Stanley Kubrick: A Director’s Impact Through Music

Paper by Wendy DeLoughly.

During the span of Stanley Kubrick’s film career, from 1951 to 1999, his work became associated with certain characteristics and traits – Kubrick was an auteur. Kubrick’s style became identifiable through specific types of camera movements and techniques, themes that were repeatedly explored in his films, and most evident to all viewers, the music Kubrick chose to accompany his films. Not everyone can identify camera techniques or themes that a director uses, but everyone can hear and listen to music while watching a film. Kubrick’s use of music in his films greatly enhanced and accentuated audiences’ experience. From students of film to strictly for entertainment viewers, the music used in Kubrick’s films had just as great an impact as the accompanying imagery, and sometimes even a greater effect, to those watching.

Kubrick incorporated classical music to great effect in a few of his films. A prime example would be the film 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). This film is more like a visual accompaniment to a musical presentation rather than a movie watched for plot or characters. Kubrick lets us know the importance of music from the second the film starts. The opening of 2001: A Space Odyssey greets the viewer with a pitchblack screen. The viewer’s ears, however, are greeted by György Ligeti’s Atmosphère. The black screen and music continues for a full two minutes and forty-seven seconds. The sounds of Ligeti’s Atmosphère growing louder and softer, louder and softer, and the black screen allow the viewer’s imagination to begin to work. The scene then switches to one of earth from space and the music changes to the very grand and epic Also Sprach Zarathrusta by Richard Strauss – very fitting to the scenery. The viewer is then again returned to the black screen and silence. For the next few minutes, the viewer sees images of a landscape, which we assume belongs to earth – vast deserts, plains of rock, water – all viewed in complete silence. This stark contrast between music and no image, and silence and many images, lets the audience know the importance of the music Kubrick has picked to open his movie, and signifies, in my opinion at least, that 2001: A Space Odyssey is a music-centric film.

After spending several minutes watching the scenes on earth unfold, titled “The Dawn of Man”, we hear the sounds of apes and other animals (early man) as we watch their interactions. Kubrick then hits us again with music to let us know the importance of the scene that shows the first appearance of the “monolith”. This monolith, looking like a smooth, dark, rectangular stone wall, comes on the scene accompanied by Ligeti’s Requiem. The music can only be described as giving an eerie and ominous feeling to the arrival of the monolith. The sounds of the soprano voices, rising and falling, give the viewer a sense of danger and significance. The apes surrounding the monolith begin to gather, hesitantly, around the wall, touching the wall…and then the scene cuts – silence and blackness once again.

The above scenes take place all within the first ten minutes of the film. The music signifies important events, coincides with the opening and cutting of a scene or sequence, and leaves a major impression on the viewer. That impression is going to be different for everyone as we all interpret music and images slightly differently based on our own experiences, but it can not be denied that without the specific music chosen by Kubrick, the scenes would not have as great an impact on the viewer nor left as great an impression on the viewer. It should also be noted that the first piece of dialogue in the film does not take place until after twenty-fives minutes. We have images and music – one might call it a film composition. As Paulson states in her article “Stanley Kubrick’s Revolution in the Usage of Film Music” “…he also “composed” the music by selecting musical pieces, deciding where to put them in the film, and, especially, by editing them to the picture”. It can be said that the film and music together create one composition – both visual and musical. Kubrick continues to use the same music to correlate with the same images – whenever the monolith appears, we hear Requiem, regardless of the part of the film or the characters involved. The film ends just as it began with Also Sprach Zarathustra. This continuity and connection is a composition. And when an audience remembers 2001: A Space Odyssey, they definitely remember the music. As Paulson put it in her article: “Kubrick’s opinion on the usage of the film music was on the scent of audio-visual connections, which either began by accident of were interpreted as interesting experiments that should not be repeated too often”. I would argue that they should be repeated, as I found the music to be the best part of 2001.

A second example of Kubrick using music to great effect in his films can be found in The Shining (1980). In The Shining, it is the music that makes the audience jump rather than the actual event – and even when there is no event. The perfect example of this can be found in the clashing of the cymbals whenever the screen shows us the day of the week or time that we are in. The clashing catches the viewer off guard, and the sound signifies (much like in 2001) the end or beginning of a new event or time.

The music in The Shining at times appears to run through the characters and to the audience. It can be argued that the movements of Jack (Jack Nicholson) are timed with the music – this is non diegetic music so only we can hear it, but there appears to be a synchronization. “During the conversation between Jack and Danny [in the bedroom while Danny is sitting on Jack’s lap], it is remarkable that their tête-à-tête is accompanied by the “ups and downs” of Bartók’s music. Furthermore the swish pan on Jack and his head movement are synchronized with the music” (Sbravatti). The music is not only accompanying the scene and the characters actions, but it is enhancing and accentuating them as well. This can make the viewer feel as if they are watching a well choreographed dance (Kubrick also did this in 2001 using Mendelssons’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and his scenes of weightlessness and spinning in space). It is the music that we hear, as we watch the film, that makes us feel anxious about Jack’s behavior and sympathize with Wendy’s (Shelly Duvall) terror. The music of Polymorphia as performed by the Cracow Philharmonic Orchestra shows that the “…efficacy of this composition is exceptional, because in the first minutes [the film is] characterized by an emotional crescendo which corresponds exactly with Wendy’s rising terror” (Sbravatti). The music of Polymorphia continues as Wendy tries to escape the hotel with Danny, and it also accompanies the even of Jack smashing an axe into Halloran’s (Scatman Crothers) chest. The suspense and effect of this sequence in The Shining would not be as terrifying had Kubrick not had such talent when it came to weaving together the composition of film and music.

While Kubrick used the classical music of Mendelssohn and Ligeti (Ligeti in both 2001 and The Shining), the music he chose to be part of his composition in Full Metal Jacket served a very different, but just as effective, purpose. From the time Joker (Matthew Modine) and his crew make it out of basic training and over to Vietnam, Kubrick purposely picks popular hits from 1962-1968 to accentuate the time period, setting, and the American-ness of the soldiers in Vietnam. In an interview with Rolling Stone Magazine, Kubrick talks about his choice of songs: “It was the music of the period. The Tet offensive was in ’68. Unless we were careless, none of the music is post-’68… The music really depended on the scene. We checked through Billboard’s list of Top 100 hits for each year from 1962 to 1968. We were looking for interesting material that played well with a scene” (Cahill). The way this particular music choice impacts the viewer is to really bring home the setting of where the soldiers were, and when the soldiers were. Not only is the music indicative of the time period, but being American hits, it accentuated the fact that these soldiers were Americans in a land very far and very different from their own. The songs chosen also have another effect on the viewer – in a way, they contrast the ugliness of war and death. The songs playing are very upbeat songs: “These Boots Are Made for Walking” by Nancy Sinatra, “The Chapel of Love” by The Dixie Cups, “Surfin’ Bird” by the Trashmen, and “Wooly Bully” by Sam the Sham and Pharaohs. All of these songs have a tune that makes you want to tap your feet or sing along, but on screen you see scenes of bloody bodies being carried away on gurneys, blown out buildings burning in the background, signs and visions of war and death everywhere. Perhaps Kubrick chose this music just to emphasize the time and place the soldiers were from, or maybe he was making an anti-war statement (a theme he has often employed in his films) by choosing music that does not make one think of death and destruction.

Kubrick does, however, have a death song in Full Metal Jacket. The score for the film was created by his daughter Vivian Kubrick under the alias of Abigail Mead. It was digitally created on a synthesizer, and in scenes where death is facing Joker directly, we hear what can only be described as the tink tink of high notes on a piano and a droning metallic sound. We hear this music three times in the film: The first is when Pyle (Vincent D’Onofrio) kills Hartman (Lee Ermey) and then kills himself. The second is when Joker has gotten to Vietnam and is standing over a pile of dead bodies, covered in lime, in a pit in the ground. The third and final time we hear this music is when Joker has to kill a sniper out of mercy at the end of the film. The music become synonymous with death, particularly for Joker’s encounters with death and the audience having a more intimate view of a character’s interactions with the horrors of war. It lets the viewer know, whether they are aware of it or not, that death is coming.

Whenever watching a Kubrick film, one cannot just use the eyes (true, this can be said for almost any film, but it is particularly true when watching a Kubrick film). The three films mentioned are great examples of how Kubrick purposely chose music to affect and impact his audience. When one walks away from a film like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Full Metal Jacket, or The Shining, it is not just the visuals, characters, story or plot that remain with you long after. The music moves you, makes you jump in fright, dance like you’re in space, or reminisce over a specific time period (or try to take you there if you’re too young). Kubrick’s music choices have a purpose. As stated in his Cahill interview “the choices weren’t arbitrary”. His music choices, as well as being a part of his creating and directing genius, are a large part of what identify Stanley Kubrick as an auteur.


Works Cited

Cahill, Tim. “The Rolling Stone Interview: Stanley Kubrick 1987.” Rolling Stone 27 Apr. 1987: n. pag. Rolling Stone Archives. Web. 5 June 2015.
Full Metal Jacket. Dir. Stanley Kubrick. Perf. Matthew Modine, Adam Baldwin, Vincent D’Onofrio, and Lee Ermey. Warner Bros., 1987.
Paulus, Irena. “Stanley Kubrick’s Revolution in the Usage of Film Music: 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).” International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music 40.1 (2009): 99-127. JSTOR. Web. 07 June 2015.
Sbravatti, Valerio. “The Music in The Shining.” Archivio Kubrick (2010): n. pag. Archiviokubrick.it. Web. 5 June 2015.
Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. Dir. Stanley Kubrick. Perf. Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall. Warner Bros., 1980.
2001: A Space Odyssey. Dir. Stanley Kubrick. By Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke. Perf. Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, and William Sylvester. Metro-Goldwyn- Mayer, 1968.

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Published:
08.06.15 / 7am
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