1. |
The Death of HAL
03:44
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Kubrick’s Waltz and the Music of 2001: A Space Odyssey
Ever since I first saw 2001: A Space Odyssey, I was immediately hit with the feeling that film can be judged in two categories; everything before 2001, and everything after it. Aside from the groundbreaking visual effects, the acting, and the Ultimate Trip, I think 2001 must, at any possible time, be remembered for what it did for the future of film with its music, most of which saw Kubrick employing one of his favorite arrangements, the waltz.
Being no stranger to the joys of a waltz, Kubrick used the arrangement in at least four of his films; John Jacob Loeb’s “Masquerade” in The Shining, Johann Strauss II’s “Künstlerleben Waltz Op. 316” in Paths of Glory, Dmitri Shostakovich’s “Waltz No. 2” in Eyes Wide Shut, and of course, most famously, Johann Strauss II’s “The Blue Danube Waltz” in 2001: A Space Odyssey (as well as other compositions in ¾ time like Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 9 in D Minor” in A Clockwork Orange). Aside from simply delighting in hearing a waltz arrangement in his films, I’d often wondered why it is that Kubrick kept coming back to it to accompany some of his most important visual moments but now, through exploring the theme of the “duality of man” throughout this project, I think I’ve finally found a reason that makes sense, something that feels truly Kubrickian in its purpose. To me, I think he kept using waltzes not only because of their inherently noticeable timing (which can greatly help the visual pacing of a scene) but because of what a waltz, historically, means.
After doing a little digging, I found that Britannica defines the waltz as having been a “highly popular ballroom dance” in the 18th century that was apparently considered very scandalous by “polite society” due to how close the dancing partners had to be in order to consistently pull it off. However, the waltz grew to reign supreme among ballroom dances in the 19th and 20th centuries and successfully became the dance that all the best people knew and did. The waltz’s origin in ballrooms and courts of the highest people of the day very much points to it being as refined and well-thought of as possible and, with Kubrick using it how he does, to me, points to his attempts to invert its historical meaning and attempt to imbue it with a more lowly connotation as it had when it was originally invented. In The Shining, it’s used in the Gold Room ballroom scene right before Jack confronts Grady and decides to kill Danny and Wendy, in Paths of Glory, it’s used to showcase the French elite during a brief ballroom scene while the front lines rage on just outside their palatial doors, in Eyes Wide Shut, it’s used to showcase the meanderings of Bill as he strays from his marriage and, in 2001: A Space Odyssey, it’s used to show man’s triumph of the stars as a nuclear satellite keeps a watchful eye over the Earth.
Particularly with 2001, showing the waltz in this way, for me, only helps to further itself from any pigeonholing as simply a sci-fi film. “The Blue Danube” shows Kubrick inverting what it meant to make and experience a science fiction film at the time. Though not as experimental, 2001 has much more in common with something like Chris Marker’s La Jetée than with something like Fantastic Voyage or Planet of the Apes and I believe that’s due very much to how Kubrick understood sound and music and what they could mean to the cinematic experience as a whole. He didn’t just use music to accompany his films like most of the movies of the time (or any contemporary period of his), but he used music to enhance his stories, making sure the arrangements he picked further developed characters and plots in ways that, before 2001 had never been seen or heard of and, in the years since its release, have become common place, with science fiction with films like Alien, Blade Runner, and The Matrix being totally indebted to the groundwork laid by Kubrick decades earlier.
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2. |
For Leonard
03:21
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War Songs: The Music of Full Metal Jacket and the Vietnam War
Like nearly every other Vietnam War film, Full Metal Jacket’s soundtrack is jam packed with hit songs of the time, like The Trashmen’s “Surfin’ Bird”, Johnny Wright’s “Hello, Vietnam”, and Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots Were Made for Walkin’”, as well as old military standards and the original compositions for the film. For comparison, I chose to look at two other Vietnam War films released in the 80s; Oliver Stone’s 1986 film, Platoon, and Brian De Palma’s Casualties of War, from 1989. While Stone and De Palma are, of course, two incredible directors in their own rights, the soundtracks to their movies very much read like an add-on to the movie and it’s here that I think Kubrick succeeded the most in his use of music for Full Metal Jacket.
Like many soundtracks, Platoon is laid out more or less after the structure of the film, with the track listing lining up chronologically with the events the songs appear in, as well as having a few audio clips from the movie on certain tracks for a more cinematic listening experience. While Platoon has a great, timely soundtrack (featuring Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, Jefferson Airplane, etc.), it only boasts two themes from the film, an “Adagio for Strings” which opens and closes the soundtrack (with the closer being a longer, more in-depth rendition), and an orchestral piece signifying when Barnes shoots Elias. On the other end of the spectrum, is Casualties of War, a largely orchestral soundtrack composed by the master, Ennio Morricone. With hit songs of the era by The Doors and Steppenwolf, among others, Casualties of War’s soundtrack reads much more like an epic counterpoint to the film itself. Hearing all of Morricone’s pieces together, one after the other, presents the movie in a whole new light and, in a way, gives the overall feeling that the film and the soundtrack are separate parts of one whole. As Morricone’s score is based around one central theme, hearing variations of it repeatedly for the majority of the soundtrack only heighten this feeling of otherness for the listener, as if we’re actually being presented with De Palma and Morricone’s own visions on the sounds of war.
Unlike those two films, I’ve always felt like Full Metal Jacket is supposed to be split into two halves, both sonically and visually. For example, if we choose to follow the film through the context of Pvt. Pyle, we first endure boot camp and the mental tortures he and his fellow soldiers go through up until his eventual, and total, change by suicide. The second half of the movie then takes us through war as everyone is fully only known by their nicknames and ready to play the part to whatever end that may be. While incredibly striking, Full Metal Jacket has always had an air of artificiality to me, which I think is the point. Shot entirely on fabricated sets in England, it very much feels like the characters are just moving through one dreamlike space to another, with the score to match, and the artificiality of their lives throughout the movie is only heightened by the constant ebb and flow of pop songs and film themes.
The soundtrack is split right down the middle with 15 songs opening with a super off-putting “rap” instrumental paired with various boot camp chants lead by R. Lee Ermey that’s truly unlike anything I ever would’ve expected from a Kubrick soundtrack and then into six of the aforementioned songs of the day. The middle track is a somewhat doctored rendition of “The Marine’s Hymn” which then leads into seven orchestral pieces composed for the film. Unlike Casualties of War’s theme-based score, the only bit of repeated instrumentation on Full Metal Jacket’s soundtrack can be found in the general arrangement of the “Leonard” and “Sniper” pieces, and the sparse woodblock usage in both as well.
The artificiality of the film in on full display with the arrangement of the soundtrack as if Kubrick is truly telling two parts of one story involving the music, characters, and the two together and the experience produced in the process is all the stronger for it as we can clearly see the idea of the film being split into two halves both through the music and the events on screen.
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3. |
I'm Sure of You
04:24
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Fidelio: The Music and Mood of Eyes Wide Shut
Stanley Kubrick’s final film, Eyes Wide Shut, tends to be mostly remembered as the movie that split up power couple Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman and thus, “not a first date movie”. While the lore behind the film is kind of interesting, I think it’s a huge affront to not only the movie itself but to Kubrick as well for that to be its lasting impact. On a personal note, it’s long been one of my favorites in Kubrick’s career and, like most of his movies that creep towards the top of my list, it’s in large part due to the score and the atmosphere he was able to create in combining his vast musical knowledge with his masterful eye.
I chose to look at the textural elements of Eyes Wide Shut and, opening the film with Dmitri Shostakovich’s “Waltz No. 2” is about all you need to do to make it worth exploring. Admittedly, I know next to nothing about classical/ orchestral music but upon hearing this for the first time, I knew I had to find out what it was because its melody and tempo just completely hooked me from the first measure. Which, to think a little deeper on it, is a huge reason why Kubrick’s use of music in all of his films is such an important part of the experience for me. Whether it’s a piece I am familiar with (2001: A Space Odyssey’s use of “The Blue Danube” for example) or something I’ve never heard before like Shostakovich, it immediately makes me feel like I’m experiencing the movie on a different, deeper level. All of Kubrick’s films operate in a very musical way but, I think Eyes Wide Shut is one of the best examples of conveying mood and character/ story tones (second only to The Shining, if I had to narrow it down). Because of the nature of the story being incredibly duplicitous, as a fan, I feel like it was only fitting for Kubrick to showcase this mostly through sound and music. Though Eyes Wide Shut bears his trademark visual style of creating tension and mood with slow zooms in and out, long takes, or disorienting the audience with things not immediately recognizable like front-screen projection, etc., the whole film, to me, plays out more like a song than a strictly visual film. Again, opening the film with Shostakovich’s piece creates a clear tone for a married couple; Bill and Alice feel together.
With “Waltz No. 2” accompanying them, Kubrick presents the audience with a married couple who, while going through the motions of getting ready for a night out, are more than comfortable (the familiarity of the structure of a waltz) and happy (Shostakovich’s truly delightful melody) to be doing that. Where the real musicality comes into play, for me, is when, while leaving the bedroom, Bill hits the stereo system and the song shuts off, revealing it was diegetic and simply a part of their world. As a musician, this sudden change mimics a song in one of the truest ways; songs start, and then they stop. Kubrick always uses music this way. As opposed to simply using songs to cue the beginning and ending of scenes, he has songs start and stop independently from the film’s images which, for me, creates a feeling of scenes-within-scenes and speaks to his larger use of music as character building tools as opposed to a filmic flourish. If we’re counting the scene in question as starting with the opening credits and ending when Bill and Alice leave the apartment, then Bill stopping the stereo is the halfway point and, aside from the characters themselves, is the first concrete moment of duplicity within the story. This moment tells us “Here’s our couple. They’ve got it together and are, at least, somewhat loving but boy, do they love a façade”. This moment is underlined in a lot of ways throughout the rest of the film but, I feel like because Bill is the one who shuts off the song, he’s the one who’s most complacent in the structure of the marriage and therefore, the one who physically acts out his urges later on in the story when presented with something different. Whereas Alice only dreams of them, she’s the one still caught up in the physical realities of the marriage in a way that feels hopeful; she wants to slowly get ready and kiss their daughter goodnight, she wants to have a little music playing in the background and she values knowing where Bill left his wallet because he left it on their things. Bill is only caught up with leaving and where the wallet actually is, not what it means to leave their home, together.
In short, much like the story itself, I think Eyes Wide Shut is full of secrets and is only really just starting to be discussed as one of Kubrick’s best. As he’s shown time and time again, Kubrick is a master student of music and his last work shows us everything he learned and then some. While I only chose to focus on Shostakovich here, the film is filled to the brim with musical cues (Red Cloak’s theme at the party, Nick Nightingale’s jazz band, etc.) and they all have a distinct double-meaning to them and I think it’s this reason that keeps people coming back to rediscover it.
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