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"The thing that is so striking about that movie that I had never thought of before is Matthew Modine’s voice. It’s so weird. It’s so robotic. And the pacing of the way he delivers his lines is so unusual, not natural-sounding. How did that happen? That’s something I would really like to know. Was that a choice he made? Did he make that choice by default, because that’s how he talks? Did Kubrick steer him in that direction? The totally flat affect of his voice through most of that movie and the kind of guileless deadpan he gives on all the action that surrounds him is, I think, one of the things that makes the movie so unsettling, one of the things that makes his final engagement with the world around him in that mercy killing, if you want to call it that, or that execution, if you want to call it that, so powerful at the end. It’s that kind of ambiguity that makes Full Metal Jacket a better movie than Platoon, and a better movie than any of the other Vietnam movies that came out at that time. Because it’s a work of art, not a polemic.”

- John Hodgman on Full Metal Jacket

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If the depiction of their mental trials and tribulations is less successful than their attempt to reach the safety of their own lines, it may be laid to a script that occasionally is turgid and overly poetic, and to Mr. Kubrick’s direction, which now and then is far from inspired.

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Stanley Kubrick, the great, uncompromising movie director whose work revolutionized filmmaking and whose startling vision of the modern world altered our perceptions of it, died in his home outside London early Sunday morning. He was 70.

On that day I was trying to watch a Dallas Cowboys football game through some very "snowy" reception and I saw a ticker crawl with his name in it -- it took a minute to register that there could only be one reason why his name would be in a ticker crawl.  I waited until a "newbreak" commercial where it was confirmed.  I felt shocked, dismay, worry about his new movie which we'd been waiting for for 12 years, and some anger at Kubrick for going ahead and dying on me.

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 Stanley kept saying, “beef it up!”

(image from drummerman.net)

More from Felix Martinez’s great interview with Gordon Stainforth:

FM: What was it like working with Kubrick?

GS: He was very specific with ideas and details. I remember laying in the Penderecki piece when Jack is chasing Danny in the snow at the end, and Stanley kept saying, “beef it up!” (laughs). We wound up laying three or four additional Penderecki pieces over the original and I remember telling Stanley that the music critics would nail us for doing that. Stanley said no one would ever notice, and he was right – to this day I haven’t heard anyone complain!

At the time of the movie's release, I read a newspaper anecdote of how Kubrick had rejected the first record album of Penderecki they gave him as a terrible performance -- "find me another!"  

So INCREDIBLE and UNPRECEDENTED was this music to me, I went to my college library and listened to all the Penderecki pieces that had been listed in the end credits.  How different they were from what was in the movie.  

The liner notes said that Penderecki didn't always write out the notes; he might instruct the violins: start at the lowest note you can make, and over then next minute or so work up to the highest note.  

And so, until now, I assumed that every recording of Penderecki was totally different, barely recognizable from one to another. 

So I just typed "Penderecki Kanon" into Google – and got the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra (With Siegfried Palm) 1973 performance.   This is it!  This is one from the movie!  I'm getting all shivers from listening to it! 

And next was the same piece as performed by The National Philharmonic Orchestra under Leonard Slatkin, part of the soundtrack album for The Exorcist.

Well, it's different, but easily recognizable... And did Kubrick first discover Penderecki through The Exorcist?

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“When there’s a question, the violins go up, and then they go down on the answer.”

More from Felix Martinez's great interview with Gordon Stainforth:

Felix E. Martinez: I also love the cue where Jack and Danny are in the bedroom, and the question and answer dialogue between them is punctuated by the rising and falling violin glissandos in the music. When there’s a question, the violins go up, and then they go down on the answer – much like the cadence in our voices when we ask and answer a question. How did you manage to work that one out with a piece of pre-recorded music?

Gordon Stainforth: That’s the contribution I’m proudest of in the whole movie! Stanley really liked the Bartok and I suddenly had this crazy idea that it must just work phenomenally well with that dialogue scene. So I just did it. I seem to remember working most of the night on it, because they were dubbing the music of that reel first thing in the morning. But to make it fit, if my memory is right, I had to cut out about 15-20 frames of the music with two very subtle cuts, and then we had to lengthen at least two of the cuts of Jack and Danny, and I think the very last cut to get the final chord to come right on the title ‘Wednesday.’ Ray agreed to this, first thing in the morning, which was great. Then I took the tracks over to the dubbing theatre and actually met Stanley just outside.

He was initially appalled when I said I’d laid music over that scene – ‘oh we can’t have music there’ – but I just begged him to listen to it. I’d deliberately laid it on a separate track as a so-called ‘optional extra.’ I remember saying very simply something like ‘please just listen to it, because I’m sure you’ll like it.’ And he did, and he did! I remember feeling absolutely over the moon about this. [my emphasis added]

I keep thinking back to the title of that article about Alex North and Stanley Kubrick:  "Stanley Hates This But I Love It" — whenever you are working for someone else, you run the risk that they will hate what you do, and throw your work out.  And how much that hurts!  As it did North when Kubrick rejected all his hard work on "2001".

And also of a Kubrick quote that a director is an idea and taste machine — required to generate many ideas, and judge everyone else's ideas, all on a strict deadline.

FM: Well, it’s amazing you did such an outstanding, detailed piece of work on such short notice!

GS: As I say, I could talk for hours about this, certainly by far the most satisfying job I ever did in the film industry. I have really, really good memories of working with Stanley, and we seemed to get on incredibly well. We were both just really enthusiastic about the music. But on just a slightly sour note, one or two of my colleagues - who shall remain nameless – actually made a point of coming up to me and saying ‘great movie, but a bit wrecked by the music.’ I kid you not! 

The first time I watched The Shining, I was a bit put off by some of the music — it verged on the cartoonish, how synched it was with the action — but over subsequent viewings I adjusted to it, and ... well, here is my favorite quote ever about Kubrick; it leads off the 1971 edition of Alexander Walker's book:

Only a few film directors possess a conceptual talent — that is, a talent to crystallize every film they make in to a cinematic concept... Essentially, it is the talent to construct a form that will exhibit the maker's vision in an unexpected way, often a way that seems to have been the only possible one when the film is finally finished.  It is this conceptual talent that most strongly distinguishes Stanley Kubrick.

First encounters with the unexpected tend to be disturbing.  It is this which most strongly characterizes initial reviews of Kubrick films.  Think of the apes' initial reaction to the Monolith.  They don't like it suddenly popping up in their midst.  Then...

Credit Stainforth for having the idea and not being afraid to put it out there, but also Kubrick for recognizing it, right away, as something which worked with the unique concept he had in mind for the Shining.  

I believe part of that was "obscure synchronicity".   Two things happen together and it seems like they might be connected.  Our whole belief in the supernatural is based on that, because there never can be any empirical evidence of it.   If there ever was, then it would no longer be supernatural, and probably no longer that interesting.

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More from Felix Martinez's interview with Gordon, starting with this picture of him at the time of The Shining, by Vivian Kubrick:

Felix E. Martinez: How did you get involved as an assistant editor in The Shining?

Gordon Stainforth: I got the job to edit Vivian’s (Kubrick) documentary on the making of The Shining (which is on the current DVD and also announced to be on the remaster as well), and little by little, I hung out with the editors until I became part of the team editing the film.

FM: What did the editing team consist of, and how was the work divided?

GS: Ray Lovejoy was the editor, and then there was Gill Smith as 1st Assistant, and I was 2nd Assistant. It’s an interesting situation, because over X-Mas 1979, Ray cut his hand with a beer can or something at a party. It got very infected, and he had to go to the hospital. Gill then left the production temporarily to attend to a family matter, and Ray came back. All I noticed was his hand (laughs). Ray had a long meeting with Stanley as to who will do the actual cutting, and I was there.

FM: So Lovejoy supervised the editing and you then took over the task of physically cutting the film?

GS: Yes, after they had been cutting for almost 8 months! I cut about the last 30 minutes of the picture with Stanley.

FM: How long did it take?

GS: I began the 1st week of January (1980) and by April, the film was cut and mostly complete.

FM: How did your involvement with the music editing occur?

GS: (Composer) Wendy Carlos was hired to do the score, and some of it still exists in the film (the Dies Irae over the opening title credits and various heartbeats and effects). But something happened and Stanley came to me with a challenge in early April (the film opened May 23 in the U.S.). There was no score, and he asked me if I could edit together previously recorded music and create the soundtrack. He said, ‘can you handle it?’ And I said, ‘sure!’ (laughs).

Interview with Gordon Stainforth, First Assistant Editor and Music Editor on The Shining, in which he discusses how it was always a losing battle when arguing with Stanley Kubrick over technical issues. I assume the telephone ring sound effects in question are from the scene where Dick Hallorann (Scatman Crothers) is attempting to call the Overlook Hotel from Florida.

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Ren is a member of the SKM!  Respect!

RED, CIRCLE

2OO1 | Editing Practice by Ren Wang

https://vimeo.com/106894427

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From "A Chat With Gordon Stainforth”, by Felix “El Gato” Martinez:

Felix E. Martinez: There is one cue in the film that disturbs me from an editorial standpoint. When Danny turns a corner and encounters the two girls in the hallway, the music cue hits just before we see the girls. It has always bothered me that it precedes the action and gives away the scare a fraction of a second too soon.

I'm reminded of the sequence in Jaws where Richard Dreyfuss' character inspects the hull of a boat underwater, and a mutilated head pops out of a hole in the boat. To this day, this sequence stands the hairs on my neck. I finally went back to figure out why, and realized that what they did was insert the musical sting a fraction of a second AFTER you see the head. It's almost like a drum snare "flam" where you hit the snare with both sticks, one slightly behind the other, and you get a thicker impact from the slight delay of the two sticks.

I'm sure you placed your cue exactly where you wanted it, but what are your thoughts on this one?

Gordon Stainforth: Interesting that you should have noticed the rather 'peculiar' way I cued the music there. Actually, I hope, you'll find most of my music cues are not exactly conventional. I can’t stand it when the music — as in most Hollywood movies — mimics exactly what you see on the screen. Like crude underlining. Not enough emotion? Simple, just underline it with music. Dramatic action? Just copy the action precisely with the music to make it seem more 'dramatic,' etc.

It's very difficult for me to answer this precisely or intellectually. I did it that way because that was the way that felt right to me in the end. What I do know, hand on heart — I can still remember it — is that I did it the obvious way first and it was nothing like as powerful. The music simply reacting/commenting on exactly what you see — oh shock horror/OH SHOCK HORROR.

Whereas, what I did, I hope, throughout the scenes with Danny on the bike was something more visceral and rhythmic. Trying to make this feel more like a direct experience, like you are really experiencing this now, for real. No comment with the music; it's happening to you. You come ‘round the bend with this great swoosh of wheels and music and POW!

Note that the main musical impact still comes on the image of the two girls — take another look!

There was also the enormous practical problem of making a whole piece of pre-composed piece of music work with the scene. My music charts show that I did actually take some liberties here, but the one thing I will never do is mess with the original ‘phrasing’ of the music. It has to work with the film or it'll never work. What you can never do is change the whole phrasing of the music.

And here all the stuff with Danny looking through the gaps in his fingers was an integral part of the whole scene. One whole big musical/visual/emotional ‘phrase’.

Also here, deeper point: it's as if the music has something to do with the psychology of the hotel, and not Danny. The ‘psychic’ hotel is here taking control of Danny and has got him in his grip. The music as fate — like the big chords I had on most of the date captions (Tuesday, etc.) — almost like the single toll of a bell. A doomsday of judgment coming ever closer. That was my idea, incidentally, and Stanley seemed to really like it. 

Kubrick picked all the music, but the way it is edited to go with the visuals is like nothing I've ever seen before or since.   

I always think of K. as being completely in control of every little detail of his films, but this interview is one of those that remind one of how much he did depend on his collaborators to come up with great ideas.  He was very good at recognizing when they had, though!

With this particular cue — this is the third time we see Danny riding his tricycle — so we know this is the time that something bad HAS to happen — and when something bad does happen, it's always right when you go around a the corner, like Danny does.   So even on the first viewing, we all know something's around that corner, this time for sure.  

Having the music arrive a moment before we see what that thing is, for me, echos the split second between seeing something and recognizing it. 

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Original trailer for The Shining, with music by Carlos and Elkind

Wendy Carlo's commentary:

20-Clockworks (Bloody Elevators)

A favorite sound-painting track of ours, Stanley also liked it, so much so that of all our preliminary music, this is the only cue he ever used. That was for the film's teaser/trailer, which came out exactly one year before we were summoned to London to commence work in earnest. The sounds are Rachel's versatile vocals with percussive and brassy synthesizer lines, all quite melodramatic.

From Listening to Stanley Kubrick, by Christine Gengaro*:

Kubrick began working with [Carlos and Elkind] before any footage was shot, asking them to read the novel and come up with musical ideas... In discussing the unused sounds and music, Carlos stated the following in Jan Harlan's documentary, Stanley Kubrick:  A Life in Pictures:  

“We were working with the material that was in the book, and trying to make music that fit the mood in a sort of updated gothic horror story, which is what The Shining is, really, I mean, as a novel, in any case. And of course the stylization that came out from the filming was not present in the book.  And so we failed in our attempt.  Which is why there is not a great deal of [our] other music put into the movie.” ...

[Discussing the CD of their original music:] The first three tracks on this disc feature a buzzing sound that suggests insects.  Perhaps Carlos and Elkind were inspired by Stephen King's scene (unused in the film) about a wasp nest.  Jack removes a wasp nest from the roof of the Overlook and gives the empty nest to Danny... 

That night, Danny hears buzzing.  It was not a good gift to make or receive.

This music was later used memorably in the trailer for “Room 237”, and again in 2012.  Note the common "inundation" theme.   Hopefully Carlos and Elkind got some well-deserved royalties for each.

_______________

*Gengaro's book is coming out in paperback next month.  Buy it!

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The score for "The Shining" is as stunning as anything else that was ever in a Kubrick movie.   The eerie vocalizations here are by Elkind, Carlos's producer and "silent partner" (in that she was shy and left it to Wendy to do all the interviews).  

The stopwatch in her hand, according to Carlos, was an essential part of working with the primitive synthesizers of that pre-desktop computer era.

As mentioned above, Carlos and Elkind composed a full score for The Shining, but only parts of it were used, to their great disappointment.  However, those parts are a very prominent in the experience of the movie!  

Carlos did reissue the full score on 2 CDs in 2005; these are now out-of-print and very expensive to purchase.  Those people lucky enough to own them praise the very thorough liner notes.   Here are some excerpts from Carlos's web site:

1-Shining Title Music We'll start off volume two with orchestral and studio music composed for "The Shining." The brassy introductory Fanfare is adapted from a Polymoog piece (on volume 1, #19), here performed by large orchestra. It leads directly into this more powerful arrangement of the title music heard in the film: a blend of the Latin "Dies Irae" plainsong, musical textures featuring Rachel's electrifying vocals, low Moog drones, metal plectrum on autoharp, some delicate high-pitched "Danny Bells", and an enveloping cross-delay ambient wash. The "Dies" theme is not the original, but comes from an adaptation Berlioz wrote for his "Symphonie Fantastique."

2-Paraphrase for 'Cello My vote for one of the best pieces here. You may not recognize the "Dies Irae" theme that these romantic, melancholy variations are based upon, although I followed the chant closely. The ensemble consists of six 'celli and two string basses. The musicians really "got into" performing it, and their enthusiasm makes it remarkably alive. I wish it appeared in the film, but Stanley explained that all non-Berlioz variations "sounded wrong." It was my fault in bringing up the Berlioz in the first place, when he asked where he might hear the "Dies Irae" melody we were planning to run with. He unwittingly became fixated on it, which led to most of our music being rejected.

Ah, Kubrick — man of 1,000 fixations!

Here are the Monks of the Abbey of Notre Dame singing the "Dies Irae".

Here is the Berlioz. 

Here is the Liszt version (Totentanz), played by Valentina Lisitsa — wow! THESE are some VARIATIONS!

Here it is coming in amazingly at the end of Rachmaninov's "Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini"!

And here is Rachmanivov's "Isle of the Dead" — more variations on the Dies Irae — and, I maintain, the underlying inspiration for how the opening credits of "The Shining" were done.   Yes, Jan Harlan! — I am asserting that whenever it was you gave him the album of "Isle of the Dead", he looked at the cover and read the liner notes while he was listening to it — same as he did with “Thus Spake Zarathustra” — and he got this idea.

The reason I know all these instances of the Dies Irae is because I was so entranced by its use in The Shining — first I asked my Dad; he told me what it was and told me Rachmaninov loved it — then the others were in the Encyclopedia Britannica.     (And — as it turns out — it is used in Mussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain", one of Dad's old 78 rpm records that we listened to over and over as children.  So I was already unconsciously familiar with it.)

Listening to them again, I'm reminded that one of the great joys of listening to a piece of music over and over, aside from experiencing the pure beauty of it, is gradually understanding how it is all put together and how one part leads into another, and that the end comes from the beginning, and that it could not be any other way.  

In other words, the same as re-watching Kubrick films.  If only there was a pill that I could take that would make me forget, for the space of three days, say, that I had ever seen "The Shining".   And then I could watch it over and over, those three days, and have all that experience over again!

"The Shining", Main Title from The Shining, composed by Wendy Carlos and Rachel Elkind. The piece uses as its foundation “Dies Irae” (Days of Wrath [(dē-(ˌ)ās-ˈē-ˌrā\; DEE-ace EE-ray]), a 13th century Latin hymn whose primary motif was later used by French composer Hector Berlioz in the fifth movement of his Symphonie Fantastique (1830).

It is one of only two complete pieces of music Kubrick used from the original full score that Carlos and Elkind had composed for the film, although he did use small fragments of other ambient pieces they created.

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From “Stanley Hates This But I Like It!”: North vs. Kubrick on the Music for 2001: A Space Odyssey", by Paul A. Merkley (published in The Journal of Film Music): 

A correct explanation for the inclusion of Also sprach Zarathustra in the sound track for 2001 can be found in remarks by Jan Harlan in a BBC interview from 2002. …Harlan, who was at the time living in Zürich, recalls that during the time of post-production work on 2001 Kubrick telephoned him and said: “When you are coming next weekend, please have a look through all your LPs. I am desperately looking for a piece of music which is very majestic and very big in sound and beautiful, but which comes to an end.”

Harlan recalls that Kubrick “was desperate for a piece that comes to an end quickly. He had already listened to Wagner and Bruckner, and had the Alex North score, but he wasn’t totally happy. … He was finicky and very respectful to composers, and didn’t want to fade out or cut a piece of music, which is awful. … One of the things I brought to him was Richard Strauss’ Zarathustra , which of course is a big fanfare, and has the advantage that it comes to an end quickly. He liked that very much.”

Merkley's article is totally excellent: 34 pages of well-considered words, illustrations, and footnotes. The link for it comes from an article by David Arrate about William Castle's "Shanks", for which Alex North adapted three segments of his unused "2001" score.

Merkley continues:

The suggestion of Also sprach Zarathustra must have been made during post-production, but before the engagement of Alex North. Kubrick’s criteria for the music he sought are noteworthy: the piece was to be majestic, but it had to come to an end quickly. It bears repeating because of the persistent stream of secondary literature on this point that is unfounded. Zarathustra was chosen for 2001 because it was a majestic fanfare of the approximate length that the director needed. Nietzsche was not the reason for this choice, and did not influence the film’s plot or even its implications. By the time Kubrick chose this music his shooting was complete. This point of production history invalidates all of the speculations on Nietzsche in the secondary literature that surrounds 2001. 

I wouldn't go that far:  since this Richard Strauss music was intended to, and maybe DOES express the themes of Nietzsche's book, this may have sealed the deal with Kubrick that his search could stop here — if he saw interesting associations with the ideas in his movie.

From the respective Wikis:

[Nietzsche:] Much of the work deals with ideas such as the "eternal recurrence of the same", the parable on the "death of God", and the "prophecy" of the Übermensch.

Not that one opening fanfare covers all those things, but it is not inconsistent with them.  It recurs twice more in the movie, each time with an evolutionary "leap forward" into an "Over Man".  God is at least remote in the movie.

And look, the opening credits show a sunrise, and what is the title of this particular section of Strauss's work?

1. Einleitung, oder Sonnenaufgang (Introduction, or Sunrise): The piece starts with a sustained double low C on the double basses, contrabassoon and organ. This transforms into the brass fanfare of the Introduction and introduces the "dawn" motif (from "Zarathustra's Prologue", the text of which is included in the printed score) that is common throughout the work: the motif includes three notes, in intervals of a fifth and octave, as C–G–C[2] (known also as the Nature-motif). On its first appearance, the motif is a part of the first five notes of the natural overtone series: octave, octave and fifth, two octaves, two octaves and major third (played as part of a C major chord with the third doubled). The major third is immediately changed to a minor third, which is the first note played in the work (E flat) that is not part of the overtone series.[2]

Kubrick of course wouldn't say, "Oh, this says it is about the sunrise, that's good enough for me!", any more than he would do so simply because it refers to the idea of an "Over-Man". But he would certainly pick something that both worked wonderfully with his visuals AND "expressed" them, over a piece of music that simply worked wonderfully. 

Maybe it can't work wonderfully unless it does both.  I think there are many such "coincidences" in Kubrick's work, and, as with luck, you make your own coincidences when you do it right.

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2001 Opening using Alex North's Original Score

So, please watch this clip (made by Steven Kilpatrick), up to 1:40, where the intro ends.   Then watch this clip of the opening with the music that Kubrick ended up choosing instead — music that everyone who has every seen the movie, is already hearing in their head reading this.

Kubrick, some feel, fell in love with the temp tracks he used while doing the rough edit of 2001, including the opening music, Richard Strauss's "Thus Spake Zarathustra".    

All of us who have grown used to Kubrick's temp tracks, it is very hard for us to give North's music a fair hearing.

I do like North's music very much, and it would have done very well for the kind of movie originally conceived by Kubrick and Clarke: as a joke, they called  "How the Solar System was Won" as they were writing the story.  This type of movie was what the studio was expecting.  Not a movie that was going to go where no movie had ever gone before.  

This movie that would have started with a panel of leading scientists speculating on the nature of intelligent life in the universe, and picked up right up with voiceover explaining was going on the apes right after the opening credits.   This possibly was the version screened for North, and his score may reflect that.

For this movie, North's music feels too warm and human — as in "we're all in this together".   It would have completely changed the experience of the movie, as much as swapping out one kind of atom for another completely changes the molecule's properties.

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“If he would have said, “Come to my house and paint the porch,” I would have said 'When?'”

From an interview with Chris Isaak by Songfacts.com:

Songfacts: You have a song, "Baby Did A Bad, Bad Thing" in one of the creepiest movies I've ever seen, Eyes Wide Shut. Have you been able to get through that movie unscarred?

Chris: (Laughs) I saw the movie and I loved that I had a film. Stanley Kubrick is one of my favorite directors. I mean, The Killing is a great film and I watched it over and over. So when I got a phone call and I remember somebody said, "Stanley Kubris or something is calling." I went, "What?" I was actually backstage at The Tonight Show and they said, "There's a deadline on a film, do you want to pass?" And I said, "Is it Stanley Kubrick?" And they said, "Yes." And I said, "Say 'yes.' Say 'YES.' Just say yes to anything they want." Like, get me on the phone with this guy. It's Kubrick. If he would have said, "Come to my house and paint the porch," I would have said "When?"

And it was also neat that that film - and this is kind of esoteric, I don't know if it translates into print - but at the end of that film, the lead character, (Tom) Cruise, has been unfaithful and now he's back with his wife, and she says, "There's something else we need to do." And he says, "What's that?" It's like, F-U-C - you know, that's... it's like, "What?! Huh?" It just stopped me in my tracks.

Here's this guy who risks everything because of this drive, and at the end it's kind of like, yes, that's there, it's underneath the surface of all of this. There's these other drives that aren't talked about and stuff. And Kubrick, I loved that he would address those kind of things in a film. And that I got that song in there and Nicole Kidman is dancing naked to it, kind of made my day.

I have to say I really like Nicole Kidman; somebody told me they had asked her, they said, "What would you feel comfortable rehearsing to and dancing?" And she brought that song and was dancing to it and Kubrick heard it and went, "That's perfect." So I have Nicole to thank for that.

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So all this stuff needs to fit in the green backpack at the rear, and then I strap the backpack to my bike, and ride a half hour to take the train to NYC.   

On the train back and forth I'll probably be typing up notes in my Chromebook (back left, battery charged up); also I'll be re-reading an article on Kubrick's use of music in Full Metal Jacket which was co-written by two of our attendees on my Kindle (next to the Chromebook; battery charged up as well).  

Next to that is my old Canon Rebel with an extra battery -- on second thought, screw the extra battery, I'm not gonna take THAT many pictures.  I AM going to try to get in early enough to actually go into the old Marshall Chess Club where Kubrick used to play and see if I can take a picture or two.  

Then I also have my old Sony Discman and a pair of portable speakers — in both of them, the old AA batteries were covered with a corrosive white powder, but with new batteries, they work fine again. Someone said they would bring in a Kubrick score on CD so we can listen to it.   These speakers seem to have enough oomph to them so that they will be able to be heard in the pub... but, come to think of it — I can download Christine Gengaro's Movie Geeks United interview on my iPod and we can listen to a bit of that as well.  

And I'm bringing her book and Kate McQuiston's, which I've still only read two chapters each of.

I always try to bring a "Stanley Kubrick Meetup" sign because one time three people couldn't find us at the venue, and one of them had come a long way to attend, and this person had actually been to Stanley Kubrick's house in London.  Still feeling guilty about that.

Lastly, a page with the results of a Google image search of "Kubrick single point perspective".  I don't really get it.  Kubrick did like to do tracking shots in corridors and I've heard he did this to the feeling of entrapment and predestination.   Maybe there will be someone with an art background at the Meetup and they can suggest other reasons/interpretations.

PS:  It all fit in the backpack!

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In this study, music will be primary in order to privilege of audition rather than the point of view.

Kubrick's filmmaking has long been admired and studied for its narrative and thematic aspects and visual impact; however, another central element of his style is the unique, often startling encounters between music and the moving image, and the use of classical music. A musicological approach to Kubrick's oeuvre is both urgently needed and long overdue in an understanding of these films, whose most compelling features are, I argue, musically conceived and expressed.  For Kubrick, a director who habitually compared filmmaking with music and devoted his characteristic scrutiny to music in his work, music is primary and generative to the films' themes, designs, and meanings.

This study is concerned with showing music to be both a consistent, vital force in Kubrick's imagination and an aesthetic foundation for the creation and reception of many of Kubrick's films — and famous moments within them — beginning with "Killer's Kiss (1955) and ending with Eyes Wide Shut (1999)...

Though it is clear Kubrick knew of music's efficacy in engaging the audience and intensifying the audience's experience — both during and after the experience of watching and listening — commentary on the remarkable musical moments in his films has nevertheless remained marginal, or subsumed within a discussion of visual or thematic elements. In this study, music will be primary in order to privilege of audition rather than the point of view.

— intro to We'll Meet Again:  Musical Design in the Films of Stanley Kubrick, by Kate McQuiston

In 2013, TWO great books came out about Kubrick's use of music:  this one and Christine Gengaro's.  Both authors thank the other for their help in the acknowledgments, and together they prove that in Kubrick University, the Music Department would be second to none in student popularity.

As a first impression of both, Kate is wonderfully poetic and philosophic, and Christine is nuts-and-bolts par excellence.

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I have listened to the soundtrack albums many times, but gave that up as I did not want to "wear out" the effect of the music for the movies — as for example, I wore out my love for the Beatles by hearing their songs too many times.

I have thought of watching Kubrick films in another language, and with the sound off.  I listened to Dr. Strangelove about a hundred times back in the 1970's on my old reel-to-reel tape recorder, having recorded it off "Monday Night at the Movies", and it was very enjoyable that way.  

As for listening to the movies with my eyes closed — as I have done with a symphony orchestra in Carnegie Hall — by George, it could work! Maybe best with his last three films.

I wouldn't want to do it while I am washing dishes, the way I listen to my podcasts — there shouldn't be any distractions — nor even lying in bed at night, because I would get too excited to go to sleep — no, there is no other way to do it except, right after dinner, tell yourself,  "I am going to listen to Eyes Wide Shut now, put in the Blu-ray, get in bed, lie down on your back, put on the big headphones, and close your eyes.

[skm-nyc]

Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, “Ode to Joy”

Here is Wilhelm Furtwängler conducting the Berlin Philharmonic; an incredible performance I think, and reminding me of the thrill of hearing it come on so unexpectedly at the end of “A Clockwork Orange” — it was impossible not to feel lifted up by it, even though what was happening on the screen was going directly against its message.

Here too, our enjoyment of the music is jarred by seeing that it is shared with the Nazi officers in the audience.

When Kubrick later pairs the same “Ode to Joy” with images of Nazi armies, though, during Alex’s “Ludovico Treatment” scene, he uses Wendy Carlos’ synthesized version, making it and the violence feel more mechanical…

(image from collativelearning.com)

From FCIT’s "A Teacher’s Guide to the Holocaust”

According to Hitler and Goebbels (Hitler’s second in command), the three master composers that represented good German music were Ludwig van Beethoven, Richard Wagner, and Anton Bruckner. All three composers lived prior to the 20th century.

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) believed that “strength is the morality of the man who stands out from the rest.” Hitler identified himself with Beethoven as possessing that heroic German spirit. Beethoven was so loved by the German people that his legacy of music was unrivaled by any other composer.

On the DVD commentary, Malcolm McDowell says he and Kubrick watched many hours of concentration camp footage during shooting, and he asked Kubrick why he did not put more horrible images in the Ludovico treatment films.  Kubrick’s response was that audiences do not like to be scared and that you have to be very careful about that.

My interpretation of that statement, re ACO, might be that it would violate the movie’s particular style of reality, and also that Kubrick always felt it was more effective to suggest then to spell things out — it’s much better that the viewer makes their own connections, than to be told what they are.

From Vincent Lobrutto’s Kubrick biography:

"Culture seems to have no effect on evil," Kubrick opined.  "People have written about the failure of culture in the twentieth century:  the enigma of Nazis who listened to Beethoven and sent millions off to the gas chambers."

From Wikipedia Entry on Arthur Koestler’s “The Ghost in The Machine”:

Koestler’s central assumption is that humanity’s atavistic brain areas will lead it to self-destruction. However, the same areas responsible for hate and anger are also responsible for certain other emotions, such as love and happiness, which tend to be viewed more positively, although they can in themselves foster or lead to certain destructive urges on an individual level.

[skm-nyc]

"Battle on the Ice" scene, from Alexander Nevsky

(As background, Alex Singer and Stanley Kubrick were classmates at Taft High School in the Bronx, and continued to do things together for a few years thereafter. )

Singer began to explore the art theater scene in New York and discovered the work of Eisenstein.... "I'd take Stanley to see these things," Singer remembers.  "I'm an instrument of exposure to him and he's very excited and turned on by all of this.  I take him to Alexander Nevsky and we hear Prokofiev's score for the battle on the ice and Stanley never gets over that.  He bought a record of it and played it until he drove his kid sister Barbara right around the bend and she broke the record in an absolute rage.  Stanley is — I think the word 'obsessive' is not unfair." — Stanley Kubrick: A Biography, by Vincent LoBrotto

This scene is indeed a stunning meld of music and imagery.   When Prokofiev's main theme comes in at 1:30 in this Mosfilm link (not the one above), at the appearance of the dread Teutonic Knights, it is strongly reminiscent of the opening theme of "The Shining" —  the Dies Irae, the medieval "Day of Judgment" hymn, as orchestrated by Wendy Carlos — which is also, Carlos has said, worked into "A Clockwork Orange's main them.

I am even starting to hear its influence in certain variations of the main theme in "Dr. Strangelove" (scored by another of Kubrick's friend from the same era, Gerald Fried).

From "Listening to Stanley Kubrick", by Christine Lee Gengaro:

Eisenstein and Prokofiev collaborated in a unique way.  Whereas in most films, the editing is completed before the composer finishes his work, and the music is cut to the edits made by the director, with Alexander Nevsky, Eisenstein and Prokofiev were both involved in the editing process.  Eisenstein could make cuts that would accommodate Prokofiev's music, or ask for the composer to alter the music for a particular shot.  The result is a musical score that effectively evokes the emotions and actions on-screen, but also retains an organic sense of structure that translates well to the concert setting.

Although the scores for Kubrick's first films were produced in the traditional way — after footage was shot and edited, a composer produced new music for the film — the model of Eisenstein and Prokofiev must have stayed in his mind.  Kubrick was always very respectful of the music he used in his projects, even — and especially — when that music was not originally intended for his films.  

[emphasis added by me to the last lines!]

The picture that has emerged of Kubrick, since he left us, is that he LOVED a) his family, b) his cats and dogs, c) films and d) music.  

And it may be that the last two were neck-and-neck, and the thing he loved was the same in both of them.  There's a Rosebud in there somewhere.