Clint Mansell adds cacophonous noise and jarring sounds to beautiful, classical melodies that slowly degrade as Black Swan progresses. This degradation directly mirrors the protagonist’s own descent into insanity.
Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake is obviously thematically appropriate. However, it is too pretty a piece of music to mesh with the dark, claustrophobic and paranoid nature of Black Swan. Mansell fixes this disconnect by rearranging and recomposing certain portions of Swan Lake to make them far more foreboding, haunting, and shocking. Loud, bellowing sections interrupt soft passages; skin crawling discomfort replaces elegant tones; motifs repeat in ways Tchaikovsky never intended. Mansell changes pieces of universally familiar music just enough to induce paranoia and confusion, to put the audience on edge. He wants them to know the world is not as it should be.
Although the ballet’s most beautiful, iconic melodies remain largely unscathed, Mansell gives them a darker edge. He does so through subtle, slowly building synths that eventually consume the ballet and crashes and shrieks that interrupt and shatter the music’s momentum. As the main character’s sanity deteriorates, so too does Tchaikovsky’s original music. Mansell tears apart the once beautiful melodies, morphing them into something hideous, love turning into despair, hope into fear. Mansell’s alterations make Swan Lake increasingly unrecognizable until the music is but a few identifiable notes, calling out for help until they are finally silenced under the weight of madness.