It was in 1997 when I first watched Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey,” and while it did not have the immediate intellectual impact other films have had, it was nonetheless a stimulating, and inspiring, experience when I watched it on VHS. It was unlike any other film I had seen, and it cast an indelible spell on my movie memory banks. The images, and music, Kubrick melded into “The Ultimate Trip” burned themselves into my brain, and even if I wasn’t quite ready for the film intellectually, I was at the point where a film like “2001” didn’t have to connect on every level just yet to make its mark; my full appreciation of the film would come with time.
Science fiction has been my favorite film genre for about two decades now, but despite my love of “Star Wars,” it was, in fact, films like “2001,” Andrei Tarkovsky’s “Stalker,” Robert Zemeckis’s “Contact” and Alex Proyas’s “Dark City” that cemented that with me. The adventure of “Star Wars” has its place, but the adventurous spirit in melding ideas and images those other films bring to the table is what most excites me in the genre. At first, it was just the images and music of Kubrick’s film that stayed with me, but as I continued to revisit it after buying it on VHS (we didn’t get into laserdisc), the ideas of man’s various encounters with an (unseen) alien intelligence presented by Kubrick and author Arthur C. Clarke began to seep in, and make as strong a connection with me as the images did. And as the film turned 30, I read more about the film, and bought not just the film’s classical music soundtrack, but also tracked down the unused Alex North score in a recording conducted by Jerry Goldsmith, and that all became an important part of my life with the film, and my life as a creative artist.
In the Fall semester of 1998, I began composing as I started taking classes in sound recording and MIDI technology. Once the first few pieces were out of the way, the ideas began forming in my head pretty rapidly. One of those ideas was a piece inspired by the Gyorgy Ligeti music used during the “Star Gate” sequence at the end of “2001.” In January 1999, I wrote, and recorded, a 3 1/2 minute piece called “Beyond the Infinite” that had an electronic base in terms of sound, but a musical voice that echoed the work of Ligeti’s that Kubrick had used in the film. I moved on from that piece, which is still pretty experimental in terms of form, listening to it now, onto more confident work, building my voice as I continued to pay homage to different composers and pieces that inspired me. As 2001 approached for real, though, I had the urge to revisit the ideas of “Beyond the Infinite” in a more expansive way. In short, I wanted to write my own soundtrack for Kubrick’s masterpiece. I was an ambitious artist in my 20s.
In Fall 2000, after my grandfather passed away, I took composition lessons in my last year, and the first semester of taking them, the piece I worked on was the beginnings of my grand idea for this project, which I would title after my 1999 piece, “Beyond the Infinite.” (It wasn’t until much later that I would add, “A Musical Odyssey,” to the album title.) As I began to lay out the ideas, and how to approach this unique experiment in film scoring- which was what I wanted to do- I watched the film, and wrote down notes of not just where I wanted to have my music fit with the film (which would largely coincide with Kubrick’s decisions), but also, how long each piece would last, which involved a lot of stopping the film and writing down times. (When I got into DVD, and added “2001” as one of the early purchases, this was easier.) The first piece I began would be one that would not have an existing cue to use as inspiration- the introduction of the “Dawn of Man” sequence. Musically, I began thinking of motifs that would be recurring, and I came back to a 4-note run that was prevalent in “Beyond the Infinite,” which would be a key theme for a piece like “Dawn of Man,” the composition I worked on that semester. But that part of scoring was only going to last a little over a minute; for my composition class, I pushed myself technically to create a longer work off of that initial cue idea, and the longer piece for the instrumentation of flute, cello and marimba is a work of genuine classical writing that was not quite right for the project, but was definitely something I could point to as growth in my compositional techniques occurred. As the clock turned over to 2001, the anxiety to graduate, other musical ideas presenting themselves, and a home studio lacking in much potential to really make the project feasible pushed me away from “Beyond the Infinite,” and although the love of Kubrick’s film remained, my drive to complete this ambitious work came to a halt, although the notes and ideas I had come up with were kept for (hopeful) future work.
Stanley Kubrick’s “Odyssey” remains unlike any film I’ve ever seen, and as its hold grew on me, so did my appreciation for movies that pushed narrative boundaries. “2001” was a key early discovery for me in expanding my horizons when it came to cinema, with Tarkovsky’s “Stalker” being another one. Now, they are two of my very favorite films of all-time, but they had to work their way up to that stature, although it didn’t take either long. In 2001, Steven Spielberg released “A.I. Artificial Intelligence,” a film Kubrick had long hoped to make himself, and my trilogy of intellectual sci-fi influences was complete. When my platform was just email, I wrote about how these three had some common ideas working within them, and in terms of the stories they told, that always linked them in my mind. All three have significant journeys for their main characters towards greater understanding of themselves, and the world in which they live in, be it Dave Bowman’s trip through the Star Gate, the Stalker’s journey to the center of The Zone, or David trying to find the Blue Fairy so that he can be the best boy for a grieving mother. All three find their filmmakers creating bold, visually-imaginative films that challenge the viewer’s perceptions of what the future looks like. And all three contain fascinating sonic landscapes that rely as much on sound design as they do traditional composition. (“A.I.” is the only film, of the three, I was not inspired to write my own piece for, but that’s primarily because of how thematic John Williams’s work is in the film, although his score for the film is every bit as challenging as the music in “2001” and “Stalker.”) Spielberg is the only one who seems to really be stretching himself as a filmmaker, between the three, but that’s only because Kubrick and Tarkovsky were always challenging filmmakers, to begin with. He rises to the occasion, though, and it’s one of his most complex works, and as with “2001” and “Stalker,” one of my favorite films of all-time.
In 2006, after five years away from the idea for “Beyond the Infinite,” ideas began forming for more music for the album. The conception of the album was as an alternate soundtrack for Kubrick’s film. This is not to say I dislike the soundtrack Kubrick uses in the film- Hell, it’s one of my very favorite soundtracks of all-time- but because of the existence of the Alex North score that Kubrick had originally commissioned, but eventually did not use, I felt as though an opportunity existed for me to bring my own voice to the film, as well as pushing me further, as a composer. In doing this, I was inspired not just by the classical pieces Kubrick used, but also North’s score, and one of the things I wanted to do was to not just bring electronic music into the equation, but also find a middle ground between the distant objectivity of the classical pieces forever wedded to the film while also make a score that followed the typical notions of thematic, emotional composition that North’s music displays. The use of synthesized voices plays a big part in making that work, I think, and while they wouldn’t enter the picture until the film took to the stars, an effective example of this philosophy, in my opinion, can be heard in “Weightless Waltz in F” and “Weightless Waltz in D,” the pieces I wrote in 2006 that were intended to take place of Strauss’s iconic “The Blue Danube.” You can hear the thematic threads in the pieces that are building off of “Dawn of Man” years earlier, but there’s something about the electronic voices that keep you from feeling the full weight of the emotion classical instruments would provide. More than “Dawn of Man,” this would be my proof of concept that this could work, and when I was able to expand my home studio a few years later, “A Musical Odyssey” took shape pretty quickly, and I found a way to mock up the pieces I had written up to that point to the parts of the movie they were intended for, and I shared that with people on my 31st birthday, as well as the movie in its entirety. It was exciting seeing those pieces set against the images that inspired them to begin with.
I have only watched “2001” once in movie theatres, but it was an experience I will never forget, as the film played at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta as part of its summer movie series in 2002. I think it was actually the first time I had really seen the film in widescreen before, and I felt as though I was watching the film for the first time. The print was crisp and the melding of classical music and Kubrick’s images, created in collaboration with the great Douglas Trumbull, felt fresh and riveting as Kubrick charts human intelligence from our early ancestors to our journeys off the Earth, guided by the discovery of a monolith each time that challenges us to create tools that will lead us into the outer reaches of space. When I set out on this project, I was inspired by Kubrick’s monolith of science fiction cinema, and by the time I made my way to the end, I didn’t find myself in a room past a Star Gate by Jupiter, but I still found myself evolved in a way that would help shape what was to come for me, as a composer.
I don’t find myself watching “2001: A Space Odyssey” often, but its hold on me has not diminished over the years. It is a film that led me to, probably, some of my most inspired moments as a composer, but it’s also influenced me to look at cinema on a deeper level, and to trust my gut, even if I don’t love a movie artistically, the first time out. Some of my favorite films, especially in the sci-fi genre, have started that way. “2001” and “Stalker,” to be sure, and “A.I.” as well, but also Christopher Nolan’s “Interstellar,” which captures that same fascination with man’s journey to better understanding itself, and “Cloud Atlas,” from the Wachowski’s and Tom Tykwer. All of these films lingered in my brain, even if I didn’t think they were great films when I first saw them. My critical eye eventually caught up with them, though, and now, all are films that have a particular place in my heart, and have inspired me to push further into what it means, for me, to be human. And “2001” is the film that first started to lead me into the direction of wanting to strive for a greater understanding of the universe, and myself.
“Beyond the Infinite: A Musical Odyssey” is available at CDBaby, iTunes and Amazon, among other places, but to get an interesting perspective on the album, click here to go to the commentary track I recorded for “2001: A Space Odyssey” in 2010 when I released the album, which not only contains commentary and views on the film, but places the tracks of the album in their proper context to the film, meaning if you listen to the tracks while watching the film, you can see how the music works with the film. In addition, here are my reviews of “2001: A Space Odyssey”, as well as Peter Hyams’s underrated 1984 sequel, “2010: The Year We Make Contact”. I hope you enjoy!
Thanks for listening,
Brian Skutle
www.sonic-cinema.com
