The movie Trent Reznor called a “five star film”
At the helm of the iconic industrial project Nine Inch Nails, Trent Reznor is an irreplaceable figure in alternative music scenes, but he’s also developed a name for himself in the world of cinema. Starting with David Fincher’s The Social Network in 2010, Reznor has since immersed himself in the art of film scoring.
Infusing his cinematic composing with his own interests in synths and industrial sounds and in continued partnership with Atticus Ross, Reznor has carved out some of the most masterful electronic scores in recent film history. He has contributed to huge projects such as Soul and Watchmen, finding critical and commercial success just as plentiful as in his rock career.
Reznor’s greatest scoring endeavours, however, have spawned out of his long-standing collaborative relationship with Fincher. Alongside his Academy Award-winning score for The Social Network, Reznor has lent his aptitude for composition to several other Fincher projects – such as the beloved Gone Girl and the recently released The Killer – each of them proving just how well the pair’s artistic leanings fuse together.
Though Reznor may have found himself gravitating towards Fincher in his film career, it was a different David who initially sparked his love for cinema. Growing up in a “very uncool place” in Pennsylvania, a young Reznor found himself drawn to horror. “The films of David Cronenberg and David Lynch made a huge impact on me later in life,” he recalled to Billboard.
It’s no surprise that Reznor was inspired by Lynch and Cronenberg’s unflinchingly dark and unique takes on horror – his sonic output often mirrors this approach. ‘The Becoming’ was even identified as the scariest song of all time by Pandora.
Cronenberg, the father of body horror, has had a particularly extensive directorial career spanning over fifty years and over 20 films, but there is one that stuck out to Reznor. Naming his favourite films in an interview with Grafitti, the composer picked out Lynch’s Blue Velvet, Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver before declaring Cronenberg’s Dead Ringers a “five star film”.
Released in 1988, the disturbing film starred Jeremy Irons as twins Elliot and Beverly Mantle as gynaecologists who abuse their power and twin status. The film has since been adapted into a miniseries starring Rachel Weisz.
“That just popped into my head,” Reznor continued, “The tone of Cronenberg’s films are amazing, particularly that one. It was very inspirational to me in the writing of a couple of albums – The Downward Spiral and The Fragile.”
With a similarly eerie, unsettling feeling to much of his own music and a tendency to favour disturbing thrillers in his film scoring career, it’s no surprise that Reznor found admiration and inspiration in Cronenberg’s filmography.
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