THE SCORE FOR 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEYdocshare01.docshare.tips/files/29735/297353800.pdfwhich uses the...

26/1/2016 Discovery Service para UNAM

http://eds.a.ebscohost.com.pbidi.unam.mx:8080/eds/delivery?sid=ca5e5e2f-93ae-483e-b261-58fc6faffd6e%40sessionmgr4004&vid=13&hid=4202&ReturnUrl=http… 1/15

Título:Autores:Fuente:

Información del editor:Año de la publicación:

Descriptores:

Persona:Descripción:

ISSN:Rights:

Número de acceso:Base de datos:

Registro: 1The score for 2001: A Space OdysseyScheurer, Timothy E.Journal of Popular Film and Television. Wntr, 1998, Vol. 25 Issue4, p172, 11 p. photographTaylor & Francis Ltd.1998Motion picture music -- Scores 2001: A Space Odyssey (Motion picture) -- Criticism andinterpretationKubrick, StanleyStanley Kubrick's science fiction masterpiece '2001: A SpaceOdyssey,' is considered a breakthrough not only in science filmproduction but also in musical scoring as well. Several classicalpieces helped highlight the emotions expressed in the film. Theseinclude Khatchaturian's 'Gayane Ballet Suite,' Nietzsche andStrauss' 'Also Sprach Zarathustra,' and Ligeti's 'Requiem forSoprano, Mezzo Soprano, Two Mixed Choirs and Orchestra.0195-6051COPYRIGHT 1998 Taylor & Francis Ltd. Copyright 1998 Gale, Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.edsgcl.20573310Literature Resource Center

Kubrick vs. North

THE SCORE FOR 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY Since its release in 1968 Stanley Kubrick's science fiction epic 2001: A Space Odyssey has been thesubject of ongoing debate and discussion as to its importance, its influence, and its meaning. Most oftenone reads of its groundbreaking innovations in special effects and its contribution to the evolution ofscience fiction films, and occasionally one will find a reference to its music. The reason that the film'smusic is part of the larger debate about the film has to do with the nature of the score itself and theprocess that went into its creation.

During the production of 2001 Kubrick, as filmmakers are wont to do, assembled a temporarysoundtrack (temp track) for the film consisting of classical pieces by Richard Strauss, Johann Strauss,and Gyorgy Ligeti, among others. He also called in the highly respected, veteran film music composerAlex North to write an original score. While North was working on the music he received word fromKubrick that "no more score was necessary" (Agel 199). North, always the gentleman, acceded to thefilmmaker's wishes. When he went to a screening he discovered that none of his score had been used;Kubrick had retained the temp track. In print North could only describe the whole affair as "a great,



frustrating experience" (Agel 199). Within the film music and scholarly communities, however, theresponse was less benign. Kathryn Kalinak, for instance, cites the case of 2001 as "[t]he most infamousexample of the tyranny of the temp track" (192). In short, Kubrick had done the very thing that film musiccomposers had fought so long and hard to avoid. The film industry views the musical score of films inwidely differing (and sometimes baffling) ways. At one extreme is the view that the score fills in gaps ofaction, and that no one notices it, except that something would be missing if it were not there. On theother hand, the score is viewed as what might save a film.( n1) Consequently, Kubrick's decision wasnot necessarily surprising. But many were not pleased, seeing yet another way that filmmakers diminishthe role and importance of the film music score in the creation of the total artistic product.

In the following pages I will assess the final score for 2001, that is, the one Kubrick opted for, bycomparing it to Alex North's score for the film. What I hope to address is whether or not Kubrick madethe right choice by sticking with his temp track. The fact that directors have been routinely makingmusical choices for the soundtracks of their films (in essence, scoring their own films) over the last 20-to30-odd years--from Dennis Hopper's Easy Rider (1969) up to the films of Martin Scorcese and QuentinTarantino (to name just two)--demonstrates the popularity of the idea within the film community.Nonetheless, within the film music community there remains the lingering feeling that, as effective as atemp track can be, directors should not scrap the work of a master film music composer.

Before actually looking at the music for 2001 let me discuss the framework for my musical analysis. Toassess the effectiveness of Kubrick's and North's work it is important to address two elements integral to2001: first, how the film and music address basic conventions of the science fiction film formula; second,the critical dialogue concerning the film's theme(s). The remainder of the article will focus on foursequences and a comparison of the music in those sequences.

The Film FormulaFor all the science, technology, and intellectual speculation about the future that courses throughscience fiction films, they are still primarily concerned with the human condition and the reaffirmation ofour humanity. Like other genres, the science fiction film is a site where cultural and ideological conflictsare acted out and resolved. The resolution often conforms to an ideology dominant in the culture or thatof a particular powerful segment of the culture (business, white middle class, a thriving social institutionlike big business, or a particular government). Science fiction traditionally has also been a site where thebelief in progress (especially scientific or technological progress) comes up against a distrust of the verysame science and technology. Science has delivered a number of benefits to people living in themodern world, such as medicine, faster transportation, and more efficient communication, but it alsoposes a threat to our very humanity in the forms of robots, automation, and computer-guided systems.To articulate this conflict for mass audiences filmmakers have generally relied on a set of conventions inthe genre to play out the conflict. Although 2001 was seen as a departure from the science fiction genre(as a more intellectual take on the formula), it still honors the conventions of the formula, and Kubrick'smusical choices reinforce those conventions. Most of the conventions can be subsumed under a fewgeneral headings:

Science Itself

All science fiction films feature science in the form of technology or scientists. Science can be the cause



of the central conflict, and it can also be a partial savior in the resolution of the conflict. The music thatmight accompany this convention can range from the serious to the mysterious to the whimsical. Theserious approach will be represented by dissonant and atonal music suggesting the futuristic andotherworldly aura that science assumes in the film. At the other end of the spectrum is the whimsical,where the music will try to convey a sense that science is the domain of absent-minded-professor typeswho are not grounded in the realities of the workaday world but are basically harmless souls.

In 2001 the use of music to underscore the scientific is, to say the least, ironic. The three sequences inwhich the trappings of science and technology are most on display are the space docking sequence,which uses the Johann Strauss waltz "Blue Danube," the trip to the moon from the space station(Strauss again), and the opening scene in part 3 ("Jupiter Mission: 18 Months Later"), when we areintroduced to the Discovery and astronauts Dave Bowman (Keir Dullea) and Frank Poole (GaryLockwood), which uses the Cayane Ballet Suite by Khatchaturian. These pieces of music are, from amusical standpoint, closest to the classical Hollywood score; they are replete with conventionalromantic/postromantic harmonies and soaring or at least contemplative and easily recognizablemelodies. In short, dissonance in the film is limited to its most conventional usage and is not a privilegedharmonic language.

The Alien

Aliens are physical embodiments of the Other, the thing separate from our earthbound humanity. Inmany films prior to the 1970s they symbolized the negative aspects of science: They may be soadvanced scientifically as to be devoid of humanity (as in Forbidden Planet and War of the Worlds); theymay be scientific experiments gone bad or the result of questionable (read nuclear here) experiments(Them); they may be creatures from another planet, creatures who have mutated because of sciencegone awry (Them and The Deadly Mantis); or they may be objects like the monolith in 2001. Thehallmark of the music associated with the alien is dissonance, atonality, and discordance. Polychords,chromaticism, tritones, and other avant-garde harmonic and melodic devices (electronic musicespecially) as well as irregular metres and polyrhythms characterize the music of the alien. Recentscience fiction films that feature more benign aliens downplay the discordance, but one will probably findthat melodies and harmonies associated with the alien still fall outside the melodic and harmonicvocabulary of the postromantic tradition that characterizes so much of film scoring. The hallmark of the2001 score is the use of Gyorgy Ligeti's dissonant and avant-garde music in scenes dealing with theencounters with the alien monolith.

The Encounter with the Alien

The encounter is the central conflict in science fiction films--the moment when earth beings confront andmust defeat or reconcile themselves to the alien Other to preserve their humanity. The music for theencounter will be pretty much the same as that for the alien.

Society

As in the western film genre, the society depicted in the science fiction film is a cross section of thesociety at large. Generally speaking, all or some of the major social institutions will be represented as



countervailing forces to the alien. Thus we will find ministers who seek religious guidance; thegovernment will rely on power and/or political negotiation; or the scientific community will offer solutionsor olive branches (recall the feeble attempts of the scientists in the original The Thing to establishcommunication, while the military guys set fire to the walking-vegetable Thing, played by Jim Arness).Interestingly enough, as in the western, for good or ill sacrifices will be made to preserve our all-too-human but wonderfully, humanely diversified society. The music representing the society will, like thesociety, be diversified and will probably employ the conventions of scoring that one finds in almost anydomestic drama. In 2001, perhaps not surprisingly, the scenes where we get glimpses into the society ofthe times and see people from different walks of life are underscored by the same music as the sciencesequences: Johann Strauss and Khatchaturian.

The Hero/Heroine

The hero/heroine of the science fiction film can be drawn from any sector of society. The character maybe a member of the military (The Thing), a representative of the government (Them), a scientist (War ofthe Worlds), or just an "ordinary guy" (Close Encounters of the Third Kind). The hero/heroine willgenerally be seen to embody some characteristic that reaffirms human uniqueness or even a particularcultural value--for example, he/she may be particularly resourceful, possessed of common sense andpatriotism, or a champion of progress or democracy. The music of the hero/heroine will be close to thatof the hero figures in the action adventure or historical adventure films, depending on his or her role insociety. Consequently, the accompanying music may be martial, folklike, quietly assertive, or evenromantic (if there is a love angle).

In 2001, there is not one hero figure, with the exception perhaps of the character of Dave Bowman, andthere is no special music for him--only that which underscores the scenes of which he is a part. It issignificant, however, that the three main characters in the film are the only ones whose activities areunderscored by both types of music: the conventional classical and the avant-garde.

Theme(s)As its subtitle states, 2001 is about an odyssey, a quest, and true to the formula's science subtext, thatquest centers on the desire to know, to find out something. This is primarily symbolized in the film by themain characters (the ape Moon-Watcher, Dr. Heywood Floyd, and Dave Bowman) either touching orattempting to touch the monolith. Because of the film's evolutionary pretext (and subtext), notsurprisingly many critics see 2001's theme centering on transcendence, the quest for greaterintelligence or higher consciousness, and/or some sort of rebirth. Kubrick himself said about the aims ofthe film:

Man must strive to gain some mastery over himself as well as over his machines. Somebody has saidthat man is the missing link between primitive apes and civilized human beings. You might say that thatidea is inherent in 2001. We are semicivilized, capable of cooperation and affection, but needing somesort of transfiguration into a higher form of life. (qtd. in Nelson 100)

Critic Michel Ciment, echoing this statement, wrote, "This is what 2001 is about: man, who transcendedthe animal condition by means of technology, must free himself of that same technology to arrive at asuperhuman condition" (127). The allusion to the superhuman, of course, suggests both Nietzsche and



the Richard Strauss symphonic poem Also Sprach Zarathustra, whose opening theme serves as themain title music for the film. Alexander Walker believes 2001 is about "the development of intelligenceinto higher and even more diverse forms" (252).

Complementing and augmenting the theme of development is the conflict between creativity anddestruction. The film has a pattern: long periods of stability and order (usually underscored by the"classical" pieces) are punctuated by brief sequences of chaos and creativity (usually underscored bythe Ligeti pieces). Walker describes the pattern as follows:

Tool--weapon, evolution--destruction, intelligence--instinct: the message of the image sums up the ironyof progress and prepares for all that follows in the film: By one sharp associative cut, the last bone fromthe pounded skeleton bouncing high in the blue is transformed into a spacecraft of the A.D. 2001 as itorbits in blackness around the earth. (247)

Similarly, after HAL is able to commandeer the Discovery by killing Poole and forcing Bowman to chaseafter his comrade's body floating off into the darkness of space, Bowman must find a creative solution toget back into the Discovery, dismantle HAL, and get control of the ship and his destiny. Norman Kaganstates: "Bowman going into the pod to go into the infinite shows him abandoning 'tools and rationality'reaffirming the point that they 'can only go so far"' (161). Similarly, Walker calls Bowman's actions in thissequence "intelligent improvisation" (257). Penelope Gilliatt in her perceptive review of the film statedabout the final sequence, where Bowman rapidly ages in the room furnished in eighteenth-century style:"The old man drops his wineglass, and then sees himself bald and dying in the bed, twenty or thirtyyears older still, with his hand up to another of the slabs [monolith], which has appeared in the room andstands more clearly than ever for the forces of change. Destruction and creation coexist in them" (Agel213). The Harvard Crimson saw in all of this an "ambiguous spiritual growth through physical death"(Agel 218). What we have then, in the final analysis, is a film that like other science fiction films statesthat we believe in the ability of science to help us progress (to achieve better or improved lives), but thatprogress will not be good (or maybe even possible) without the human element, which is manifested ineither creativity (which in this film is accompanied by images of chaos and destruction), compassion, orskepticism about that very science which should be a boon to humankind.

The Scores for 2001The music of 2001 follows the conventions and themes of science fiction films. It underscores theconflict between the stable, rational, and well-ordered world made possible and basically run by science,and the chaos and destruction that attends creativity or experimentation with two dominant musicalimpulses: The rational and frankly dull operations of science are accompanied by conservative"classical" pieces, and the periods of chaos and creativity are accompanied by the avant-garde andatonal works of Ligeti. Interestingly enough, the seemingly diverse (or some might say oddball)selections of music have unifying elements. First, most of the pieces (or at least the portions used)begin piano and conclude forte. Second, all the works--including Ligeti's, with their reliance on atonaland quasi-aleatoric tendencies( n2)--rely on conservative compositional techniques. Upon examiningLux Aeterna, for instance--which is used when the characters are traveling to TMA-1 in the "moon bus"--one finds that the dissonances are carefully created by having the split choirs basically build chordsthrough delayed entrances of the voices. Thus, the first sopranos begin on F; the second sopranos



enter a few beats later; the third sopranos a few beats later, and so forth, until all eight soprano and altovoices have sounded the same first note. Once each voice has entered, the first sopranos sing an Enatural, and then the other voices repeat the pattern--except this time the strict order throughout theeight voices is not adhered to. The technique is not unlike that of fugue, albeit in a more compressedform and with shorter musical ideas than in a Bach fugue. But the wonderful, unusual, and atmosphericdissonances are, nonetheless, grounded in fairly conventional technique. In short, the music reinforcesKubrick's view of science: The technology and tools of science can be a springboard for creativelyseeking new worlds, or they can trap us in moribund complacency and routine.

Thus, Kubrick used his musical resources in a very conventional sense by having the music articulatethe emotional core of the film. Alex North attempted very similar things in his score. North composedmusic for approximately half of the film before he discovered that his services would no longer beneeded. He had heard Kubrick's temp track ideas, and he also scored parts of the film that wouldeventually have no music at all. He composed a very Straussian opening theme, which I will discuss inmore detail later; the opening "Dawn of Man," in which the apes are foraging for food ("Foraging"); thefirst confrontation between the two groups of apes ("The Bluff"); the night scene prior to the apes'discovery of the monolith ("Night Terrors"); the battle between the two groups of apes when Moon-Watcher beats his rival with a bone ("Eat Meat and the Kill"); the space station docking; interior scenesin the space station ("Space Talk" and "Interior Orion"); the flight from the space station to the moon("Trip to the Moon"); the moon bus trip to the site (called TMA-1) where the monolith was discovered("Moon Rocket Bus"); and finally some entr'acte music.

I will now compare each man's musical approach to four sequences. First, consider the main title music.Without a doubt Kubrick's choice of the opening of Richard Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra was oneof the most influential and dramatic strokes in the history of film music. Not commonly known before thefilm, the theme became ubiquitous thereafter, even playing a part in Elvis Presley's later stage showsand countless television commercials. The theme is an inspired choice because it succinctly anddramatically captures the spirit of the film's odyssey. In fact it may be the only emotional and heroicstatement underlying the quest theme in the film, as everyone, with the exception of the ape Moon-Watcher, goes about the quest for higher intelligence in an unemotional and, well, scientific fashion. Inthe context of the film, the theme suggests a number of readings, but over the opening title's scene ofplanetary alignment it first suggests a yearning or reaching for something beyond. The music ascendsby intervals of a fifth (do-sol-do) until it reaches the third above the keynote (the first note of the scale orkey) where it resolves downward by a half-step, creating a minor harmony. In short, the music aspires,but it does not resolve to the keynote. Then the bass note is sounded again and the three-note (do-sol-do) sequence is repeated, but this time the fourth note (an E flat) resolves upward to the major third; stillthe quest is not done. The C in the bass is sounded for a third and final time, the three-note motif isonce again introduced, and then the orchestra works through an extended I-IV-V cadence towardresolution. Correspondingly, each of the film's three protagonists reaches out to touch or attempt totouch the monolith before the conclusion (resolution) in which Bowman is reborn as the Star Child andthe theme is repeated for the third and last time (recall it has been used earlier in the "Dawn of Man" filmsequence when Moon-Watcher discovers the power of the bone).( n3) reprise here also serves as areminder of the heroism underlying Dave Bowman's entering the small space pod and undertaking thejourney in the film sequence "Jupiter and beyond the Infinite." Thus, the theme of the quest, of trying to



ascend to a higher plane and a resolution of the odyssey, is suggested in the opening titles. Its use inthe "Dawn of Man" sequence is similar but also suggests an awakening, a realization, which in turnleads Moon-Watcher to a "creative," albeit destructive, solution to the foraging problem: the deadanimal's bone can be used to kill to ensure survival and to drive off those who control a natural resource(the water pond) and similarly threaten survival.

Alex North's main title theme, on the other hand, stands as a testimony to his efforts to please Kubrick.He knew Kubrick was much taken with the Strauss music, and so the theme he crafted shares some ofthe characteristics as the Zarathustra theme. For instance, his theme, like Strauss's, begins with a notesounded low and softly in the strings until the first note of the theme itself is announced mezzofolte. Histheme is also repeated three times, and it also ends with the orchestra breaking off and leaving theorgan to sound the final harmony. However, that is where the similarity ends. North's basic motive is afour-note pattern that, rather than emphasizing the movement upward (in the scale), accentuates adownward movement: the first note is an octave leap but then descends down a fourth and then a minorthird (e.g., D-D-A-F sharp); this is immediately followed by a three-note pattern that goes from D up to Fsharp and then down to E. The theme is developed through repetition and variations on the twopatterns, the most common one being to decrease the duration of the notes. Even though Northsuggests a movement upward in the evolving theme development, the downward movement is moststrongly felt. Consequently, what is suggested in the melody is a feeling at once heroic (this largelyachieved by decreasing the note durations; in fact, at times the theme almost takes on a swashbucklingfeeling) and ominous. One might say that in light of the film's theme this would be perfect music: Is therenot a price paid in human values for each step in technological evolution'? Yes; but like much sciencefiction, for all its skepticism, determinism, and irony, 2001 strikes an optimistic note in its final images ofrebirth. The Strauss piece contributes two important elements to the film that are missing in North'stheme: first, the sense of yearning, optimism, and an awakening to a transcendental moment; second, asharper sense of contrast and irony when juxtaposed with the Johann Strauss "Blue Danube" waltz andthe quasi-aleatoric selections by Ligeti. These qualities, almost more than the cautionary and ominousmessage coursing through North's theme, seem to inform Kubrick's tale of a twentieth-century odyssey.

It is difficult to compare North's music and Kubrick's selection for the "Dawn of Man" sequence. Northwrote five musical cues for this sequence while Kubrick only drew on two pieces: Also SprachZarathustra and Ligeti's Requiem for soprano' Mezzo Soprano, Two Mixed Choirs and Orchestra. Theonly episode where a comparison might be made is the night sequence when the apes, after theirdebacle at the drinking pond, are huddled together fearfully awaiting the dawn when, unbeknownst tothem, they will encounter the monolith. North's music is titled "Night Terrors" and seems to underscorethe actual scenes at night; there is nothing in the music that suggests the scene when the apes awakeand discover the monolith. Kubrick, on the other hand, relied solely on the sounds of the apes and thenight itself during the first part of the scene and then brought in the Requiem as Moon-Watcher awakensto discover the giant slab. Obviously, Kubrick wanted the music, very much in classic leitmotif fashion, tounderscore this encounter throughout the film, and he felt the Ligeti piece achieved the effect hewanted. Ciment notes of the music:

The oratorio by Gyorgy Ligeti which acts as a musical leitmotif for the presence of the monolithcoincides with Arthur C. Clarke's idea that all technology, if sufficiently advanced, is touched with magic



and a certain irrationality. Its choral accompaniment leads us onto the threshold of the unknown, just asKubrick's use of the opening bars of Also Sprach Zarathustra prepared us for the profundity of hisintentions. (128)

It is interesting that Ciment refers to the irrational and magic, especially when we also think of themonolith as the object that leads us to find new technology, to create and invent ways to push beyondwhere we currently are. And indeed Ligeti's music captures dramatically and in an unsettling manner therush and commingling of the creative and the destructive. There is in this particular selection an intensityderived from the way in which he creates his dissonant tonalities; the seeming atonal chaos of thevoices captures perfectly the dynamic and mercurial ebb and flow of the creative experience. It is asthough the singers' voices are rising out of a void, struggling to reach some sort of resolution but thenbutting up against another set of voices (i.e., new ideas, images, inspirations) struggling for the same.There is, in short, a similar yearning and sense of awakening in the Requiem but unlike the Zarathustratheme, which assures us of an ineffable and inexorable order in the universe, the [Requiem, with itsvocal lines that suggest terror and screams, reminds us that the discovery of that order is fraught withchaos, mistakes, anxiety, and discontent as we peer into the vastness and the void of the infinite.Kubrick's choice is indeed an inspired one when one thinks of musical antecedents such as Haydn'sThe Creation and Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, both of which employ dissonance to announce theimminence of creation or awakening.

An easier comparison between North and Kubrick can be made when dealing with the space dockingsequence. This is perhaps the most famous and often written about section in terms of the musicalunderscoring. I remember when I saw the film for the first time in 1968 that when the first bars of themain theme of "The Blue Danube" erupted on the screen there were scattered laughs throughout theaudience. My reaction as I heard the soft strains of the melody seemingly emerge out of the darkness ofspace was more one of, "Wow, what a stroke! Who would have thought of that?" I remember settlingback to watch the "dance" of the shuttle and space station in a twenty-first century, intergalactic ball,replete with technological elegance and refinement. Royal S. Brown has, I think, identified what is sospecial about the music in this sequence:

the slightly empty elegance of the waltz stands as a musically imaged metonymy of the unclutteredgrace of the visuals and the matter-of-fact commercialism of the narrative. Further, the surface out-of-synchedness between the waltz's nineteenth-century musical idiom and the futuristic iconography of thevisuals allows the "Blue Danube Waltz" to operate on a deeper level by suggesting that the "evolution"from bellicose apes to Viennese ballrooms to outer space has more to do with hardware than withethos. (66)

The music is effective on two levels: First, it provides, as Brown suggests above, a musical counterpointto the visual imagery and iconography in and around the shuttle and station; the composer IrwinBazelon in fact states, "The waltz is Muzak--an endless flow of rerecorded, sentimental musical pap,heard in any air terminal the world over" (111). The music, then, is conventional, written in the idiom ofnot only muzak but of much of film scoring since the 1930s, and as a result it suggests a world of order,circumscribed behavior, values, norms, and manners--a world much like ours, except 30-odd years inthe future. The music is also a set piece that allows us to view the actions and embrace the paradox of



science in the film: from the spacecraft themselves to the gadgetry that passes before our eyes duringthe sequence, we are witnessing extraordinary technological achievement that has now become part ofour ordinary everyday lives. The actions and observed conversations (we do not actually hear theirvoices) of the humans in the sequence, furthermore, reinforce the routineness of life in the twenty-firstcentury. The main musical motif of "The Blue Danube" structurally suggests Richard Strauss'sZarathustra theme by employing a basic four-note motif (the first three notes of the motif here outline themajor triad dome-sol instead of do-sol-do) that achieves its intensity by having the motive movestepwise up the scale. Where the Zarathustra music uses the fourth and fifth notes of its motive tosuggest yearning by making an intervallic leap, the waltz suggests resolution or perhaps stability byrepeating the third note and holding it for three beats (i.e., the melody is do-me-sol-sol). Second, theregularity and strict musical structure of the waltz does, however, bring into dramatic relief the "shock ofthe new" awaiting Floyd and his companions on the moon, when they encounter the monolith andLigeti's music once again is foregrounded.

Alex North's music for the docking sequence, "Space Station Docking," similarly draws on the waltz formbut without the old world feel of Johann Strauss's composition. North's music for this section is actuallyin two parts. The first part, used to underscore the opening of the shuttle moving away from Earthtoward the station, is a delicate antiphonal type of theme featuring the winds and strings tossing shortmusical phrases back and forth among one another. No clearly defined melodic structure is suggestedhere, just, in keeping with conventional film scoring techniques, an eight-note motif. There is aplayfulness to the section that suggests a light ballet more than the ballroom dance atmospheresuggested by "The Blue Danube." Scored as it is for strings and winds, there is also an ethereal qualityto the texture and timbre of the score. In short, it is precisely the kind of music one would expect in aspace travel sequence from an innovative composer who was trying to move away from the conventionsof scoring found in previous science fiction films, in which space travel might be underscored by strings,or theremins, or other electronic music effects that rely on scoring in high registers and chromatic andmore angular (as opposed to stepwise) melodic writing. The music then simultaneously suggests theolder conventions while attempting something different in its dancelike (or balletstyle) atmosphere andstructure. The second section has the stronger waltz tempo while retaining the antiphonal structure ofthe opening theme. The melody is basically a simple two-note motif played by the strings and answeredby a longer motif (seemingly drawn from the other themes in the score) played by the wind section. Themusic is imaginative and brilliantly orchestrated and deftly underscores the sequence. What it lacks isthe flamboyancy and audacity of "The Blue Danube." The music is complementary and not contrapuntalin relationship to the visual imagery, movement, and iconography. Ironically, its weakness (in relation to"The Blue Danube") lies in its success as a piece of film music: It captures perfectly the feeling of outerspace and of weightless bodies in motion. What is missing is the irony that underlies the choice of "TheBlue Danube" and the tension (from an architectonic standpoint in looking at the entire score of the finalfilm) that results from juxtaposing pieces like the waltz and the "Adagio" from Gayane with Ligeti'sRequiem and Atmospheres. The claim may be made that Kubrick's choices hammer one over the headin their contrasting natures, but his choices better underscore the drama of the quest which, as I statedearlier, is one of long periods of stability and routine punctuated by intense moments of chaos andcreativity. North's choices are subtler and musically more of a piece but, consequently, take us less bysurprise when they come out of the background of the screen.


http://eds.a.ebscohost.com.pbidi.unam.mx:8080/eds/delivery?sid=ca5e5e2f-93ae-483e-b261-58fc6faffd6e%40sessionmgr4004&vid=13&hid=4202&ReturnUrl=htt… 10/15

The final sequence in which a comparison of the scores can be made is when Floyd travels from thespace station to the moon and the site where the monolith has been uncovered (TMA-1). There areactually two parts to the sequence: The first, called "Trip to the Moon" in the North score, is the trip fromthe space station to the moon; Kubrick once again used "The Blue Danube" here. The second, called"Moon Rocket Bus" in the North score, is the shuttle trip to TMA-1; Kubrick used Ligeti's Lux Aeterna forthis section. Kubrick's use of the rest of "The Blue Danube" for the trip to the moon extends ideascommunicated in the docking sequence: The "muzak" once again underscores the ordinariness of theextraordinary. The different element here is that where the actual docking interrupted the waltz beforethe final cadence, this section uses the resounding final cadence as the space shuttle touches down onthe moon's surface. It is a nice touch as it gives (falsely) a sense of finality to the sequence as well asone of assuredness as the final chords are sounded. The choice here is appropriate: The landing on themoon is indeed the end of a chapter in the evolutionary cycle Kubrick is exploring. The next step will betouching the monolith and then making the step toward Jupiter and "beyond the infinite." So thecertainty of the old ways and the old technology will be giving way to something new (i.e., HAL and theDiscovery). North's score, on the other hand, almost sounds like the opening of the television show StarTrek. As in the docking sequence, he completely eschews brass in favor of strings, winds, harp,harpsichord, and vibraphone.( n4) Similarly, he recalls the antiphonal structure of the docking sequencebut scores it more as a contrapuntal dialogue between the strings and the other instruments. The stringsplay a simple melody of single, sustained notes that are answered by more active melodic motifs in therest of the orchestra. There is an air of mystery that hangs over the entire piece and an almostlullabylike feel as well. Once again the music works beautifully within the conventions of classic filmcomposition, but it does not extend the feeling of the beginning of the trip to the moon started in thedocking sequence, nor does it give the sense of finality that Kubrick wanted to impart with the landing onthe moon.

The second part of the sequence, when Floyd and his colleagues make the moon-bus trip to TMA-1,features new music by both Kubrick and North; here, the difference in their musical choices is dramatic.Kubrick chose Ligeti's Lux Aeterna, an atonal choral piece for an a cappella mixed choir (with eachvoice subdivided into four parts) that dynamically never rises above a piano marking. The use of Ligeti isa nice preface to the more dramatic reprise of the Requiem, which appears again as the team laterdescends into the excavation site to view the monolith. The Lux Aeterna is purely atmospheric. Infuguelike fashion, Ligeti creates tonal clusters of closed and dissonant chords by sustaining single notesto the point that an actual melodic line is unrecognizable. The close harmonies with intervals oftentimesa second or minor second apart create an otherworldly feeling, especially sung as softly as they are. Forinstance, at the third beat of measure 24 the sopranos form a chord spelled (from the top voice down)A-B flat-E flat-A flat, while the altos spell a chord G-G flat-F-C. The melody is then repeated throughoutall the voices. This music, which stands in counterpoint to the flamboyant "Blue Danube" of the previoussegment, underscores the flight of the shuttle over the moonscape to TMA-1. Kubrick drops the musicout when the scene shifts to the interior of the shuttle. As opposed to the other flight sequences, there ismore character dialogue here and less focus on the technology of travel. The dialogue is a mixture ofsmall talk and discussion about the object awaiting the characters at TMA-1. The music is brought backin as we see the shuttle approach and land at the site. The music, replicating as it does thecompositional feel of the Requiem, suggests that the men are on the threshold of a mystery and achallenge, but in their scientific complacency they are oblivious to the possibilities at hand--even though



the music indicates it: is there waiting for them, muted, whispering, and troubling.

By contrast, North's piece seems almost frenetic. Like most of the rest of his score it is a wonderfulpiece of music and, had it been used, probably would have served the ends of the film well enough. Thisis the first time, since the music of the "Dawn of Man" film sequence, that North has returned toaggressive rhythmic figures and any suggestion of atonality. Unlike the Ligeti piece, which seemsrhythmically static, North's music is characterized by jagged rhythmic interplay between the strings, withshort musical motifs sounded in the winds and brass, and overlaid with a wordless vocal for sopranovoice featuring the chromaticism and angular and dissonant intervallic leaps characteristic of twentieth-century vocal music. It gives the scene a great sense of movement and clearly anticipates the discoverywaiting out there on the lunar surface. This musical motif is interrupted once with a slower, moremelodically based motif scored for organ, celesta, harpsichord, chimes, vibraphone, and vocalist, that ismeant to accompany the activities of the scientists in the moon bus. This functions, moreover, as apreface for the next theme, a lovely melody scored for French horn meant to underscore the scenewhen the men look at the photos of the excavations done at TMA-1. The music here is tinged with botha sense of mystery and reverence, an almost religious feeling which, considering what Kubrick wasafter, does not entirely capture or even anticipate the chaotic/creative symbolism of the monolith. Thesection closes with a repeat of the opening theme. Where the Ligeti music functions as a constant,allowing the trip and the men's activities to stand out only in their routine ordinariness, North's scoredraws attention to and builds a tension into the moonscape, the interior of the bus, and finally to theportentous event awaiting the characters, as though they themselves are aware of the importance of thediscovery and what it might mean. In actuality the dialogue belies the importance of the discovery. Onescientist, when telling Floyd of how they excavated around the monolith, says that "unfortunately" therewas nothing else in the area. Meanwhile, Floyd offhandedly asks, "I don't suppose you have any ideawhat the damn thing is?" The interior scene ends with Floyd remarking, "Well, I must say, you guyscertainly have come up with something" in a voice so matter-of-fact as to make one believe they hadstumbled on something only slightly out of the ordinary. The tension the Lux Aeterna contributes to thescene is inchoate and mysterious; the tension North's "Moon Rocket Bus" contributes is palpable andimmediate, which, as I attempted to show above, is not the case in the scene. Both attempt to anticipatethe encounter with the alien. Kubrick's choice, however, once again more strongly illuminates theconflict at the center of the odyssey while suggesting the ironies in that quest.

The remainder of the score for 2001 is Kubrick's work, as North was taken off the project after hecompleted approximately half the score. The only new piece Kubrick used in the film was the "Adagio"from Khachaturian's Gayane Ballet Suite. Kubrick's choice here is once again consistent with hismusical vision for the film. The music is used to underscore the everyday activities of astronauts DaveBowman and Frank Poole aboard Discovery on their way to Jupiter. Like the previous music cues forsequences dealing with the static moments in the odyssey, the music here begins gently. Althoughmarked mezzoforte on the score, because it is scored for cellos, its entrance seems soft or at leastmuted. This feeling matches the slow, methodical movement of Discovery through the darkness ofspace as it makes its way into the unknown. The music once again does not prepare us for theimpending chaos of HAL'S actions and Bowman's solo journey into the infinite. What it does, like the"The Blue Danube" is communicate a sense of order, resignation, and somber serenity. The music, likethat of the Zarathustra theme and "The Blue Danube" begins with a four-note ascending pattern (B flat-



D flat-E flat-F); through the successive pieces the intervallic spaces between the notes of this four-notepattern have narrowed from Richard Strauss's open fifth and third, to Johann Strauss's major triad, tothis pattern that, like the Ligeti pieces, stresses a more chromatic harmonic structure and melodicdevelopment. The four-note pattern is the thematic unifying factor in the "Adagio," as variations of it areintroduced by the violins, violas, cellos and contrabasses in quasi-fugal fashion. Consequently, thechromaticism and dissonances are grounded in a very formalized structure, much as the advancedtechnology represented by HAL is grounded in the rituals and chores of life aboard Discovery. HAL, ashas been noted by almost every commentator on the film, at times seems more "human" than Bowmanand Poole, who robotically go about their duties without a sense of adventure, anticipation, wonder, oreven anxiety. HAL makes comments on Bowman's drawings, thanks Bowman for a nice game of chess,and is the only one to express concern about the mission, until "he" himself is suspected by Bowmanand Poole of being a potential problem. Kubrick's musical choice matched to the visuals once againunderscores how the extraordinary achievements of humans become routinized and demand a call tomove forward, to embrace the chaos and potential destruction that attends creativity. That, of course,lies in the final sequence when Bowman will reach beyond the technological trap of Discovery and HALand journey into the chaos of the unknown, confront the monolith and, like Moon-Watcher and Floyd,reach out to touch it and experience the "transfiguration" that Kubrick talked about. The musical motifsof the "Adagio" underscore the struggle in the film by providing a haunting echo to the heroic messageof the Zarathustra theme while simultaneously suggesting the orderly comfortable world of the past and"The Blue Danube."

ConclusionHaving looked closely at Kubrick's musical choices for the score for 2001 I am convinced that hisrejection of North's score was something more than pure directorial ego. Kubrick had worked with Northon Spartacus and respected him as a composer and colleague. His decision to stick with his temp trackobviously fit more closely with his artistic vision of the film as a whole. And, in the final analysis, whenone thinks about 2001, part of what makes the film memorable, striking, and a matter of critical curiosityand interest is the score. Kubrick's achievement in his musical choices was to move the science fictionfilm score away from the cliches that had characterized it from the days of Arthur Bliss's Things to Come(1936) up to the pioneering work of Bernard Herrmann in the 1950s. The audacity of Kubrick's musicaljuxtapositions works brilliantly in a paradoxical fashion: The musical language of his selections inactuality does not stray far from the conventions of scoring for the classic science fiction film, but theirrecognizability (or lack of it in the case of the Ligeti works) allows them to simultaneously complementthe action on the screen in classic film scoring fashion while also functioning in a contrapuntal fashion.The Ligeti pieces have a futuristic, "outer spacey" feel because of their dissonance, but their intensityand the fact that they do not match the action on the screen force one to view the images on the screendifferently. Similarly, "The Blue Danube" suggests a conventional world view that, by virtue of itsfamiliarity, brings into high relief the awesome technology that pervades the future. Vivian Sobchakwrites of the music, "Kubrick, then, uses 'unoriginal' film music originally, seeing music as not onlysupportive of his visuals but also as an active participant in the creation and/or destruction of imagecontent. Thus, music in Kubrick's films is used inventively and narratively and flamboyantly, causing theviewer to listen so that he can see" (212-13). To this I would add that the combination of the two, thehearing and seeing, causes us to feel. And what Kubrick would have us feel, based on his combinationof visuals and music, is a sense of restless optimism about the future and a belief in the efficacy of



creativity in the evolution of humankind. Alex North's score captures the darker side of the odyssey, butthat is not what science fiction is necessarily about on the silver screen, nor is it necessarily whatKubrick was after, for all the innovation and intellectualism built into his narrative.

In Kubrick's film creativity and progress are cyclic moments in an evolutionary spiral that moves usbeyond conformity and technological complacency. The monolith, black and implacable, and the musicaccompanying its appearance (Zarathustra and Ligeti) are symbolic of a call to create. The callostensibly comes from the outside (from God or an alien culture), but the music reminds us that the callin actuality comes from within. Kubrick's use of the Also Sprach Zarathustra theme to accompany thefinal images in the film is telling. This theme, which serves as the preface for Also Sprach Zarathustra, isalso the preface for 2001 and a blueprint in miniature for the quest: As the final reprise of theZarathustra theme swells up to accompany the image of the Star Child floating toward Earth we arereminded that our odyssey is never really finished or resolved (one final irony in light of the music) but isalways a preface, a beginning. Like Tennyson's Ulysses we struggle to return home only to wonder if "[s]ome work of noble note, may yet be done," and once safely returned home we remind ourselves that"['t]is not too late to seek a newer world."

NOTES(n1.) See the following for anecdotes dealing with industry attitudes towards film scoring: ChristopherPalmer, The Composer in Hollywood (London: Marion Boyars, 1990); Tony Thomas, Film Score: TheView from the Podium (New York: A. S. Barnes, 1979); and Irwin Bazelon, Knowing the Score: Notes onFilm Music (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1975).

(n2.) Ligeti was part of a school of composers in the fifties and sixties who experimented with aleatory orchance music and indeterminacy in composition. Leon Dallin writes: "The crux of an aleatoriccomposition lies in the elements predetermined by the composer and those left to the discretion of theperformer. Any aspect of a composition can be fixed or free" (239). The only Ligeti composition from2001 that has aleatoric elements is Adventures, parts of which were excerpted and heavily edited tounderscore Dave Bowman's final years in the eighteenth-century drawing room in the "Jupiter andbeyond the Infinite" sequence.

(n3.) Michel Ciment writes of the Strauss music: "Richard Strauss's theme, sometimes known as the'World Riddle' theme, is introduced by an ascending line of three notes, do-sol-do, the same numberthree which is embodied in the presence of the three spheres after the credit titles, the moon, the earthand the sun; a magical number which is also that of the known dimension and which is finally abolishedby the transition into the fourth dimension anticipated by the apparation of the monolith among theglobes" (130).

(n4.) Kevin Mulhall's fine liner-note essay "Alex North's Celestial Symphony: The Music for 2001" fromthe album Alex North's 2001 was most useful in helping to identify the motifs and instrumentation usedin North's score.

PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): Kubrick thought that one of the themes of 2001 was that humans need"some sort of transfiguration" to attain a "higher form of life."



The encounter with the alien is the central conflict in science fiction films.

PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): Kubrick uses Also Sprach Zarathustra to suggest awakening, as forexample when Moon-Watcher realizes a solution, albeit a destructive one, to a problem.

From a musical standpoint, the sequences in 2001 that display science and technology are closest tothe classical Hollywood score.

The "Adagio" from Khachaturian's Gayane Ballet Suite underscores the astronauts' routine, everyday



activities.

WORKS CITEDAgel, Jerome, ed. The Making of Kubrick's 2001. New York: Signet Books, 1970.

Alex North's 2001. Cond. Jerry Goldsmith with the National Philharmonic Orchestra. Varese Sarabande,VSD-5400, 1993.

Brown, Royal S. "Film Music: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly." Cineaste 21.1-2 (1995): 62-67.

Ciment, Michel. Kubrick. Trans. Gilbert Adair. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1980.

Dallin, Leon. Techniques of Twentieth Century Composition: A Guide to the Materials of Modern Music.3rd ed. Dubuque, IA: Wm. C. Brown, 1975.

Kagan, Norman. The Cinema of Stanley Kubrick. New York: Grove Press, 1972.

Kalinak, Kathryn. Settling the Score: Music and the Classical Hollywood Film. Madison: U of WisconsinP, 1992.

Nelson, Thomas Allen. Kubrick: Inside a Film Artist's Maze. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1982.

Phillips, Gene D. Stanley Kubrick: A Film Odyssey. New York: Popular Library, 1975.

Sobchak, Vivian. Screening Space: The American Science Fiction Film. 2nd ed. New York: Ungar,1987.

2001: A Space Odyssey. Original motion picture soundtrack. [Various artists and composers.] TurnerClassic Movie Music/Rhino Records, R2 72562, 1968, 1996.

2001: A Space Odyssey. [Twenty-fifth anniversary ed.] Dir. Stanley Kubrick. MGM HomeVideo/Turner Entertainment, laser disc, ML 103104, 1994.

Walker, Alexander. Stanley Kubrick Directs. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971.

~~~~~~~~By TIMOTHY E. SCHEURER

TIMOTHY E. SCHEURER is a professor in the Humanities Program at Franklin University, Columbus,Ohio.

Copyright of Journal of Popular Film & Television is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its contentmay not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder'sexpress written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.

THE SCORE FOR 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEYdocshare01.docshare.tips/files/29735/297353800.pdfwhich uses the...

Documents

Transcript of THE SCORE FOR 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEYdocshare01.docshare.tips/files/29735/297353800.pdfwhich uses the...