If "Metropolis" (1927) is the first milestone of science fiction movies, then "2001: A Space Odyssey" (2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968) is the second. "2001 A Space Odyssey" revolutionized science fiction movies in narrative, style, special effects, ideology, sound, etc., making it from a low-cost B-level film to a serious film art.
Stanley Kubrick is an innovator when it comes to film soundtracks. In "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" (1964), he overlapped the image of the global nuclear explosion with the song "We Will Meet Again" about World War II Together, it reminds us coldly and sarcastically that after World War III, we may not meet again.
In "A Clockwork Orange" (1971), Kubrick matched the protagonist's conscientious atrocities with the elegant and romantic "Song in the Rain". Ironically, as the protagonist of Beethoven's heavy fans, he heard killing, destruction and death from the "Ninth Symphony", rather than the eruption of life and the surge of passion.
Classical music is still an important element in "Eyes Wide Shut". The works of Mozart and Beethoven are not only used as the soundtrack, but also become the narrative framework of the film, showing a neat counterpoint.
In "2001: A Space Odyssey", the music is elevated to the same status as the video, and the traditional plot, characters, and lines are not important. The concrete art of light and shadow seamlessly blends with abstract music and philosophy, shaking the senses and minds of the audience.
Stanley Kubrick initially hired Alex North for the soundtrack. But in the film editing stage, he developed unexpectedly, and the batch of classical music recordings as temporary soundtracks were unexpectedly suitable. Of course North’s works are also very good, but like most film soundtracks, they overemphasize the plot and give the audience emotional hints. And this is what Kubrick hopes to avoid in this film. Classical music exists independently of the plot, and brings a solemn and otherworldly atmosphere to the film, which enhances the film's level.
"So Says Zarathustra" is a symphonic poem by Richard Strauss based on Nietzsche's work of the same name. The first paragraph, "Sunrise", depicts when the world was born, human beings felt the gushing aura of God's energy.
In this book, Nietzsche elaborated on his superman doctrine. He believes that human beings will eventually be reduced to innocence and exist in the form of superman, and the super is the super super. The music has a groundbreaking posture in its momentum, with three gradual notes and three repetitions, but in fact the melody structure gradually lifted out of Nietzsche's so-called beast-man-superman evolutionary philosophy.
These concepts coincide with "2001 A Space Odyssey". At the beginning of the film, the moon, the earth and the sun are lined up, and the sun rises from behind the earth, fully visualizing the image and spirit of "Sunrise".
This piece of music is used in two other places. One is that the apes learned how to use tools in the process of beating the bones. The film praises this epoch-making event with a mood of ecstasy. Tools are the key factors for the apes to evolve and play a vital role in the progress of human civilization.
The other is the end. Astronaut Bowman evolved into a "star child", looking down on the earth, and the "sunrise" sounded again, showing that human exploration has entered a new stage, gaining a new life by peeking into the mysteries of the depths of the universe.
Both of these descriptions are about human evolution. One is that the wisdom of apes is turned on and evolves into adults; the end is that humans evolve into "star children" and return to primitives. Life is a cycle, with origin—evolution—destruction—rebirth, and at the same time it moves toward the future, it also moves toward the source.
Interestingly, "What Zarathustra Says" has not been well-known before, and even the classical music industry may not even regard it as a classic of Richard Strauss. But after "2001: A Space Odyssey", this song became known all over the world.
When the spacecraft docked with the space station, the soundtrack was John Strauss' waltz "Blue Danube". The spacecraft flies in the deep space, and everything is immersed in the soothing and melodious music.
The tempo of this film is extremely slow, and the music is also very slow. The director took us into the vast space to observe the process of space docking up close. The music creates an elegant and noble atmosphere, allowing us to experience the great achievements of human civilization.
The long and dull side of space travel is presented through excerpts from Soviet composer Aram Khachaturian's ballet "Gayane". Compared with the grand poetry of "Blue Danube", although this piece of music is beautiful, it is a bit more lonely and desolate.
Kubrick’s Adagio string is very deep and feminine. It coincides with the silently propelling spacecraft toward Jupiter in the boundless space. Life on the Discoverer is also quite dull. The two astronauts only do some monotonous daily work, running and running during their breaks, and playing chess with the intelligent computer Hal.
In the second half of the film, Black Stone floats from outside the spacecraft, and astronaut Bowman seems to have entered a space-time tunnel, and the soundtrack becomes "Echoes" and "Atom Heart Mother Suite" by Pink Floyd, the king of psychedelic music. Based on current knowledge, it can be considered that Bowman has passed through a "Wormhole" (a narrow tunnel that may exist in the universe connecting two different time and space) and reached another time and space or another dimension.
The sound and shadow here continue to stimulate the audience's brains. Kubrick deliberately challenged the audience's bottom line, letting us and Bowman, who were on the brink of collapse, descend into a comfortable baroque room, as if we had experienced a baptism and gained a new life.
Once classical music is combined with popular entertainment, it often loses its seriousness. But in Kubrick's films, the perfect combination of classical music and images has improved the film, which is really rare.
Compared with the soundtrack, the dialogue in the film is insignificant. Many dialogues are of no practical significance and are merely used to express people's actions, such as high-level meetings in the space station. The actors act and speak, basically without emotions, as cold as a machine. In contrast, the scene in which Hal begged Bowman not to close the program was full of humanity. His words for mercy ranged from "Stop, Dave" to "Will you stop, Dave" ", followed by "I'm afrid, Dave", and finally "My mind is going, I can feel it". At the moment before the consciousness disappeared, it even sang a song it learned when it was born: "Daisy".
Before "2001: A Space Odyssey", the soundtracks of sci-fi movies were weird and dark, and we used to use some twisted and weird synthesizers to express the mysterious and strange side of outer space. Kubrick's application of classical music completely deviated from the standard of sci-fi movie soundtracks of that era. He made the universe and space travel so elegant, charming and noble. Since then, the soundtrack of sci-fi movies has entered a new era.
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