Black Swan was inspired by music

Composer Clint Mansell has told Classic FM that Darren Aronovsky, director of Black Swan, said the music is “one of the main reasons he wanted to do this film”.

Black Swan is the fifth film on which Aronofsky and Mansell have collaborated, and Mansell says “The music in his (Aronofsky’s) films is always a big component.”

Mansell has taken as his starting point Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, and combined it with new original music. He says: "You want to achieve something with it, but something in keeping with the original work. So that if someday it crossed Tchaikovsky's path he'd say, 'Yeah, those guys did something good with that'."

With 12 BAFTA nominations, Black Swan is second only to The King’s Speech. It has been nominated in categories including Best Film, Best Director, Leading Actress and Original Screenplay.

Listen to our interview with Clint Mansell