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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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4O
I nnta
i- «« 127 I ' '^ ^
P ̂' ®-
Stanley Kubrick's Revolution in the Usage
4Ü izoo») 1. »» -i¿7 | ^j ^ ^^^ ,y,^jg|j,.
^ Q O Í ;
/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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IP ACM An iinnm t aa iiy I ' ^ ^ Pauius: Staniey Kubrick's Revolution in the Usage
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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Irena Paulus: Stanley Kubrick s Revolution in the Usage
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,
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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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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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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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| ^ j p ¡ | ^
^^^^^. ^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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:
9 9 - 1 2 7
| ^^ p^,^
^^^^^ 200V A Space Odyssey
(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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Irena Paulus: Stanley Kubrick's Revolution in the Usage I , „ .0 « - •« « « /» « /« . . „ » . . / . . .
of Film Music: 2 1: A Space dyssey
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IRASM 40 2009) 1: 99-127 | ^ j p ¡ | ^ y^^^ ^.
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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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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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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,
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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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.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
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NORTH , Alex, Alex North s Comments