Composer Clint Mansell Explores van Gogh’s Work in ‘Loving Vincent’ Film Score: Song Premiere

The upcoming animated film Loving Vincent is covering the last days of visionary artist Vincent van Gogh with a similarly revolutionary style.

In the biographical tale of the troubled Dutch painter, first-time directors Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman compiled 65,000 individual oil paintings into a coherent and visually stunning stop-motion feature film with musical accompaniment by renowned English composer Clint Mansell (Requiem For A Dream, Black Swan).

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While Kobiela and Welchman aimed to capture van Gogh’s unique visual style with an eye for his brush strokes and color pallette, Mansell drew musical inspiration from the conflict of the artist’s undeniable skill versus mental instability.

“Van Gogh showed us that true genius is as much curse as gift,” Mansell tells Billboard. “He lived his life with rejection, awkwardness, in shame and unloved… Musically, I tried to capture these different aspects of his life, his passion, his pain.”

Aside from the fatal, self-inflicted gunshot wound that brought van Gogh to an early demise, Mansell points out a different type of tragedy when comparing the artist’s stature in the 19th century compared to the massive shadow he cast on art and culture for generations beyond, all the way to modern day music.

“His belief in expression over skill casts him as the original punk rocker, and completely out of step with the art world of his day,” Mansell notes. “He was the ultimate artist ‘unappreciated in his own time.’”

The soundtrack for Loving Vincent will be released digitally on Sept. 22, physically on Sept. 29, and on vinyl on Oct. 13 via Milan Records. The vinyl release will feature the entire score by Mansell along with packaging designed by Kobiela and liner notes from Mansell.

The film is set to hit theaters via Good Deed Entertainment on Sept. 22 in New York before expanding to Los Angeles on Sept. 29 and nationally on Oct. 6.

Check out “The Sower with the Setting Sun” from the score by Mansell below.

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