written especially for the production.
Other trailers it pops up in are:
24: Exile (Again - shouldn't they use music they already have from the show?)
The Da Vinci CodeI Am LegendZathuraThe Trials of Darryl Hunt (an independent film released by HBO)
Valley of FlowersPlus numerous uses on the small screen, I’ve seen it in Top Gear and the like. Strangely enough
Sky Sports news seems to have adopted it as their theme. I’m sure if their executives knew of it’s original location and the subject matter of Requiem for a Dream they may re-think their choice. Although saying that, sport’s news always makes me think of
heroin abuse and double-ended dildos.
Strange as it might be using the score from one film to advertise an entirely different one, it isn’t all that new. Looking through the
Robocop extras released on
DVD a few years ago, I came across the
original trailer. Almost immediately I recognised the score:
The Terminator theme. Interestingly both films are about a cyborg and distributed by
Orion.
I imagine this is a practice that goes on more that we’ll ever notice. When a trailer is released the film is usually still in post production and it is unlikely a score has been written, much less recorded. As studios hold the rights to thousand’s of original soundtracks it much easer to go to the library and choose one. (Which means Peter Jackson must have loved it to use it on the LORT2 trail as they could have used music from the Fellowship of the ring)
Perhaps who ever is cutting trailers at the moment should go back to that library and choose something else. As good as Lux Aeterna is, it’s starting to drag.
If anyone notices any other trailer/soundtrack crossovers let me know.
Woooof…
