Composer Clint Mansell at the KUSC Studios with Arts Alive Contributor Tim Greiving

Hit play below to listen to our Arts Alive feature with composer Clint Mansell.

Hit play below to listen to an extended interview with composer Clint Mansell.

Clint Mansell is an outlier. Blunt, British, and formally untrained, he’s a film composer who doesn’t follow convention or kowtow. He’s always been more of an auteur’s composer than a populist, ever since he declared himself to Hollywood with a minimalist earworm score for Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream.

He’s scored Pi, Black Swan, The Fountain, and Noah for Aronofsky. He also scored the sci-fi film Moon for Duncan Jones, and just finished scoring Jones’ upcoming Netflix film, Mute. His latest score is for Loving Vincent, which opens in Los Angeles on Friday, September 29th. Directed by Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman, it’s the first fully-painted feature film ever made. The murder mystery about Vincent Van Gogh’s final days was shot in live-action, then every single frame was painted over in the style of Van Gogh by a team of 125 oil painters.

In this interview, Mansell discusses his work on Loving Vincent, his relationships with Aronofsky and Jones, his score for the Black Mirror episode “San Junipero” (which recently won an Emmy for best TV movie) — and how he can’t help but hear himself and his emotional state in the music he writes.

Hit play below to listen to a bonus episode of Arts Alive with composer Clint Mansell.