Kubrick Space ODissey music

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Irena Paulus: Stanley Kubrick's R evolution in ttie Usage

of Film Music: 2 1: A Space O dyssey (1968)

IRASM 40 (2009) 1 : 99-1 27

Stanley Kubrick s Revolution

in the Usage

of Film Music:

2 1: A Space

Odyssey (1968)

Irena Paulus

Franjo Luéic Music Scho ol

Slavka Kolara 39

10410 VELIKAGO RICA

Croatia

E-mail: irena.paulus@gm ail.com

UDC: 78.01-18

Original Scientific P aper

Izvomi znanstveni rad

Received: October 13,2 008

Primljeno: 13. listopada 200 8.

Accepted: February 15, 2009

Prihvaceno: 15. veIjaÉa 200 9.

»A Frustrating Experience«

Stanley K ubr ick s film 2002 A Space dyssey was

mad e based on Arthur

C.

Clarke s novel of the sam e

nam e. The director made a long search for the m u-

sic:

as in his earlier movies, he used the m usic at the

set and he used pre-recorded temporary music (so

called temp tracks) during the editing.^ At first, he

used the following tem p tracks: the sym phonic poem

Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke actually w rote the novel 2001

A

Space dyssey

together. The novel was based upon Clarke s short

story The Sentinel which they expanded. Since Kubrick did not

wa nt to w ork w ith a classical script, the novel became the basis for

filming (and was, of course, changed, during the course of film-

ing).

Later on, after the fum s prem iere, it was pub lished and in-

stantly became a best-seller.

^

The

goal of both procedu res (music during the filming em -

por ary music) wa s to find the right feeling for the scenes, to lead

the actors during their acting, and to help the editor to find the

inner rhythm of the scene while editing the picture. Temporary

mu sic helps the director, too, especially when (a partly unfinished)

film has to be shown to the producers who are financing it. Pro-

ducers want to see the final idea, and d o not wa nt to imagine the

Abstract — Résumé

In

2 1: A Space Odyssey

director Staniey Kubrick, as

strong personality and as the

film auteur wanted to control

all components of film

making,

inciudirig the music.

When he didn't use already

composed music by Alex

North,

he gave way to the

speciai usage of previously

composed classical music in

the film. He changed the

usual way of functioning of

film music. This put him, the

director, to the position of the

absolute author: among many

things he was doing (control-

ling scree nwriting, editing, set

design,

acting etc.), he also

»composed« the m usic by

selecting m usical pieces,

deciding where to put them in

the film, an d, especially, by

editing them to the picture.

Keywords: Stanley Kubrick •

2001: A Space Odyssey •

film music • Thus Sp oke Za-

rathustra • Th e B lue Danube

• Gayaneh • Atmosphères •


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Stanley Kubrick's Revolution in the Usage

4Ü izoo») 1. »» -i¿7 | ^j ^ ^^^ ,y,^jg|j,.

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/I Space Odyssey (1968)

Spote Zarathustra by Richard Strauss (for the main title),

A

Midsummer

N ight s

Dream

by Felix Mendelssohn (for the scenes of space weigh tlessness), a Chopin wa ltz

(Frank Pool jogging in the spaceship's centrifuge) and Sinfonía Antarctica hy Ralph

Vaugh an W illiams (the sequence w here Bowm an passes through the Star

Gate).

Ob-

viously, Kubrick was in a great dilemma

—

some sources claim that he even solicited

Carl Orff to write the score (Orff's Carmina Burana was also a temp track in

2002; A

Space

O dyssey).^

Orff politely rejected the offer, saying tha t he was too old.

At the end of year 1967, the director approached two composers — Frank

Cordell and Alex North (with whom Kubrick had worked when he was filming

Spartacus).* Collaboration w ith Cordell wa s short: the composer suggested Kub rick

use Mahler's Third Symphony as a temp track. But No rth w as far mo re p roduc tive:

his enthusiasm was led by the thought that he would be working with the great

director again.^ So he wro te — in only a m on th (w ith the help of the orche strator,

Hen ry Brandt)

— 48

minutes of music The only thing he didn 't like was Ku brick's

decision (despite persuasion and pleas) to retain some of the temporary music

already used in the film.

Aw are that using temp orary role models and b inding different musical styles

(whe n using different mu sic by different com posers) could become a major p ro b-

lem. No rth insisted that he should com pose the wh ole

score

by himself But Ku brick

was persistent (the idea of classical musical pieces in the film became almost an

obsession to him), so the composer wo rked himself out to compose what wa s ask ed

of him in keeping with the director's models, which were already in the film.*"

W hat followed was agony.

mixed with other sound s and edited only when film is almost finished — so the composer can k now

the atmo sphere, can know w hich second of a scene should have an accent, and so on. Since directors

mostly do not know musical language, the temporary music helps a director to communicate with a

composer. The director uses the temp tracks to show what kind of music he wants. This could be

inspiring for the com poser, but it can also have neg ative infiuence, since it asks for a mim icry of sorts of

other people's music, that is, for the creation of a musical imitation.

See: PATTERSON, 2004:445; LOBRUTTO, 1997:282-283.

* Michel Chion corwiders that Kubrick's musical decisions were infiuenced by the produ cer s from

the MGM film studio, which financed the movie. Chion says that »Kubrick inifially intended to u se

classical music excerpts, and it was MGM that preferred an original score and suggested to the director

that he work w ith North again.« (CHION, 2001: 24)

' »I wa s ecstafic at the idea of work ing w ith Kubrick again (Spartacus was a n extremely exciting

experience for

me),

as

I

regard K ubrick as the most gifted of the younge r-gene ration directors, and tha t

goes for the older as well. And to do a film score where there were a bout twenty-five minu tes of dia-

logue and no sound effects W hat a drea my assign me nt, after Vfíto s Afraid ofVirgina

Woolf

loaded with

dialogue.« (from: NORTH,

Alex

North Comments on

2001,

page 1; the same quotafion can be found in

the booklet of the CD Alex N orth s 2001 — the legendary original score.).

' »But some how I had the hunch that whateve r I wrote to supplan t Strauss' Zarathustra would not

safisfy Kubrick (the influence of this work is clearly heard in N orth's score and it really sound s as if the

composer w as afraid — as an imitation; observation of the author), even thoug h I used the sam e

structure but brought it up to date in idiom and dramafic punch. Also, how could I compete with

Mendelssohn 's Scherzo f rom Midsummer Night s Dream?« ( f rom: NORTH, Alex North s Comments on


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Irena Paulus: Stanley Kubrick s Revolution in the Usage

I . pAe M

An

lonnai

t a a

Í - J T

of Film M usic: 2£7Oí;^ Space Od yssey (1968)

I «AS M 40 (2009) 1 . 99 - 12 7

»In any case, after havin g composed and record ed o ver forty m inutes of music in those

two w eeks, I waited around for the opportu nity to look at the balance of the film, sp ot

the music, etc. During that period I was rewriting some of the stuff that I was not

com pletely satisfied with , and Kubrick even suggeste d over the phon e certain change s

that I could m ake in the subsequent recording. After eleven tense day s of waiting to

see more film in order to record in early February, I received word from Kubrick that

no m ore score was necessary, that he wa s going to use breath ing effects for the rem ain-

der of the film. It was very strange, and I thou ght perh aps I wo uld still be called up on

to compose m ore mu sic... Nothing hap pene d. I wen t to a screening in New York, and

there w ere m ost of the 'tempora ry' tracks.«''

» he yran ny of the em p rack«

North was not the only film composer who had »a great, frustrating experi-

ence«.* Fred Karlin and Rayb oum W right give several similar infamous exam ples,

among them: Platoon (Oliver Stone, 1986), where only half of the composed score

by Georges Delerue was used (the main theme became »Adagio for Strings« by

Samuel Barber which »covered« the rest of the film);

The Sting

(1973) where the

director George Roy Hill used recording of himself playing Scott Joplin's »Rag-

time« with the composer Marvin Hamlisch having the task of adapting the music

to the picture;

The Exorcist

(W illiam Friedkin, 1973) w here (as in

2002: A Space Od

yssey originally comp osed m usic wa s not used at all — instead , the director used

works by David Borden, George Crumb, Hans Werner Henze, Mike Oldfield,

Krzystof Penderecki and Anton Webern; Breaking

Away

(Peter Yates, 1979) where

fragments from M ende lssohn's »Italian« Sym phon y in

A

major and from Rossini's

operatic w orks w ere use d in the first p art of the movie — it was only in the rest

of

the film that the composed score by Patrick Williams »stayed«. Something similar

happened in

Alien

(Ridley Scott, 1979), where the »Romantic« Symphony by

Howard Hanson and some excerpts from Jerry Goldsmith's earlier score for the

film Freud were used. '

So, there is nothing n ew in the wa y filmm akers treat film scores, especially in

instances in which the director »falls in love« w ith the tempora ry m usic.' There is

also nothing new w hen a director uses music by a classical concert composer an d

this music functions w ell in the film scenes and becom es the inspiration for many

interpretations (for example, when Jean Renoir used Mozart's German Dance in

Ibid.

' SHEURER, 1998:1. In this article Scheurer is also usin g the p hrase »tyranny of the soun dtrack«

which was firstly used by K athryn Kalinak.

' KARLIN and WRIGHT, 2004: 30.

'

Alan S ilvestri said: »A temp score is like a hamm er; in the h and s of

a

builder if s a tremen dous


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Paulus: Stanley Kubrick s Revolution in the Usage

of Fi lm Music: 2 0 0 Í; / I Space Odyssey (1968)

oppo sition to Danse macabre by Cam ille Saint-Saëns in h is film The Rules

of

the

Game,

by which Renoir .wanted to show class differences and, as Kubrick often did, the

contrast of order and disorder in the film story).

The idea of the usa ge of classical musical pieces in films co mes from early film

history — as early as the silent film. The first compilation film score was chosen

an d a rranged by Carl Breil for Da vid W. Griffith's famous silen t film The irth

o f a

Nation

(1915). This score was the direct »consequence« of the classical music col-

lections for silent film pianists, arran gers and condu ctors. Classical mu sical pieces

we re gathered and organized according to the atmo sphere, tem po and »emotions«

so the musician(s) could quickly find the music to fit the screen action (for exam-

ple,

Mendelssohn's »Wedding March« from

A M idsummer Night s Dream

or

Wagner's »Wedding March« from the opera Lohengrin were obligatory in the

wedding scenes; Rossini's overture to the opera

William Tell

was mostly used in

the scenes of thunde rstorm s an d o ther action sequences, and the first mo vem ent

from the Beethoven's »Moonlight« sonata was considered an excellent choice for

tender night m om ents). Even in the early days of the cinema, there were exam ples

of rejections of the originally com pose d scores (although this wa s rare, it w as the

case with Gottfried H up pe rtz 's score for the

927

film Metropolis directed by F ritz

Lang, which was rejected when the film was re-edited for the American market).

Kubrick s Musical Choice

So, what was new in the Kubrick's usage of the earlier composed classical

works? Timothy Scheurer explained that »directors have been routinely making

mu sical choices for the soun dtrac ks of their films« but the re rema ined a n un w rit-

ten rule »within the film mu sic com m un ity... that, as effective as a tem p track can

be,

directors should not scrap the w ork of a master film music composer.«'̂ Kub rick

was impolite at least wh en he did n't use the music compo sed by well kn ow n and

highly respected Alex North, whose score was far from being bad or uncreative.

But the director did not take the m an 's, but the art's po int of view: the rejection of

the composed score was necessary for his goal — it led to the kind of music he

wanted.

Kubrick also broke »an unw^ritten rule« about the usage of the music in the

film. The tradition dictated the »laws« of the classical film scoring: »invisibility«,

»inaudibility«, the m usic as the »signifier of em otion«, »narrative cueing«, » conti-

nuity« and »u nity« . W hen No rth said: »I felt I could comp ose music tha t ha d th e

See: WEIS and BELTON,

1985:

312-22.

'̂ SCHEURER, ibid : 1. On the other han d. No rth's score wou ld not have become so famous (in

spite of its excellent musical ideas) if Kubrick had not rejected it.


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Irena Pau lus: Stanley Kub rick s R evolution in the Us age

of Film Music: 2 1: A Space Odyssey (1968)

ingredients and essence of what Kubrick wanted and give it a consistency and

homogeneity and contem porary feel« — he proved that, although he used con-

temporary musical language, he was still thinking traditionally, between the bor-

ders of sta nd ard »rules« of Hollyw ood film music (this can be heard in the 1993

recording of his 2 1 rejected score, which w as co nduc ted by Jerry G oldsmith).

Haruis Eisler and Theodor Adorno raised their voices against those »rules«

calling them »prejudices an d ba d habits«.'^ Their idea was co ntinued by Kubrick

himself who said that »in most cases, film music tends to lack originality«.' '

Kubrick's opinion on the usag e of the film mu sic was on the scent of a udio-visual

connections, which either began by accident'^ or were interpreted as interesting

experim ents that shou ld not be repeated too often.'^ In any case, he found wh at he

was looking for and that

was,

according to James How ard, »som ething that soun ded

unusu al and distinctive but not so unusua l as to be distracting.« His final musi-

cal selection differed som ew hat from the initial one , and it contained th e following

works: the introduction to the symphonic poem Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Richard

Strauss, The Blue Danube wa ltz by Johann S trauss, the Adagio from the ballet Gayaneh

by Aram Khachaturian and the contemporary w orks of the Hung arian composer

Gyorgy Ligeti: Atmosphères, A ventures, »Lux aetem a« and the »Kyrie« m ovetnent

from

Requiem

for soprano, mezzosoprano, two m ixed choruses and orchestra.

This choice contrib uted that classification of the film m usic parallel or in con-

trast to the image losing its basic contours. While at first glance the relation be-

tween music and image is completely clear (the principle of the contrast or, as

some say, musical counterpoint), the more we interpret them , the more we doubt

our first de cision. Of course, this is infiuenced b y ou r ow n pe rcep tion of the film in

which the dialog ue an d the story are moving in the backg round of the visual and

the fantastic (2003 w as m ade on the edge of experimentalism and abstraction). So

» HOW ARD , 1999:110; Booklet of CD Alex North s 2001; NORTH, ibid : 1.

The sam e principles which Claudia Gorbman called »Classical Film M usic: Principles of Com-

position, Mixing and Editing« (see: GORBMAN,

ibid :

73), Eisler and Adomo put together as »Preju-

dices and Bad Habits« (see: EISLER,

1947:

3-19). They begin with — no mo re or less — The

Leitmotif

and they continue with the chapters: Melody and Euphony, Unobtrusiveness, Visual Justification, Il-

lustration, Geography and History, Stock Music, Clichés and Standardized Interpretation.

HOWARD, iWd.: 11.

Siegfried Kracauer tells an interesting story ab out a dru nk en pianist in the silent film era. Since

he did not actually watch the film screen but just played, there were stran ge cases and comb inations as

the one in which »happy « m usic accompanied the scene wh ere the husb and forced th e wife to leave the

house . When they reconciled, the death march accompanied the scene (see: KRACAUER, 1971:136).

»The 1983 re-edition of Fritz Lan g's Metropolis (1926), wh ich featu res a contem porary rock score

by Giorgio Moroder, provides an interesting counterexample of the standard practice of segregating

song lyrics from dialogue and significant acfion. During some 'dialogue scenes' (intertitles were con-

verted to subfitles for enhanced visual pacing), songs with lyrics, sung by such stars as Pat Benatar,

Adam Ant, and BiUy Squier, are heard on the soundtrack. They pro vide a chon islike commentary on

what is seen, sometimes with brilliant irony. Some listeners, their primary attention divided between

the lyrics and the 'dia log ue', find this difficult to assimilate« (GORBMAN , ibid : 20).


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IRASM 40 (2009) 1 . 99 - 127 | ^ j p ¡ | ^ j ^^^ ^ ^QQ ^ ^ g ^ ^ ^ ^ Odyssey (1968)

Kub rick s co m parison of 2001 to the mystic smile of Mona Lisa also works well

with the niusical interpretation s w hich g row, but wh ich are — as the film itself —

open to everyon e s subjective experience.

Ligeti: Overture to the Film

M any mu sical analysis of Kubrick s 2001:

A

Space Odyssey begin with the claim

that the movie starts with the sym phonic poem

Also sprach Zarathustra

by Richard

Strauss. Since this music is very powerful and since it accom panies the m ain title,

the claim is logical. But, 2 1 does not begin with that musical composition. 2 1

begins with a black screen an d G yörgy Ligeti s orchestral wo rk

Atmosphères. ^^

If we try to explain .the director s intentions, it is possible to as sum e th at he

wa nted to have an introd uctio n to the film, just the w ay Spartacus h ad — imitating

similar films from the Hollyw ood »Golden Age«, wh ich w ere, as w ere silent mov -

ies, copying the struc ture of theatre work s (a good exam ple of that is the s truc ture

of

Ben-Hur).

The black screen comb ined w ith Ligeti s mu sic can be also in terpre ted

as the announcement of the seriousness of what we are going to see. Possibilities

for many different interpre tations of the film s stru cture — wh ich w as a lread y

determined by L igeti s

Atmosphères

— show K ubrick s read iness to stimulate the

imagination of scholars and »common« viewers.^ W hen a m usician wa tches the

movie — Atmosphères in the introductory part — he discovers the unusu al q uah ty

of the attraction. Of micropo lyphon y,^ which is based up on grad ual changing of

^ The composer György Ligeti was widely unknow n amo ng the general public during the 1960s

(as was Richard Strauss). But thariks to

2001

:

A

Space Odyssey, the symphonic poem Thus Spoke Zarathustr

by R. Strauss has become one of the most pop ular classical works of today. On the other h and , L igeti s

compositions are still unkno wn — that is, they are known only to a narrow circle of m usic scholars. It

could be said that it was also the other w ay aro und. A few weeks before the film s premiere, Ligeti

wrote to his colleague: »By the wa y, do you know the name Kubrick, a fihn director in England? I never

heard of him. He is making a Utopian (type of) film at the MGM s tudio in London, and w ants to use

part of my Requiem (Kyrie) in the film as music of the next century.« (From: PATTERSON,

ibid.:

448)

Otherwise, Kubrick asked for permission to use

Requiem,

but d id not ask for permission to use Ligeti s

other works. The rights were settled only after the composer s de ma nd, after the film s release.

^ Kubrick also uses Atmosphères in the m iddle section of the film, dividing into two the fum s

section »Jupiter Mission —1 8 Month s Later«. The classical musical wo rk again ha s »theatrical« func-

tion, since it »covers« the black screen, w hich previously bo re the title »Interm ission«. Due to its long

durafion, the film w as stopp ed, leaving v iewe rs the possibility to paus e, stretch their legs or — listen to

the music. Ab out different interpre tations of the film s structu re see: CHÏON

ibid.:

67-70.

^ »Micropolyphony» is represented by numerous Unes, put together densely one above the other;

they are characterized by sma ll interva ls, and they differ from each other only by the small melodic and

rhythmic details, so, when they are ap art, they cannot be noticed, but they are drow ned into the sound

of the whole, and at the same time every one of them is influential in a certain w ay in the whole. The

mycropolyphorüc tissue is an almost static, barely moving sound block, ir\side which are constant in-

teracfior\s of num erou s me lodic lines. They are show n by constan t oscillafions of the sound wh ich is , in


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of Film Music: 2 1: A Space Odyssey

^968)

the orchestral colours (Klangfarbenmelodie) ̂ inside the endless cluster/' ' experi-

enced in the darkness of the theatre completely differently than on the concert

pod ium . The impre ssion is that Kubrick wanted to »rivet« the viewe r to the screen,

to make him listen (and to adm ire) the music, wh ether he likes it or no t.^

Darkne ss inspires the im agination, so the next function of the

Atmosphères

is

am azem ent. It is interesting tha t

2001:

A Space Odyssey retains the status of the first

(and almost the only) science-fiction movie, which contains more science than

fiction. But the music » draw s in« and th at rem inds one to absorb th e pow er of the

monolith (the black, smoo th surface of the monolith do es not reflect the light, but

it absorbs it). So, it is possible that K ubrick ha d at the film's beginnin g alrea dy pu t

the elements in the perspective of the film's ending (we are, together with Dave

Bow man, in the mo nolith, so everyth ing w e are going to see is a flashback of Star-

Child).

That w ould once mo re rou nd out the cyclic structure of the film.

On the other hand, the music is at the same time »absolute«, because at the

film's beginning (at least when we watch the movie for the first time) we do not

know anything about the film's e nding. The darkness of the theatre and the dark-

ness of the film screen do no t register any thing. K nowing that, it is interesfing to

notice that the same mu sic becomes very evocative in the »psychedelic sequence«

at the end of the mov ie, w he n colours an d sh apes literally ru n in front of the view-

er's eyes during the sudden turn of the film into the mystic of the unknown. The

reading of the m usic at an arbitrary level begins at the very opening, wh en we do

not know any thing abo ut the film — except its title.

But, is the »black« overture of the 2 1 really that far from tradifion? I have

already mentioned its connecfion with the theatre and the silent movie. We can

also notice the almost trad itional role of the film's credits, which is overtake n b y

the ove rture, since the real m ain title is very short as in films close to theatre wo rks

(like Spartacus). The ma in title functions as an annou ncem ent: Ligeti's

Atmosphères

is not an energetic or bombastic w ork (as is the major pa rt of Ho llywoo d music for

the m ain titles)^ bu t beca use of the connection w ith the da rk screen, it takes over

the function of the anno unc em ent. It is the sign for movieg oers to stop talking an d

calm dow n, because the film is just beginning .

»At the end of his Harmonielehre Schönberg uses the term Klangfarbenmelodie to define the suc-

cession of sound colours wh ose m utual relation works w ith the kind of logic complementary to the

logic of satisfaction which is arou sed whe n we listen to the melody of tone pitches.« Ubid.: 143)

Cluster means accumulation, amassment, a great quantity. In music we think of accumu lation,

amassment, a great quantity of tones which are as close as the interval of the second (which is the

smallest distance between tones). The easiest way to play the cluster is to push the keys on the piano

with the whole hand . Some scholars think that cluster

is

a chord; others think that it can be qualified as

a sou nd. »A lthough, morphologically speakin g, a cluster is a chord, it sou nd s completely different.

Since it has maximally dense arran gem ent of the

tones,

each of which m akes a special row of harmo nics

which increases the derwity, a cluster looks like a compact tone am algam in which specific tone pitches

are lost, and on ly perception of the register stays: low-m iddle-high, that is lower-high er. But a cluster

brings a new sound quality — a specific colour w hich is at the edge of noise. Even so-called white noise

can be seen as a cluster of a max imu m range.«

Jbid.:

34-36)


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IRASM 40 2009) 1: 99-12 7

Irena Paulus: Stanley K ubrick s Revo lution in the Usage

of Film Music:

2 1: A Space

Odyssey (1968)

Most Hollyw ood scores for the main titles usua lly give a inkling of a film's

genre, of the place and the time of the story and — as in operatic o verture — they

usua lly bring out all (or at least some) mus ical them es. Which are going to be u sed

in the film score. The choice to use the w ork of

the

contem porary composer György

Ligeti, w ho bro ke off the connection w ith the musical tradition of making ch ord s,

the form and, generally, with the concept of the music as music (since his music

lives on the edge of becom ing sou nd or even noise),^' spe aks a lot abo ut the scien-

tific genre of 2001: A Space Odyssey. ̂ Is not the undetermined .music duration,

which is in this case indefinite, the best sign of the film's treatm ent of time (the last

part of the film is entitled »Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite«) and the cyclic struc-

ture of the film's form?

At first glance, it is imp ossible to think about m usical the m es. Ligeti does no t

use the m es in the classical sense — linear m elody in his w ork s do es no t exist. But,

nevertheless, Kubrick's musical concept, which puts Ligeti's works together with

the monolith and arou nd the monolith, begins the thou ght abou t the possibility of

themes (?), and ev en m akes us start thinking that som e of the chosen musical work s

could be explained as leitmotifs...

To Listen to Ligeti s Requiem

The monolith — four million years before, at the beginning at the 21st cen-

tury ^ and »beyond the infinite« — is accompanied by L igeti's

equiem

for sop rano ,

me zzosop rano, two mixed choruses and orchestra. Some autho rs imm ediately re-

acted to the traditional procedure. David W. Patterson uses citation of Michel

Ciment: »Kyrie functions 'as a musical leitmotiv for th e presen ce of the m ono lith

(that) reflects C larke's idea that any technology far in ad van ce of our ow n will be

indistinguishable from magic, and, oddly enough, will have a certain irrational

*̂ In physics, soun d is defined as an oscillation of material particles. The elements of the so und

are the musical tone (the regular oscillation of the m aterial particles) and the noise (the irregular oscil-

lation of the material particles). As opposed to the noise, the musical tone ha s a greater or lesser n um ber

of secondary waves — harmonics or partials. When Ligeti uses micropolyph ony to draw tones near to

each other, and they become

so close

that harmonics of particular tones can not be recognized, th e effect

of his composition (because of the density) is that it comes close to noise which does no t have h arm on-

ics at all.

When w e talk about Atmosphères, we have to mention Harald Kaufman's writing about »a texture

of sound (which) is to be developed that will demonstrate the phenomenon of acoustically standing

still.« He also compares the movem ent inside the static clusters with brea thing ( ), and breathing plays

an important part in Kubrick's sound imagination of the universe. (See: KAUFMAN, 1)

Of course, it is also possible to use Ligeti's works in horror n lm s, and Kubrick did so in The

Shining.

^ It is interesting th at Kubrick never (apart from the movie's title) mentions the year 2001. So we

do not know if Dr Heyw ood Floyd had touched the monolith or if the »Discovery« (18 mo nth s later,


9/30


of Film Music:

2 1: A Space

O dyssey (1968)

qu alit /.« ^' Timothy Scheurer continues the thoug ht when he writes: »Obviously,

Kubrick wanted the music, very much in classic leitmotif fashion, to underscore

this enco unter throu gh ou t the film ...«. It is clear to Patterson that Ku brick's mu -

sical choice (in the film with so many secrets) could not explicitly point out the

tradition, so in the case of

Requiem

(which is the m ass for the dead) Patterson searches

the connection with the past (he notes that Requiem appears every time when it

m arks the end of an epoch: the end equa ls the »death« of the intellectual w eakn ess

of the apes and the »death« of the hum an ign orance of the universe). His conclu-

sion is that this musical work is »in calculated opposition to the film's narrative

surface«^' which is interesting and possible, but which is unfortunately weakly

sup po rted by the argum ent tha t Kubrick, by selecting Ligeti's Requiem, in fact chose

the mass for the dead.

It seem s to me

—

and here I agree w ith Michel Chion

—

that Kubrick did not

choose mu sical works to strength en the film in its »program« subtext (in almo st all

of the musical œuvres, the »program« is put down to the title, and does not have

anything to do with the extramusical readings in the music itself).^^ Kubrick's

mu sical selecfion dep end ed only on m usic and its characteristics

—

he ap proached

the musical works on the »absolute« level, leaving »readings« and »interpreta-

tions« to viewers. Scheurer was closer to the explanation as to why Ligefi's Req-

uiem in

2001:

A Space Odyssey is experienced as a leitmotif Namely, he com pared

Alex Nor th's score with the m usical com positions Kubrick chose. He po inted out

N orth 's cue »Night Terrors« wh ich comes before the scene with the mo nolith and

the apes. The piece is composed to underscore the night, but it does not suggest

anything about the morning, which will bring a great piece of news in the p rehis-

toric landscape — a perfectly smooth black surface.'^

As oppose d to No rth, Kubrick leaves the apes to the real sounds of the n ature

and do esn' t underscore them. o L igeti's

Requiem

— wh en it begins — is not mixed

with any music which came before it. That is the reason why it disturbs the audi-

^ PATTERSON, ibid : 453. About irrationality in music

—

dissonances, atonality and uncomm on

musical pro cedu res, see in Royal S BROWN's book

Overtones and Undertones

(1994).

^SCHEURER, ibid,: 6.

PATTERSON,

ibid :

453.

'^ There is very little of the »program« in music even in the well known symphonic poem

Thus

Spoke Zarathustra

by Richard Strauss. According to Strauss himself: »I didn 't intend to write a philo-

sophical music or to portrait Nietzsche's great w ork... My intention was to honour N ietzsche's genius

which is widely known from the book

lso sprach Zarathustra«

(STONE, E. C , com men tary from LP

record Also sprach Zarathustra .

^ North's music is mo dem composition w hich uses the principle of dividing the low w ind instru-

ments from the high strings, where

the lageolets

an d

pizzicatos

of the strings contribute to the impres-

sion of uneasiness. The only problem of that excellent mu sic is its place in the

film:

while underscoring

of the night scene with the apes (as in earlier »ape« scenes) in No rth 's case means leaving the p icture to

fantasy, Kubrick's decision to use the real sounds of crickets, apes, and other wild animals make the

sequence m ore realistic — not in the way of a docum entary but in the way of the real, rational, existing


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^^g^ ^ g ^ ^ ^ ^

Odyssey

(1968)

ence. The place of the music in the film is important, too: it begins when Moon-

W atch er is wo ken u p by some presence. Kubrick follows his excited reaction, du r-

ing which time he does not allow the viewer actually to see what caused the ape's

uneasiness. The equiem merely tells of an unusual and mystical something. The

mo vem ent of male voices begins with an irregular curve and is expan ded by th e

principle of adding new voices and instruments, but in such a way as never to

traverse its small range. Mu sical move me nt is not experienced as the music wh ich

is added to the picture, but as the music which is the

p rt

of the picture, as if an

»unk now n som ething« emits strange soun ds, which are on the edge of becoming

noise or a scream .

equiem

is felt as diegetic music ^

The Voice of the Monolith

If we listen to Ligeti's equiem as diegetic music, as the »voice of the mono-

lith«, it can be also read as the supplement for the parts of Clarke's novel which

we re not used in the film. Nam ely, Clarke writes that 4 million years later hu m an s

found a mo nolith buried in the Moon 's surface because it had a powerful m ag-

netic field, which ma rked the place wh ere they sh ould dig. With Ligeti's wo rk, it is

easy to hear the magnetic field or any other kind of field or force — this is the

sound which attracts. Anyway, the ape Moon-Watcher, Dr Heywood Floyd and

Dave Bowm an reached out to comply with some kind of unseen force and to touc h

the monolith (Bowman was the only one who actually did not succeed in touc hing

it, since he was v ery old wh en it ha pp en ed) . In the first scene, just before the ap e

touching the mono lith, Kubrick in a very simple and alm ost unnoticeable m ann er

»turns off« all realistic soun ds (the screaming an d shrieking of the excited a pes).

Moon-W atcher is »drowned« in the Sound of the monolith and completely y ields

to it.35

Floyd is even mo re helpless in front of the Sound . Together w ith his five col-

leagues, he approaches the monolith in the scene which also doesn 't have diegetic

sounds — there is only the image and Ligeti's music. The scene is filmed in the

same m an ner as the scene of the first contact hum ans are confused and awestruck.

^ If traditional H ollywood music had started to play at the same place in the movie, it would not

have diegetic feeling. Clear melodic lines (which could also be leitmotifs), the sound of the orchestra

and the harmonies w ould tell us that the music is nondiegetic. An accentuated disson ant chord wo uld

work as a stinger, but it would not soun d diegetic at the same time. Ligeti's music gives an impression

of diegetic music because of the thick musical texture and »inner« voices and instrume nts, wh ich are

not treated as mean s for production of musical tones but as unidentified sound s.

5

»What we do remember from it is the feeling of its vast, continuous choral crescendo in rising

and faUing un dulations. It can be heard either

as a

collective lament, ow ing to the continuou s sliding by

half-tones of the interwe aving melodic p arts, or as an attack or threat, because of the sense of a crowd

or mas s, or even as an eschatological anticipation (in other w ords , waiting for a sacred even t), culmi-


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they circle aroun d the m onolith (as did the tribe of apes), and the Leader (Floyd)

com es in front to caress the black surface. Kubrick »copied« the scene carefully —

he took care that Floyd touched the monolith at the same musical place in the

Requiem

as d id the ape . This is silent confirmation of the claim that time does not

mean anything to the monolith, and that the

million years which K ubrick pa rted

with o ne simple, but very famous, cut — the bone, which the ape tossed trium-

phantly into the air, becom ing a space station — is only a m om ent in the indefinite

time.

Ac tually, w hat is the difference between the ape and the man?

Composing by Editing

Kubrick calls our attention to Oneness in time by the dramatic cut I men-

tioned, bu t that cut is anticipated, and then confirmed by the way Ligeti s Requiem

is used . Nam ely, the first appearan ce of the Requiem (the contact of the ape and the

mo nolith) is sudde nly interru pted by the filmic and musical cut. It clearly parts the

shot of the monolith, wh ich is filmed from a low angle an d is put in the M onolith-

Sun-Moon C onstellation, and the shot of prehistoric landscap e with its appertain-

ing sounds. Michel Chion decided to use the wo rd

commutation

— switching off.

The word marks the monoli th which appears and disappears in a moment

(»switches on« and »switches off«) and marks the music. Is this not yet orie more

confirmation of the narrow relation of the Requiem and the monolith, where the

notion of the leitmotif — even if it does no t function at the trad itiona l level — can

signify som e higher comm on purpo se, which can hardly be understood by »com-

mon mortals«?^*

The leitmotif is a musical idea (melody, progression of cho rds,

motif

rhyth-

mic structure, the whole musical section), which appe ars simultaneously with a

character, an idea, a subject, an object or a situation in a dramatic work (this prin-

ciple is mostly us ed in ope ras, but also in film scores). The problem of the usage of

the leitmotif notio n in Ku brick s 2002;

A

Space Odyssey is not only the untypical

choice of music in which categories of melody, rhy thm and harm ony do not exist,

but also the untyp ical ap proac h to the cor\tent. Nam ely, w ho are the main charac-

ters in 2 1: A Space Odyssey The ape Moon-Watcher? The official busiriessman

Heywood Floyd? The cold and inert astronauts Bowman and Poole? Or, maybe,

the only emo tional being in »Discovery« — the com puter HAL 9000 (who is , nev-

ertheless, a thing)? Timothy Scheurer claims that the re are no heroes and heroines

in the film (which is com pletely atypical for the science-fiction gen re), and there is

only the character of Dave Bowman who we follow (Bowman is really the only

hu m an w ho »springs out« in the film s plot). But, there is one »but« — there is no


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Kubrick s Revolution in the Usage

of Film M usic: ¿OOi.A Space O dyssey (1968)

specific music connected to

him.^^

If music leads, or, if music functions as an aid in

the definition of the main c haracters, then the only m ain character is — the m on o-

lith. The monolith is an object which has its own music, even its own composer:

An te Peterlid po inted ou t the mon olith as the only starter of the action and claims

that the monolith is »almost as the character-hero«.^ The same could be said for

Ligeti's equiem — it is almost a leitmotif

There is a confirmation of sureness-unsureness in the hand ling of the music an d

the film. The

equiem

appears at three places in the movie. Since this was pre-re-

corded material, it could not be changed (transformed or arranged). On the other

hand, the notion of leitmotif in W agner's sense involves exactly transformations and

adap tations of music to the situation in a drama. It is common for film scores to us e

leitmotifs in a simplistic ma nner, bu t I doub t that a director as great as Kubrick w ould

have agreed to do that. The transformation of the music, that is, the proced ure of his

own autho rship (since he selected the classical musical wo rks an d he combined them

with film images in an uriforgettable way , he could easily be called the a uthor of the

music,

almost

the com poser), was effected, but at the filmic level — by editing.

The first change is literal: the

equiem

is opposed to the silence and to real

sou nds , and is cut dow n as by a knife at the end of the scene (since Kub rick a lwa ys

carefully combines music with image in all other sequences, even by editing the

picture to the music it is clear that the cut was made on purpose).^' The second

change is softer: in the scene wh ere Dr Hoyd sees the m ono lith for the first time,

the

equiem

follows another Ligeti work, »Lux aeterna« (Kubrick combines two

vocal pieces as if he is po urin g from one to the other — in this w ay, he hid es the

transition betw een the shot of the Moon rocket bu s and the shot of mon olith in the

Tycho crater). The

equiem

is interru pted again, bu t in a different way . Scientists

organize a photo grap hic session in front of monolith (they are like tourists or like

a hunter who wants to be photographed with a dead lion), but they are deeply

disturbed by an unpleasant whistle. Unlike Clarke, who explains the whistle by

another Constellation of planets, Kubrick doesn't explain anything (but he does

briefly sh ow the Constellation). There is an impression that m ono lith do es not like

being photographed, although Clarke writes that the whistle is a signal (which is

directed to Jupiter). *

3'SCHEURER,íbíd.:3.

^PET ERL lC 2002:188.

^

This also m ade Alex No rth bitter. H e claimed that, since Kubrick chose classical mu sical work s

instead of his score, the director was forced to edit the picture to the music, and he did not allow the

music to accompany the picture, as was comm on in cinema.

' The relation betwee n the whistle and Ligeti's equiem is very interesting. At the beginning of

the scene, the equiem

is

recognized at an unconscious level (despite its connection w ith »Lux aeterna«)

as the Voice which w e already k now . At the end of the scene, we hear the w histle which begin s in the

music-Voice (Kubrick low ers the level of the music, but he d oes not tu rn it off com pletely). In reference


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Space dyssey

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The third interruption

of

Ligeti's

Requiem

tells

why

Kubrick could

not

find

an

appropriate composer for

2 1

and why not even one of three composers Orff,

Cordell, North) wa s good eno ugh

for

the

job. It

could

be the

»grandeur-ness«""

or

the need for absolute control or showing off in his au thorship, but the fact is that

Kubrick himself took th e job of compo ser. It w as surely a major assignm ent for the

man

who

once played p ercussion instrum ents

in

high school,

but

Kubrick-intel-

lectual decided to use what he did know — film editing. By selecting classical

musical works

he

manipulated

and

transformed them

at the

editing desk.

The

result

of

his way

of

com posing

is the

wh ole musical concept

of

2001:

A Space

Odys-

sey. The compositional p roced ure is shown at its best at the film's peak — Bow-

man's passing through

the

Star G ate.

Passing Through Star

Gate

Becoming

th

Mind

The structure discovers

a lot.

An te Pe terlié points

out the

tripartite structure

of the sequence: the first pa rt begins w ith the journey of the space ship in the uni-

verse wh ere

the

monolith »flies«

in

space with

the

»Discovery«

and

other planets;

the second part

is the

so-called »psychedelic sequence«, which

is

filled with

the

colours

and

shapes which move

at

great speed;

and the

third p art stops abruptly

in

the

Room furnished

in the

style

of

Louis XVl."*^ The musical idea

is the

same

as

the filmic o ne. Kubrick used th ree m usical work s by Györy Ligeti in three parts of

the movie. The domination of the m onolith in the first part logically called for

repetition

of the

Requiem. *^

The

logic

is

traditional

it

activates

the

thought

of the

leitmotif) but the musical texture does not only function as the Voice, but also as

the confirmation of the breaking of the stand ard time-space relation. In the »unde-

termined«, »inorganic« tissue

of

Ligeti's

Requiem

Kubrick finds

a way to

accom-

pany the scene w ith the specific mu sical mom ents. On the other han d, by compact

musical texture he hides the jumps in editing by which he creates uncertainty in

the relation between time

and

space.

But he

also do es

it the

other

way

around:

by

the smoothness of the movem ent in the shot (the small space ship turning towa rds

the camera) he hides sud den musical pause

sound. When

he had to

decide abou t

the

importance

of the two

sounds

the

music

and the

whistle),

Kubrick gav e

the

advantage

to the Requiem.

»Listening

to

this part

of the Requiem, it is

impossible

to

decide

if

this

is a

human sound

or not,

instrumental

or not: an

ambivalence entirely fitting

for the

ambiguity Kubrick sought.« (CHION, ibid :

92)

"' See: PETER LiC ibid :

178.

«

See:

ibid : 189-94.

In

this scene

the

Requiem

is

heard

for the

third

and

last time. Otherwise, Kubrick used

all the

musical pieces

in 2 1 only two or

three times,

by

which

he

avoided

the

traditional idea

of leitmotif,


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^^^^^. ^QQI; A Space Odyssey

(1968)

In the beginning of the second part (the »sputtering« of colours suggests un-

thinkable speed of movement) Kubrick does not start instantly with the new m u-

sic (that w ou ld be too simple) b u t n\akes~ the mu sical transition du ring the m o-

m ent wh en the sp iritual Bowm an, because of the speed, leaves his »frozen« bo dy .

The »frozen« shot of Bowman's face is very short, but it is long enough for the

transition:

Atmosphères,

which had filled the emptiness of the screen to this mo-

men t (the black screen du ring the »Overture« and the interruption in the m idd le

of the mo vie entitled »Intermission«), becom e a sign for the transition from ph ysi-

cal hu m an to spiritual hu ma n, that is, to the condition in which B owman himself

does not know what he is (it is important to notice that we, as the spectators, are

forced to accept Bowman's perspective).

Film scholars agree on the fact that the last part of

2001:

A Space Odyssey falls

un de r subjective interp retations. But if the character himself — D ave Bow man —

wh ose destiny Kubrick decided to follow since he w as only on e left as the p rim e-

mo ver of the filmic action (action is also put in motion by HAL , bu t he is discon-

nected) — so: if the character himself does not know what he is, the spectator's

po int of view is, once more, and in the most unu sual w ay, pu t in the field of uncer-

tainty. The spectator is »drawn« inside Bowm an, into his bo dy , his m ind. B inding

with the charac ter does not stay at the level of shallowne ss bu t it enters the de pt h

of following (the now »frozen«) bodily functions. But the function of sight is not

erased, nor is the function of

hearing.

Although Kubrick does not show Bow ma n's

ear (as he show s his eye), it seems that the spe ctator's ears become B ow ma n's a nd

that they are a lso »forced« to reac t, even a t the first m usica l transition.**

Besides, w hen he took over the composing for the film, Kubrick ad de d to the

mu sic the soun d that is usu al whe n static objects are pa ssed by a vehicle travelling

at great speed. The sound is add ed to Atmosphères which already have the conto ur

of noise. By that, the director-com poser p rolong ed Ligeti's idea, and he mov ed the

composition even more — the composition which is static from outside but ex-

tremely active from inside.''^ The director let the spectator

hear

(not only see) the

" Since the dens ity of textures of the

Requiem

an d

Atmosphères

are the sam e, and since they differ

»only« by the ensemble w hich plays them (the Requiem is a vocal-instrum ental, w hile Atmosphères is an

instrum ental piece), we do no t feel the transition as a change — not even as a transition in the secon d

part of the same composition — b ut as a mom ent in which the technician (in the way of Chion 's

commu-

tation) has switched off a channel (voices), so instead of the stereo signal we hear a mono signal. Did

Bowm an's ears react to the great speed? This is another procedure by which w e are drawn (by the ears)

into his body, although we do not know its real, outer shape.

̂ At the beginning of the musical composition, Ligeti divides the violins into 56 ( ) parts, m aking,

during the first eight bars, a chromatic cluster that spreads throug h

5

( ) octaves. The composer wid ely

conquers the musical space and keeps control only by inner movem ent — unnoticeably add ing and

subtracting instruments (the impression is like listening to »sound w aves«). Ligeti's melody is a melody

of sound colours

{Klangfarbenmelodie).

It is interesting to note that Ligeti writes all

56

parts in detail, using traditional notation, altho ugh

the same soun d re sult could be achieved by graphic notation. NikSa Gligo com ments: »Co uldn't it also

be said that in the same way ,

zwangneurotisch ,

L igeti leads himself o n the leash whe n he painstakingly,


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colours

and

shapes w hich fascinate

and

move

in

front

of

Bowm an's eyes

and

ears

—

becoming, as Bowman himself, a sensitive mind witho ut a body, which is help-

less and completely in the power of som ething higher and impossible to under-

stand. ^

Passing Through the Star

Gate

Becoming the Sound

Categories

of

space

and

time

in

the m usic becom e questionab le. First

of all, by

using m usic which sou nds like noise, Kubrick den ies musicality b ut also its so und -

ing

as a

noise

a

noise could

be

music

and

vice versa), which

is a

continuation

of

Ligeti's way of thinking. Musical space is also extremely unu sua l: instead of keep-

ing the usual range and »behaviour«, there is a denial of its most important ele-

men ts — melody, harm ony, tonality, rhythm . This is achieved by subtle accum u-

lation

of

m usical lines

in the

extremely w ide musical space — into

a

static-active

cluster. This

is the

same

or

exactly

the

opposite

it

depends

on the

interpretation)

of com pression of the time wh ich will, by surpassing the speed of light, turn Da ve

Bowman into an old man and foetus alm ost simultaneously.

Time is finally stopped when our hero Bowman, to his and the spectator's)

great surprise, finishes his journey his space trip) »beyond the infinite« in the

Room furnished

in

the style

of

Louis XVI. '' Except

for

the small space ship

and the

* Incomprehensibility, transcendence, and fascination of the culmination sequence in K ubrick's

film made many claim that

2001

is

a

deeply religious film. What

is the

monolith,

but

God? Here

is the

poetic interpretation of Croatian film director Petar Krelja: »In the succession of David's temptations,

the film bring s, at its end , the one of the time funnel; pushed into it by the will of monolith?) or sucked

into

it by its

enormo us pow er (with

the

fourth dimension

of the

world which

we

always call

for), his

vehicle will, carried with the speed of time itself, afford him the fearful and beautiful cannon fire of a

violent light phenomenon; and his eye nerve, which is now liable to colourist changes as Ligeti's

Atmosphères —

observation

of

the autho r), will strongly experience sheaves

of

unreal scenes

—

made

of

tender and dreamlike (time-made?) substation.

Does that mean that

a

representative

of the

human species frees himself from

his

worldly sins?

Does David pass through some kind of purgatory in the name of his species? Does the hero of the

universe run to his catharsis of redemption? Are his ti-aditional ideas of the basic way s of the world

destroyed?« (KRELJA, 2001: 40)

Bowm an's transformation to »sensitive m ind withou t body« gives an inkling that he can be also

transformed

in the

»condition

of

monolith« which

can

»jump over« spaces

and

times

as

it/ he wishes.

What is mystic and incomprehensible is described by Chion's notion of

acousmêtre

(from

acousmatic

which refers to »sound one hears without viewing its source. Radio and telephones are acousmatic

media.

In

film

an

off-screen sound

is

acousmatic.« —

and

être

to

be).

Acousmêtre is »a

kind

of

voice-

character specific to cinema that in most instances of cinematic narratives derives mysterious pow ers

from being heard and not seen.

See acousmêtres

in

The Invisible

Man

Das Testament des Dr M abuse The

Wizard

ofOz.« (CHION, ibid :

188 —

Glossary) The notion also suits H AL 's voice which

is

everywhere

in the space ship, and can be used for interpretation of ñhn's introduction, where we see nothing , but

we hear Ligeti's music.

••

»Space Odyssey should come

to

an end, but the end in the room w ith stylized furniture from the era


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(1968)

astronaut suit, which show that imaginary space is situated »somewhere« (in the

Un iverse), ther e is the music

-^

Ligeti's Aventures. This musical piece is comp letely

different from the Requiem and Atmosphères (and yet, the directo r's cut; at the sec-

ond shot of Bowman's coloured eye, and after the succession of »sound effects« ir\

Atmosphères, is logical — image orice more hid es th e transitior\ in music).

This musical work is the closest to aleatory music in Ligeti's opus, and its

sou nd also show s elements of mu sical pointillism.''^ The result is the mu sic w hich

is actually transformed to so un d/n oi se (despite the tendency of transforming m usic

to sound in the Requiem and Atmosphères, they are still perceived as music). The

progre ssion is finished: mu sic as sou nd (the Requiem) — music as sou nd and r\oise

{Atmosphères) — sound

{Aventures).

The progression is almost equal to Kubrick's

elimination of space and time w here the en d result is — nothingr\ess? C reation? In

any case, the dev elopm ent of Kub rick's reference to time is similar to the historic

development of musical time from the changing of heavy and light beat to physi-

cal time, which is measured by a stop watch in cor\temporary mu sic, to the abso -

lute neg ation (or elevation?) of time as such. ' It is proba bly th e journey of every

creative energy — it has to destroy (time, music, the man) to be able to create

(infir\ite time, sou nd ,

Übermensch).

Music Sound Silence: Diegetic or Nondiegetic?

Pointillistic treatment of tones in Aventures hard ly leaves any possibility for

finding a difference betw een tone a nd sou nd .̂ ^ Most film view ers pro bab ly per -

ceive tones/sounds m the Kubrick Room as sour\ds that are produced in a sou nd

studio. Bowman's breathing, which functions as a counterpoint to music/sound

for some time during the scene, helps to make the conclusion.

Aventures

are only

the beginn ing of confusing events (Bow man watch es himself as he is growing old),

an d tho se events begin exactly at the mo me nt w he n it becom es clear that the h ero

actually

hears

spooky so un ds wh ose echo rebou nd s from the artificial walls. In this

•*

Aleatory

alea =

the cube) is music which perm its the player to decide about the arrangem ent of

movem ents, their duration, their volum e, their colour, and so on. A player becomes a composer and

the form of the music is often open ed (that also depen ds of the player).

PointiUist is music wh ich uses the tones but it perceives them a s dots on the piece of p ape r.

•

For the explanation of the musical composition

á'3S

by John Cage, the work of music w here

any deliberate sound must not be produced during 4 minutes a nd 33 seconds, there is a quota tion of

the composer's way of thinking: »If you consider that sound is characterized by its pitch, its loudness,

its timbre, and its duration, and that silence, which is the opposite and, therefore, the necessary p artn er

of sound, is characterized only by its duration, you will be drawn to the conclusion that of the four

characteristics of the material of music, duration , that is, time length, is the most fun dam ental.« (Cf.

GLIGO, 1987: 58.)

^ I use the notion »sound« in the sense of »real«, »natural« sounds such as the whistle of the

mo nolith, the whistle of the locomotive, the sound of footsteps, the sou nd of breath ing etc. If ther e is an


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Irena Paulus: Stanley Kubrick's Revolution in the Usage I , „ , _ , , ^ i « « « « . . . « » . . o ..

of Film Music:

2001: A Space

Odyssey (1968) I ^ ® ' * °


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. . . . . . . .^ ,«n


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Irena Paulus: Stanley Kubrick's Revolution in the Usage I , „ .0 « - •« « « /» « /« . . „ » . . / . . .

of Film Music: 2 1: A Space dyssey

{^968 I

^ ^ ^ °


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. . . . . . . . x » ^ . . . — . . » , I Irena Paulus: Stanley Kubrick s Revolution in the Usage

IRASM 40 2009) 1: 99-127 | ^ j p ¡ | ^ y^^^ ^.

¿QOV

Space Odyssey

(1968)

nation of the editing of music an d im age — by »cutting« the mon olith and Ligeti's

Atmosphères,

an db y the famous cut bon e/space

ship,

with w hich he literally jum ped

over the lapse of 4 million years). But the audience was still unp repa red, because

shocks — after q uasi »normal« na rrative flow in the »ape's« p rolo gu e — come one

after the other in short succession.

Bringing Oppositions Together

Mu sic for science-fiction mo vies was largely performed on syn thesizers in th e

1960s.' ' It was assumed that the universe sounds »synthetic« (naïveté was even

greater w ith soun d effects such as »beep-beep«), an d orchestral performances (such

as the scores of Star Trek or Star

]Nars,

or even Planet

of

the

Apes,

which w as released

the same year as 2001), were limited by traditional use of film music (although

Jerry Goldsmith used twelve-row technique in Planet of the Apes, he had to accom-

m oda te it to film u se). On the other ha nd, efforts we re ma de to enrich trad itional

music by more contemporary musical solutions (by expanding the tonality, by

freeing the dissonance etc.). According to that. The lue

Danube,

with its sound of

the Romantic era (the piece was composed in 1867), was the closest to the usual

sound of film scores in that time.

The lue Danube

is detracte d of film mu sic's tradition b y its po pu larity and its

cultural sign. Long before it appeared in Kubrick's 2002: A Space Odyssey, this

musical piece already h ad m any me anings (Vienna ballroom s, rich elite, king s an d

queens. New Year's concerts, and so on). Nevertheless, the film composer John

Williams think s that associations, which overload The lue

Danube,

can be put aside:

»Kubrick says to

us,

'Watch the film for more than five seconds and forget those asso-

ciations, and it will stop being nineteenth-century Vienna,' and in the hand of Von

Karajan the music becomes a work of art that says 'look,' that says air , that says 'float'

in beautiful orchestral term s...«"

He re begins a row of sometim es very different interp retation s, which lead in

similar directions, but which also show that Kubrick, by using the music which

In thel960s, the synthesizer wa s the most popular instrume nt a mong filmmakers (this does n ot

include composers ) because it could prod uce m ost orchestral (and other) sound s. Howe ver, the sou nd

of the score was pale and banal (sound samples, which make it possible today for synthetic tone to

sound [almost] like acoustic o ne, were not known). But, producers loved the synthesizer, because its

usage meant a huge financial difference in the film's budget — it mean t that they paid only the com-

poser (who, in the most cases, wa s the performer on the synthetic instrum ent), and that they did not

have to pay an »army« of musicians (composer, orchestrator, copyist, arranger, a sym phonic orchestra

of 7 to 1 mem bers, an orchestra contractor and, possibly, a choir and vocal an d instrumental soloists

— and so on).


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»gets about as far aw ay a s you can get from the cliché of space m usic ,«" deliber-

ately stimulates opinio ns and interpre tations. The director

is

sending the message:

either the film or the music should not be taken for granted.**

Am ong the most interesting interpretation s is the one written by Petar Krelja

who told the spectators what they had feared the most — as much we respect

Kubrick, Kubrick doesn't respect us — viewers, as he brutally teaches us about

truth s of life.*' On the other h an d, the director deeply res pected the mu sic (which

does not mean that he respected com posers as men, which w as witnessed in the

wa y he treated A lex Nor th). He use d the editing to follow the regular change s of

musical phras es in the com position of Johann S trauss. Does this mak e it believable

that Kubrick corisidered the universe o rdered and not chaotic, wh ich could be con-

cluded from later sequen ces of the journey in the distant un iverse w hich is accom-

" Interpretations begin w ith Kubrick's claim, which I quoted in the main text: »If s hard to find

anything m uch better than T he Blue Danu be' for depicting grace and beau ty in turning . It also gets

abou t as far away as you can get from the cliché of space music.«

{ibid. .

Interpretations go further with

Royal

S

Brown's explanation: »The slightly empty elegance of the waltz stands as a musically imaged

metonymy of the uncluttered grace of the visuals and the matter-of-fact commercialism of the narra-

tive.

Further, the surface out-of-synchedness between the waltz's nineteenth-century musical idiom

and the futuristic ico nograp hy of the visuals allows the 'Blue Danub e' to ope rate on an deep er level by

suggesting that the 'evolu tion' from bellicose apes to Viennese ballrooms to outer space has mo re to do

with hardware than with ethos.« (SCHEURER, ibid.: 7

M. Chion pointed out that the waltz appears directly after the famous cut which throws specta-

tors from pre-historic times to the future. He thinks that the only function of the waltz is to »fill the

gap« which was made by the cut (Kubrick's famous ellipsis), because the viewer must reflect every-

thing that happened between the first discovery of the tool/weapon and the future, the time where

there is lasting peace (not war) and wh ere space travels are commo n

(see:

CHION, ibid.:

118).

Timothy

Scheurer underlines the function of commonness, since the waltz, known as a cultural artifact, shows

that the man learned to live with the technology which became part of his everyday life. The conven-

tionality of Strauss' melo dy reflects a routin e mo vem ent of the space ship (SCHEURER, ibid.: 7 .

Other interpretations make the complex connection music-image, whose zwiebelform does not

allow the »real solution«, complete. Penelop e GyUiatt writes about affective isolation, drow nin g in th e

routin e wh ere all friendships a nd familiarities an d ev en sexual relationships are lost. This is parallel to

the unem otional clearness of the man of the future who

is

boun d to scientific techno logy

(see:

CHION,

ibid.:

27).

On the other hand, M . Chion compares the scene of

a

»dance« of celestial bodies to an am use-

men t park (which also shows the function of the usage of The lue Danube waltz as the end title, which

he thinks

is

parody)

—

and this

is

also the metaph or for sexual penetration ibid.:

69).

O therwise, sexual

penetration is similarly sug gested at the beg inning of the Kubrick's 1964 film Dr. Strangelove

—

or How

I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Botrib.

Radio

station WRVR-FM's

D.

J Baird Sealers expressed K ubrick's idea in the most comm on w ords:

»Dancers beware Stanley Kubrick may com e to be regarded as the major cho reograp her of the twenti-

eth century « (HOWARD, ibid.: I l l )

^ »Does Kubrick mock the sleepy hu ma n spirit which so easily gave itself

to

the fascinating effect

of reached distances? Of course It seems that a three beat measure of Straus s' light comp osition, so

peacefully adequate and in perfect comb ination with space surroundin gs, nevertheless points out known

difficulties of the human body in the weightless condition inside the space craft; the ship's wa itress,

who tries

to

bring food to crew memb ers walks mechanically hard and un surely inside the com fortable


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I RA C M


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IRASM 40 2009) 1: 99-127


of Film M usic: 2007; Space Odyssey (1968)

Greek tragedy or early operas. At the beginning of the movie, the fanfare comes

after Lige ti s tmosphères (black screen), and »wakes up« the viewer by mim icking

the theatre curtain or the door which open »thé entrance to the story«. This is the

logical beginnin g of a great, philosoph ical, atypical wor k of art Even Strauss him -

self entitled the introdu ction to his sym pho nic poem

The Riddle

of the

World

as if h e

kne w that on e day some film director will try to solve it.

But, while Strauss thinks that he puts a question in the introductory part of

his symp hon ic poe m, Kubrick bring s out the claim. In complete difference from

other compositions he used, the director puts and leaves the sign of the exclama-

tion mark, as the only firm point upon which the viewer can rely. The music by

Richard Strauss was used like a sign by which the most important points in the

evolution of Hu ma nkind are marke d: the film s m ain title, which annou nces the

mo vie but also brings the first Co nstellation of Earth, Sun an d Mo on; the ap e s

discovery that a common bone can actually be

used;

an d finally, Dave Bow ma n s

transformation from a dying old man to an unborn foetus w hi ch /w ho overbridges

time and space so it/ h e can be brou ght again in front of the place where it /h e

came from — the Earth.

Michel Chion announc ed musical analyses by m aking structural analyses of

film: he sees Kubrick s music as »markers« of film pa rts (these markers are signifiers,

and they are, like signifiers in language, arbitrary).^^ Every section of the movie,

even the one which has no title, begins with specific music: the prologue begins

(and ends) with a fanfare by Richard Strauss; an unu sua lly sharp cu t/jum p in the

universe, 4 million years away, begins with the waltz by Johann Strauss; the ne w ,

som ew hat sh orter time gap (18 m onth s later) begin s with the lonely Ad agio from

the ballet Gayaneh and the last section »Beyond th e Infinite« u ses the

mix

of Ligeti s

music made by Kubrick (as an author?). It is important to point out that the film

ends with the third fanfare in Thus

Spoke

Zarathustra. By doing that, Kubrick cre-

^ While considering interpretations of film structure, M. Chion found that the possibilities are

num erou s. Since this was a very long film, there was a custom to make it possible for audienc e to rest in

the mid dle of it. So Kubrick cut it into two by an »Interm ission«. If we consider o nly the »Interm is-

sion«, which alm ost has a theatrical function (a paus e between the acts), the film has two par ts. On the

other h and , if we follow the titles which Kubrick himself p ut in the film (»The Dawn of Man«, »Ju piter

Mission —1 8 M onths Later« and »Jupiter and B eyond the Infinite«), it seems that th e film is trip artite.

Even these three sections are arbitrary, because Kubrick did no t m ark w ith a title the biggest time gap

of 4 million yea rs (the transformation of a bone in the space ship). So, if we neglect Kub rick s titles, and

follow th e prese ntations of time in the film, we could find th ree sections at other places in the film (p re-

humanity; events on the Moon which are led by Dr Floyd; events 18 months later). But again, Chion

finds a better way to divide up the movie — by following th e story. H e considers that the par ts ar e, in

fact, four. These are: events in the commu nion of the

apes;

events on the Moon; events on the »Discov-

ery« 8 m onth s later; and Bowm an s passing th roug h the Star Gate. There are many different p ossibili-

ties to interpret the structu re of

2001

and C hion writes about the open form. But he also thinks th at the

last partition is the best one, since it is corvfirmed by specific selection and usage of music which he

considers a s »markers« and signifiers of particular filmic par ts. (See: CH ION , ibid : 66-74)


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Irena Paulus: Stanley Kubrick's Revolution in the Usage I .p A C M An lonom i - Q Q 1 9 7

of Film M usic: 2 1: A Space Odyssey (19 68 ) I ' * ' * ™ * ' ' '

^ •

* *

^ ^

'

ated the feeling of cyclic structure even in m usic. The beginnin g an d e ndin g of the

film are the sam e, and that creates the feeling that the mo vie, whe n it finally reached

its end , could start all over ag ain.

The Riddle

of

the World appears three times in the film, so it corresponds to

inner musical structure: Strauss' famous theme (C-G-C) reaches the peak three

times and it is finally resolved in classical cadence. The triparfite structure of the

mu sic reflects th e structure of every scene accom pan ied by it, and Kubrick show ed

grea t talent for musica l form.^' This wa s firstly reflected in the main tifle w here w e

could see the mo st impo rtant collaborators on the movie (»Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer«,

»A Stanley Kubrick Producfion«''^) a nd , of cou rse, the film's fitle. But, in mo stly no

other ap pea ranc es doe s Kubrick edit the image in the way that it is explicitly bou nd

to musical transifions (as, for example, when we have the image of ape's hitting

bon es w ith a nothe r bo ne and the beats fall exactly at the mu sical beats of the final

cadence; or as when the monolith in front of Bowm an's death bed announces the

exact beginning of the first appearance of the musical theme, or when Star-Child

tu m s to the camera exactly at the peak of the final cadence). Instead, Kubrick stresses

the mu sical parts by m ovem ent in the shot (for exam ple, the ape , after he wa tched

the bone for a long time, comes near it; or grad ual mo vem ent towards each other

of the celestial bo dy at the right side of the screen and the foetal me mb rane on the

left side of the screen — only at the final caden ce d o w e actually see that these are

a foetus an d E arth). Never literate, but alwa ys faithful to musical structure, Kubrick

again opens up the possibility of interpretations which could, but do not have to

be correct.

Original

Use

of »Unoriginal« usic

Apart from its help in understanding the film's structure and apart from its

em ph asis on im po rtant p laces in particular scenes (we can also talk here abo ut the

similar beginning s on o ne musical tone — jplayed by orga n in Also sprach Zarathustra

and played by strings in

he

Blue Danube waltz by Johann Strauss, which gave

M ichel Chion the idea to enfitle the »mu sical« chap ter of his great book Kubrick s

Cinema Odyssey — »From one Strauss to the Other«), the sym phonic poem by Ri-

M. Chion caution ed th at it is always possible to operate with the num erical symbols (as is, in

this

case,

the number

three).

I also think that the thesis of

T.

Scheurer about th e three appearan ces of the

same musical theme correspond to three film characters who touch or try to touch the monolith, is

interesting , but constructed (see: SCHEURER:

ibid :

5).

7 YYg

.Quid

argue that it is odd that Kubrick, who was egocentric, allowed in the announcing

protocol the nam e of the studio wh ich distributed the film (MGM) to be shown first and his own nam e

second. But the director »corrected« this by using the music: the title »MGM« appears at the third

beginning of the musical theme, and he underlined his own name by m usical peaks in the cadence,


26/30

IRASM 40 2009) 1 : 99-127



chard Strauss leaves a firm trace of tradition in the sha pe of leitmotifs. Nam ely, the

fanfare appeared in the most important scenes of human evolution, exactly mark-

in g the moment of transform ation, the evolutionary trium ph . The usage of leitmotif

is clear as it was w hen Ligeti s Requiem w as used: although the music can be inter-

preted in many w ays , it stays as the firm point of the film s n arrativ e s tructu re.

It is known for this musical work that Kubrick used it from the beginning,

even before he called an »official« composer to write the infamous rejected score.

The end result of Kubrick s consideration for Richard Strauss and non -cons idera-

tion of Alex North, are two scores, a used and rejected one, which both became

famous (Strauss symphonic poem was largely unknown before it appeared in

Kub rick s film, and there is the qu estion if Nor th s score wo uld hav e ac hieve d

such attention if it had not been rejected). By com paring the tw o scores, Tim othy

Scheurer provides an important conclusion:

»Having looked closely at Kubrick s musical choices for the score for

2 1

I am con-

vinced that his rejection of Nor th s score was something mo re than p ure d irectoria l

ego. Kubrick had worked with North on Spartacus and respected him as a composer

and colleague. His decision to stick with his temp track obviously fits more closely

with his artistic vision of the film as a whole. And, in the final analysis, when one

thinks about

2001,

part of what makes the film memorable, striking, and a matter of

critical curiosity and interest is the sco re... The audac ity of Kubrick s m usical juxtap o-

sitions work brilliantly in a paradoxical fashion: The musical language of his selec-

tions in actuality does not stray far from the conventions of scoring for the classic

science

fi tion

film, bu t their reco gnizab ility (or lack of

it

in the case of the Ligeti wo rks)

allows them to simultaneously complement the action on the screen in classic film

scoring fashion while also functioning in a contrap untal fashio n... Kubrick, then , uses

»unoriginal« film m usic originally, seeing music not only sup po rtiv e of his visu als b ut

also as an active participant in the creation an d /o r des truction of image content. Thu s,

music in Kubrick s films is used inventively and narratively and flamboyantly, caus-

ing the v iewer to listen so that he can see .« ̂

^Md.: lO-n.

his

quote e nds w ith an often used citation by Vivian Schobsak (Vivian SCHOBSAK,


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Irena Paulus: Stanley Kubrick s Revolution in the Usage I

.OACIUI An

fonnoi

i aa

-I

of Film Music: 20 0 Í. /Í Space O dyssey

1968)

I «ASM 40 (2009) 1 . 99-1

REFERENCES

BROWN, Royal S 1994, Overtones and Undertones — Reading Film Music, Berkeley/Los An-

gele s/Lo ndo n: U niversity of Califomia Press.

CHIO N, Michel, 2001, Kubrick s Cinema Odyssey, Lo ndon : British Film In stitute.

EISLER, Hanns, 1947,

Composing

for Films, New York: Oxford University Press, London:

Dennis Dobson Ltd.

GLIGO, NikSa, 1987, Problemi Nove glazbe 20.

stoljeda:

Teorijske osnove i kriteriji vrednovanja

(The Problems of 20th C entury Music: The Fundam ents of Theory And Criterions of Valua-

tion), Zagreb: Muzi¿ki informativni centar.

GLIGO, NikSa, 1996,

Pojmovni vodiC kroz glazbu 20. stoljeda (Guide of Notions in the 20th C en-

tury

Music),

Zagreb: Muzi¿ki informativni centar KDZ, Matica Hrvatska.

GORBMAN, Claudia, 1987, Unheard M elodies, London-Bloomington, BFI Publishing, Indi-

ana University Press.

HOW ARD , Jame s, 1999, Stanley Kubrick Com panion, Lon don: Polestar Wheatons Ltd.

KARLIN, Fred WRIGHT, Ra ybu m , 2004, On the Track New York-London: Routledge.

KAUFMAN, Harald, György Ligeti: Atmosphères, www.lichtensteiger.de/ligeti.html (URL

exam ined 21st of Feb ruary 2006).

KRELJA, Peta r, 13th of Decem ber 200 1,2001 Odiseja u svem iru Stanleya Kubricka — danas

(A 2001: Space Odyssey by Stanley K ubrick — Today), 2001, Vijenac, Za greb: Matica

Hrvatska, IX, nr. 203,40.

KUBRICK, Stanley, 2001, Stanley Kubrick s

2001: A

Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick Collec-

tion — digitally restored a nd rem astered). Turner Entertainment Co. And W arner Home

Video, DVD.

LOBRUTTO, Vincent, 1997, Stanley Kubrick Ne w Y ork: Pengu in Books USA Inc.

NELSON, Tho ma s Allen, 1982,

Kubrick — Inside a Film

Artist s Ma ze, Bloomington: Indiana

University Press.

NORTH , Alex, Alex North s Comments

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Kubrick Space ODissey music