Really? Pink Floyd was going to do "2001"? That's bizarre.

You've got all kinds of juicy little tidbits, don't you old boy?

I agree with your mentioning Mathis' use of motival development and the snares. I was very impressed by that piece.

BTW have you heard the Jerry Goldsmith recording of the Alex North score? It is a masterpiece! And was never used...

@PaulR said:

Yes, there were some good times in those days, but I personally don't like to bathe in nostalgia. [:)]

Ah, I was more or less kidding. I mean, I grew up with "The wall", but basically I think my youth was just a bit late for the *real* Pink Floyd time.
But one or two years ago I went to a concert of Roger Waters, he made a kind of Liederabend, and it was very nice. Of course nostalgic without end, I mean you can imagine the age of the public [:D] .

However, I can´t see how their dramatic stuff (we germans say pathetisch, but I learned that this is quite a different meaning in english) could have worked with 2001.
I´m also curious what Alex North did. I´m such a great admirer of Ligetis work of the 60´s (I think I have almost his complete work here in my CD-collection) that I really can´t imagine what he should have written "against" Ligeti. I know North´s score to "Who´s afraid of Virginia Wolf", did he do similar things? Then actually I could understand why Kubrick went for Ligeti. I mean it´s so different... (in style)

Thanks again for the nice words. I basically try to be dependent on the least material possible. It took a long time for me to understand how´s that possible but now it finally starts to work. [:D]

Bests,
- Mathis

[quote=William]Really? Pink Floyd was going to do "2001"? That's bizarre....[quote]

At the time, it probably seemed less so. Floyd, even then, were very much into that light-show, etherial type, experimental sound. And, like Bernard Herrmann, Stanley Kubrick was very much a comitted Anglophile. Bit like yourself, my dear fellow. [H] Re: Alex North. Unfortunately, I have'nt. [:O]ops: Although I am very much aware (due to you and Dave's posts over time) what a fantastic writer he was. He and Goldsmith were very much friends and colleagues, I understand. Spartacus, of course.

Of course nostalgic without end, I mean you can imagine the age of the public . Quote [Mathis]

[:'(] You don't have to remind me. Yes. The Wall was more or less completely written by Roger Waters. When Dave Gilmore first heard the mock-up on Waters 4 track tape-recorder, he thought it was a mish-mash (an absolute mess). Thats the period when Pink Floyd fell apart, and I think you can hear that when you listen to this particular album. Never my favourite, but everyone has different tastes.

Pink Floyd were at their best imo when they came out with Dark Side of the Moon in 1971 (I think: memory problems), but I still like some of Sid Barretts songs a great deal. See Emily Play is still a classic for me (they had trouble doing it live, in those days).

Ligeti in 2001 came as a big surprise. You have to understand that I went to see 2001 when it came out in 1969 in a cinema that had stereo sound. That was a big deal at the time, and when you and everyone else are out of their heads, and that part hits the screen, well, it has an impact. One of the greatest cinema cuts of all time in that film. Do you know which one?

Of course, we're all very respectable theses days, which reminds me, I have to go to the super-market. Or shall I send my daughter. She has a faster car than me. [:D]

Later and bests

Paul

Paul,

Are you perhaps refering to the cut from the bone thrown up into the air to the orbiting satellite (which was supposed to be a nuclear warhead though we couldn't have known it)?

By the by old man, you didn't answer about my response about Hitchcock being afraid of police due to his five minute childhood "lock-down."

Carry On Posting

@PaulR said:

Pink Floyd were at their best imo when they came out with Dark Side of the Moon in 1971

To be exact, I wasn´t even born then.... (a very small smiley)

I think too that this bone throw is this infamous cut, right?
I can imagine what impact this had. To me this film still has a huge impact. I saw it in cinema in 2001 and it was quite an experience. However not the music, since I knew it very well before, and also the film I knew before from video, striked me most, it was the use of silence. Man, minutes and minutes with really *nothing* on the sound track.

@"mathisI think too that this bone throw is this infamous cut, right?
Man, minutes and minutes with really *nothing* on the sound track.[/quote said:

[quote="mathisI think too that this bone throw is this infamous cut, right?
Man, minutes and minutes with really *nothing* on the sound track.

Yes. Very good. A lesson to any aspiring filmscore writer on the impact of music to images. Bone in the air = space vehicle=Strauss' Blue Danube. What more can anyone desire.

I'd forgotton about the use of silence in the film. Absolutely. Another lesson, my young German friend (even smaller smiley).

Bests

Paul

The bone cut to the space station. To show the evolution of man from the moment of realization of how to become the top of the food chain by way of a tool to a vision (in the 60s) of the year 2001 where man has used tool upon tool to the point where we are living OFF the planet.

Mathis points out the uses of incredibly striking silence. Lingering shots of vast landscapes, silent and holding. But also, what most people don't realize, probably because they've seen so many countless times the bone cut recapped with the Zarusthra music, both in homages, and in parodies, ... is that the realization to the bone throw, the bone throw itself, the bone flying, and the cut to the space station, is ALL IN SILENCE. A few seconds later a LIGHT waltz introduction begins, as we begin what Kubrick called, the "docking dance".

Also of interesting note, is how Kubrick made the greatest decision ... to throw out Alex North's score. Although ordinary, it did not do what Kubrick was about to do. instead, Kubrick chose to use familiar tonal music to give the viewer a sense of foundation and trust for the first portions of the film. Even the horrific early scenes were nothing more than sound design type music (Ligeti).

however, as the movie progresses it becomes more serious, and it starts to loosen it's grip on familiarity as we move towards the more atonal, the more modern.

It was Kubrick's genius. And it is also why I teach that the film composer IS a filmmaker, and there is no correlation between film scoring and writing music for film. A film composer is best when he/she is a score editor who happens to have the budget and time to write exactly what they would have edited in. Had I been the composer on Pulp Fiction, it would have been no different than it is now.

Evan Evans

I wonder if Kubrick really was aware of the dramatic element of silence. We see it that way now, but basically these space outdoor shots are silent because of realism: In space there is no air and therefore no sound.
It was a later development introduced by Star Wars to have sound in space for dramatic reasons. They decided to go against reality, which was really new and groundbreaking.

2001 is a rare example that reality is dramatic.

@mathis said:

I wonder if Kubrick really was aware of the dramatic element of silence.

Stanley Kubrick was aware of everything, I would think Mathis. Genius. Not a word I would use lightly when it comes to directors. With regard to 2001, I consider myself to be retrospectively lucky, because one of my college friends at the time was in it.

He was at university, a few years older than me, and Kubrick approached some of them for a 5 or 6 week job that year (in the holidays). Anyway, his role was one of the minor Apes. [:D]

What I remember him saying a few years after the film was released, was the attention to detail Kubrick had on everything. They were all trouped down to the zoo for weeks to observe the apes and then all the ape scenes (beginning of the film) were shot on indoor stages (nothing outdoors). He always went on about the arc lighting and how hot it became.

What a treat! [:)]

@PaulR said:

What I remember him saying a few years after the film was released, was the attention to detail Kubrick had on everything. They were all trouped down to the zoo for weeks to observe the apes and then all the ape scenes (beginning of the film) were shot on indoor stages (nothing outdoors). He always went on about the arc lighting and how hot it became.

What a treat! [:)]

Of course, what suffer for this great art! [:D]

But, more honstley, this rather confirms my impression. This observation of the apes in the zoo is exactly about realism.
I also heard that the space ships were built that way, that they would have been functionable in reality. That´s why they were destroyed after shooting. (At least nice story!)
I have the impression that Kubrick was obsessed with doing the film as close to reality as possible to make his philosophical statement as believable as possible. Might that be a good thesis?

@"mathisI have the impression that Kubrick was obsessed with doing the film as close to reality as possible to make his philosophical statement as believable as possible. Might that be a good thesis?[/quote said:

[quote="mathisI have the impression that Kubrick was obsessed with doing the film as close to reality as possible to make his philosophical statement as believable as possible. Might that be a good thesis?

Whats interesting about that thought, is Arthur Clarke wrote the book after the film was made, which is unusual. Reality is also an interesting thought with regards to 2001, although thats true in respect of the direction and sets etc.
2001 means different things to different people. In fact, its meaning changes on a personal level as one gets older and then discovers it again many years later.
One of the great things about Stanley Kubrik was he would never be pigeonholed. His films try to deal with a huge spectrum of subject matter on a number of different levels, from Dr Strangelove to Barry Lyndon to Full Metal Jacket. Very different genres. It may just be me, but the only music one remembers vividly within Kubricks films, apart from Spartacus is 2001.

This is probably because, as you alluded to earlier, one is completely familiar with the music in 2001 in the first place.

Kubrik was a maverick director and set up his base here in England for most of his professional life, because he didn't want to be dictated to by Hollywood moguls. Part of the reason that some of his films have a strange, almost unreal flavour to them, is because they were shot in England, whilst being set in say, America or Vietnam. I'm thinking of Lolita and Full Metal Jacket, for instance.

Bests

Paul

@PaulR said:

It may just be me, but the only music one remembers vividly within Kubricks films, apart from Spartacus is 2001.

Uh, I think maybe ...

"Siiiinging in the rain...I'm siiinging in the rain!"
and BEETHOVEN
and SLOW MOTION

might ring a bell too! Anyone whose seen it certainly remembers that tune well in conjunction with the film.

Evan Evans

Hey Paul!

I answered that first! [:(]



But seriously, very interesting discussion of 2001. I agree with what you're saying, and can claim to have seen the film in its original 70mm then repeated 35mm showings forty times in the theater. Long before there was such a thing as video. I was obsessed with it.

"2001" and "Darby O'Gill and the Little People" are the two greatest special FX films ever made. (As well as being extremely good films in other respects as well.) Before people ask, "What? What the Hell is this nutcase talking about with these OLD films?" please realize that these two films did something that no film today can do - real-time FX. No computers, and even no post-production optical printing (except for a few shots). Most of the main effects were IN FRONT OF THE CAMERA. That is one of the reasons they are so astounding even today. The money to do this kind of perfection of image is not available any more.

Good point, William.
Yes, the other thing I was really impressed when I watched the film in 2001 was the quality of the visual effects, especially in the end. They didn´t look oldfashioned at all to me (like most visual fx do after at last two years or so). Yes, no computer, just great optics. I loved it!

Which reminds me that I actually read the book before watching the film. I think I didn´t even know that the film existed (I think I was 13 or so). I remember very well this description of this strange journey throu space and time. It went over pages and pages literally describing these visual fx. Very weird experience.

Bests,
- M

[quote=William]Hey Paul!I answered that first! [:(] ]



40 times! Thats seriously impressive. Yeeessss. [H]

The impact of 2001 on the big screen was huge when it came out. No doubt about that. I think the camera man was Douglas Trumball (Trumble). Anyway, if not, whoever it was; brilliant. Stanley Kubrick got good people in his team, thats the main thing.

I saw Darby O'Gill and the Little People at the cinema in the fifties as a kid when it came out. Frightened the shit out of me. Walt Disney wasn't supposed to do that. Early days for Sean Connery's career and all that (and it didn't help him singing to Janet Munro). Had to walk home by myself afterwards. Kept looking for Wailing Banshees and headless carriage drivers. [:O]ops:

Yes, you'd need very big budgets to achieve that kind of magic these days. I agree.

I love hearing these intelligent statements about 2001, since it was my favorite movie until I saw "Dont Look Now, " then "Vertigo" then "Carnival of Souls" then "Eraserhead" then "Night Tide" then "Last Year at Marienbad" then "Tales from the Gimli Hospital" then... I'd better stop I suppose.

But the point about silence is interesting since it came from Kubrick's desire for realism, but also his use of realistic elements as a source of drama. In the scene where Bowman comes in through the airlock without his helmet - which is actually possible though very dangerous - the use of cacophonous sounds in the close confines of the pod, with all the alarms and machinery noise, contrasted with the dead silence of the airless space, then contrasted again with the roar of the air refilling the compartment - it is extremely dramatic.

I was thinking the other day about how many people (more conventional critics) said at the time that 2001 was non-dramatic and only visual. But it wasn't non-dramatic at all - it was in some senses supremely dramatic, but in a way that dramatists had never imagined before. I'm thinking particularly of the scene with Bowman trying to get in - "I'm sorry Dave I'm afraid I can't do that." Of course people use it as a quote for humor, but if you think about the situation, the desperate reality of it, it is one of the most dramatic scenes ever put on film. And it is so ironic with a very non-dramatic man - an astronaut trained to be calm - and an artifical intelligence. There is more reality and drama in that scene than in a thousand ordinary dramas.

Also, my point about the FX in front of the camera is that most of them were done first generation - that is, without any optical printing. So that a scene with a spaceship near Jupiter was the same resolution (on 65mm camera original film) as someone talking in a room. This is not done anymore. Also the end sequence - it was the same kind of first generation quality, with a "Slit-scan" device that created the light patterns all on the original negative, not with dupes or subsequent printings. 2001 was like experimental filmmaking, but done on a vast scale by masters of the art.

mathis,

Very very good piece. Great sound you get. Interesting writing. You have your own style. Cool percussive feel. A daring piece of music that works. I liked the slow section a lot.

What is your setup? Logic? Gigastudio? Reverb?

Was that all VSL?

Very exciting original work!

Dave Connor

@William said:

Hey Paul!

I answered that first! [:(] .

HaHa! so you did! I just realised that.

Excuses. [:D]

Paul and William,

What are you guys doing over here having civil, informative, discussions about great film-makers and film music?

Get over to that piccolo thread and raise some more hell, damn it!

And if I catch either of you using a sample of more than two notes:


its curtains see...? curtains for the both of ya's - yeah.... [to be spoken in the voice of Edward G. Robinson]

DC

Hi Dave, thank you very much! I´m away from the forum for some days due to my girlfriends visit, then I´ll come back to your questions.