Listening to Stanley Kubrick Read online

  Sydney brings the girl water, cupped in his hand, and as she drinks, the soundtrack features a sinister-sounding arpeggio in the strings:

  Example 1.5. Sydney Gives the Girl Water.

  She finally smiles, perhaps understanding that he might untie her if she returns his affection. He embraces her desperately, finally untying her hands so that she can embrace him as well. All the while the music grows faster and more disjointed. Finally free, she runs away, and Sydney shoots her.

  When Mac returns and asks what happened to the girl, Sydney lies that she is resting. When Mac realizes she is dead, Sydney says, inexplicably, “It wasn’t my fault. The magician did it. Honest!” Sydney points toward the river and shivers, “It’s blood, Mac. Cold. Cold.” Sydney runs away, laughing maniacally, leaving the three remaining men to decide what to do. The next scene change is smoothed by Fried’s music, which is dark and foreboding, with a driving rhythm. The cue stops as Corby, Mac, and Fletcher discuss the plan for the evening. Mac wants to kill the enemy general. His anger at the general (in his thoughts, he calls him a “cocky little king”) is so great that he’s willing to sacrifice himself so the others will have an opportunity to kill him and escape in an enemy plane. Corby finally relents, and the scene ends.

  The music starts up again as Corby and Fletcher leave Mac. The score here is ominous, as the soldiers say their goodbyes at the river’s edge. As Mac rows down the river by himself, the opening line from the “Meditation on War” cue begins, but instead of a single bassoon playing, the strings play the theme. The passage seems to underline Mac’s utter aloneness as he floats downstream, but “it’s better,” he says. “It’s better to roll up your life into one night and one man and one gun. It hurts too much to keep hurting everyone else in every direction. And to be hurt. With all the separate hates exploding day after day.” Fried made a note at this point in the score: “meditative NOT SENTIMENTAL.”

  Example 1.6. Mac’s Meditation.

  At the enemy base, Fried’s score buzzes with dissonance and frantic pizzicato lines. The general, whose head is resting on his folded arms, lifts his head into the light at the sound of a knock on the door, and the music stops. The general is played by Kenneth Harp, the same actor who plays Lt. Corby, and the general’s aide is Steve Coit, the actor who plays Fletcher. Kubrick has, with this bit of stunt casting, reminded us that soldiers on opposite sides are not all that different. They fear the same things, wonder about the same things, think the same things. The dog that Sydney petted so affectionately in the forest belongs to the general.

  Kubrick cuts between the two scenes—the men waiting to kill the general, and Mac floating down the river—and the music is low, but determined. Mac thinks, “No one is going to cry for me later or cheer for me now.” And the volume of the music becomes louder as Corby and Fletcher approach the general. The music’s insistence grows as Kubrick cuts from Mac on the river to the general to Fletcher and Corby, all moving toward their destinies. The opening line from the “Meditation on War” cue appears again in the lowest instruments in the orchestra. As thoughts and dialogue and movement cease, Fried’s music shows the tension; the militaristic cadences and the rhythmic repetition of the brass all grow loud as we wait for the denouement. As Mac draws the enemy to the river with the sound of gunfire, the music stops. All we hear are gunfire, footsteps, and crickets. Once Mac is hit, the enemy guns are soon silenced. The only sound is Mac struggling a bit in the water. Then, there is the quick crash of glass as Corby and Fletcher shoot the general and his aide through the window. The general, wounded but not dead, drags himself across the floor. The general croaks out, “I surrender,” but Corby kills him anyway. The two soldiers steal the enemy plane and take off into the night. The music begins again as Mac floats down the river, wounded and dying. Fried’s score features high string tremolos accompanied by arpeggios in the woodwinds. Sydney appears in the mist and asks Mac if he can ride on the raft.

  Safe in their own territory, Corby and Fletcher go down to the river to watch for the raft. They hear singing, and Sydney appears in the mist on the raft with Mac, who is dead. Sydney is warbling bits of this sea tune in an off-key voice:

  Full fathom five thy father lies;

  Of his bones are coral made;

  Those are pearls that were his eyes;

  Nothing of him that doth fade

  But doth suffer a sea-change

  Into something rich and strange.

  Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:

  Hark! Now I hear them,—Ding-dong bell.26

  It is Ariel’s song in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, the words of which Sydney recited to the girl before he went mad. The use of this rather disturbing song at the end instead of original underscore foreshadows the folk song used at end of Paths of Glory, although the affect of the two songs is entirely different. (In the latter film, the “Faithful Hussar” actually brings a feeling of hope or at least humanity.) In the middle of Sydney’s off-key tune, Fried’s score shudders to life, reaches a loud climax, and then dies away slow with a final gong.27

  Fear and Desire wasn’t a spectacular film, but it was a start for Kubrick. He envisioned greater things, not only for himself, but for his collaborators from the old neighborhood, Gerald Fried and screenwriter Howard O. Sackler (with whom Kubrick attended high school). “We have ambitious future plans, in a small way,” Kubrick said in an interview, “We will make a ‘Love Story of New York,’ shooting all around the town.”28 Working with a skeleton crew and doing much of the work himself suited Kubrick. After filming and releasing Fear and Desire, Kubrick explained that he wanted to remain independent so that he might “control all the parts of a production—and share in the profits.”29 In the end, Fear and Desire wasn’t very profitable, and Kubrick did not feel satisfied with it. Years later, he reportedly acquired many, but not all, prints of the film, intending to keep them away from public view. In 1994, Film Forum in New York City showed Fear and Desire to the public for the first time in four decades. Kubrick tried to block the showing, but the copyright on the film had lapsed, and Kubrick could do nothing to stop it. Through a publicist at Warner Bros., Kubrick warned that the film wasn’t very good, calling it “a bumbling amateur film exercise.” The result of this statement was that even more people wanted to see it. Kubrick said, “It’s not a film I remember with any pride, except for the fact that it was finished.”30 Since Kubrick didn’t go to film school, Fear and Desire served as something like his senior thesis film. There are few senior thesis films of sufficient quality to become commercial releases.

  Synopsis and Score Description for Killer’s Kiss

  Stanley Kubrick’s next film, Killer’s Kiss (1955), opens with a sound effect rather than a musical cue. It’s an interesting choice that intrigues the viewer. The sound is that of a train. Think of the sound of the whistle signaling a train’s imminent departure, or a steam train slowly chuffing along, gaining speed. These are evocative sounds. They can bring to mind lonely travel, lovers being separated or reunited, or even hopeful change. In Killer’s Kiss, the dark mood of the film makes the train sound feel like the expression of the characters’ yearning. German composer Bernd Schultheis calls it, “a motif for longing,”31 and throughout the film, we hear train whistles, boat horns, and clanging bells. For almost the first two minutes of the first scene, the only thing we hear while the credits flash on-screen are the ambient sounds of a train station: trains, bells, announcements. The audience is faced with some questions: Who is this man waiting for in the train station? And will whomever he’s waiting for show up? Anyone who’s seen Casablanca knows that train stations are great sources of tension because the characters must work against the rigid timetable, and that watching someone wait—even if you don’t know who or what it’s for—builds suspense. It turns out that Kubrick started the story with the ending—or almost the ending. The story that will follow has already happened over the previous few days. So before we find out if someone’s going to leave this poor g
uy at the train station, we go back in time to where the story began. It starts with the protagonist’s voiceover:

  It’s crazy how you can get yourself in a mess sometimes, and not even be able to think about it with any sense. And yet not be able to think about anything else. You get so you’re no good for anything or anybody. Maybe it begins by taking life too serious. Anyway, I think that’s the way it began for me. Just before my fight with Rodriguez, three days ago.

  Gerald Fried’s first cue accompanies a shot of the poster advertising the fight. This musical cue isn’t as triumphant as the opening music from Day of the Fight, but it retains a fanfare-like quality, although it’s played in the low brass:

  Example 1.7. Davey’s Fanfare.

  While Fried’s music plays, some posters for the fight are shown hanging in shop windows, but one is shown torn and hanging on a wall, while another sits in a puddle on the ground. The fighter in the picture is our main character, Davey Gordon. Unlike Day of the Fight’s Walter Cartier, Davey’s future isn’t so bright. As the narrator in Kubrick’s documentary pointed out, being a boxer won’t necessarily make you rich. Some men are able to eke out a living doing it, but most boxers struggle or hold down other jobs. The music turns dissonant as Davey examines his face in the mirror in his room. This is an echo of Walter Cartier looking at his own face before the fight, and the narrator of Day of the Fight intoning that a fighter must wonder what his face will look like in the morning.

  It is the day of the fight for Davey, and he waits impatiently, puttering around his apartment. Across the way is his neighbor, Gloria. When she appears, the love theme of the film appears with her. It is a song called “Once,” written by Norman Gimbel and Arden Clar.32 Throughout the course of the film, we will hear this song numerous times, played both by an orchestra and a band. In each version, different instruments play the main theme as a soloist. The different versions of the song have different characteristics based on where they are heard and which instruments are playing. In the version where the violin is the soloist, Fried has written “Molto shmalzando” into the score, a humorous directive aimed at making this iteration of the tune the most romantic and overly emotional of all. The first time we hear the tune, the melody begins in the oboe. The second part of the melody, we’ll call it part B, is led by the flute. When the A section returns, the horn plays solo. Finally, the rest of the orchestra joins in. The song continues until Davey gets on the subway and Gloria gets into a car with her boss, Vince Rapallo (played by Frank Silvera, who played Mac in Fear and Desire). Once Davey is on the train, he opens a letter from his Uncle George and the music shifts to a less romantic, simpler tune:

  Example 1.8. Davey Reads the Letter.

  It’s an apt musical cue as it accompanies the letter, which speaks about Uncle George and Aunt Grace’s simple life on the farm. The theme seems to be musically related to Davey’s fanfare of the opening, both in terms of time signature and rhythmic gestures.

  We hear the noise of the arena, as Davey gets ready for his fight, and then we cut to the dance club where Gloria works. The men and women in the club are dancing to a record (sourced on-screen), which is actually the swing band version of “Once.” The saxophone is in the lead with two trumpets, two trombones, piano, and bass to back it up. Fried writes over the saxophone solo: “with much jazz embellishment.” We see Gloria getting ready to work, changing her clothes, and then we cut to the arena, where Davey’s manager is applying Vaseline to Davey’s face and chest. Back at the dance club, “Once” is still playing, and Vince turns on the television to see Davey’s fight. The noise from the television covers the tune somewhat. Vince interrupts one of Gloria’s dances (and has the unsatisfied customer removed by his goons) so that she can watch her neighbor’s match.

  As in Day of the Fight, there is no music to accompany the fight itself. Kubrick uses similar camera angles as he did on his first short, but also allows the camera to take on Davey’s perspective at one point. When he is knocked down, the camera thuds to the ground and “looks up” at the lights on the ceiling. After the fight, Vince kisses Gloria to the sound of some rhythmic Latin jazz. The scene fades to black and the sound of the music becomes absorbed into ambient city noise as Gloria walks home some undetermined time later. Fried’s use of Latin jazz to represent Rapallo stems from, among other things, Fried’s feeling that Latin rhythms are exciting and consequently build suspense.33

  Davey sits alone in the silent dark of his apartment. When Gloria returns and turns her lights on, Davey watches her, the band version of “Once” playing in the background. Gloria is getting ready for bed. The song continues while Davey takes a phone call from Uncle George and plays until he turns off his light and goes to bed. Dissonant music accompanies his dreams, but he is woken up by a woman’s scream. He rushes to the window to find Gloria struggling with Vince. Although Davey runs to help her, Vince escapes to the sound of Latin jazz music, the same song we heard before. There is no apparent source for this music, it just appears when Vince comes out of Gloria’s door, and it fades away as Vince walks out of the scene. Gloria tells Davey what happened, in flashback: Vince knocks on Gloria’s door, the Latin jazz already playing before he walks in. He apologizes for what happened earlier (we don’t find out exactly what he’s done, but we can assume), but Gloria doesn’t want to hear it. She tells him to get out and threatens to scream if he doesn’t. When he won’t let her go, she does scream. Vince’s music ends with the flashback. Davey offers to sit with her while she sleeps. The orchestral version of “Once” plays as Davey looks around her apartment. The song ends as the scene fades to black.

  Davey explains in a voiceover that he locked her door and went home, returning the next morning. Davey and Gloria are then seen eating breakfast and talking while the band version of “Once” plays under the voiceover. As the dialogue comes to the foreground, the song stops abruptly at the end of a phrase. Gloria tells Davey the story of her sister, Iris, a ballet dancer, and a new musical cue accompanies Iris’s dance.34 The music transforms into “Once” for a moment and then returns to the dance cue. At the end of Iris’ story, “Once” returns. A brief interlude—in which we revisit Davey in the train station, still waiting—features the sound of the station, but then we return to the courtship and to “Once.” The scene ends with Davey having professed his love for Gloria. They agree to go to Seattle to Davey’s uncle’s farm.

  A new scene begins with Vince at the dance club, and his signature music is playing. Receiving word that Gloria is coming by to pick up her final paycheck, Vince is upset and throws an empty glass at the wall, effectively ending the scene and the musical cue. Back at the gym, Davey calls to ask his manager for the money from his last fight. Davey and his manager agree to meet in front of the dance hall. The scene changes to an evening in the city, with two Shriners dancing down the street, one of them playing “O Susanna” on the harmonica. As Gloria enters the dance hall, a slower version of “Once” plays, this time with a very jazzy piano in the lead. As Gloria crosses the dance floor, the melody is taken up by the trombone. Gloria’s departure is accompanied by “Once” in the saxophone. Vince’s music takes over as he sends his goons down to kill Davey. They accidentally kill Davey’s manager instead, and Vince’s music continues through the attack and afterward, as Davey and Gloria head home.

  “Once” begins again as Davey packs, the melody in the violin. It fades away as Davey goes to Gloria’s apartment. Discovering she’s not there, Vince’s music starts up again, and Davey hears noise across the way. The police are looking for him in conjunction with the death of his manager. Davey goes back to the dance hall in order to follow Vince and hopefully find Gloria. No music accompanies this. Eventually, Davey pulls a gun on Vince, and Vince admits that the goons are holding Gloria captive in a loft. The loft is by the river, and the sounds of ship horns are heard, reminding us of Davey and Gloria’s impending journey, if only they can be together. The goons attack Davey and take his gun, and Gloria tells Vince
she will go with him. Vince’s music starts up, but stops when Davey escapes through the window. As Davey runs away to find Vince again, Fried provides an atmospheric cue with percussive sounds that mingle with the sounds of boats on the waterfront. After being chased across rooftops, Davey goes into a loft full of mannequins. Fried’s cue “Murder ’mongst the Mannikins” begins to play. (On the original score sheets, Fried called this cue “Mannikin Weirdo #1.”) The spooky string glissandi bring to mind other atonal twentieth-century works from the classical tradition, and the tremolos add tension. Fried characterized the cue as an “eerie theme scored for high strings and muted brass, with an insistent undercurrent of drums.”35 The music, which has been growing louder and more insistent, stops when Vince grabs an ax off the wall. The only sound then is their struggle among the mannequins and the wail of a police siren. The sound of Vince’s scream as Davey stabs him with a hook dissolves into one of the train whistles.

  Davey is waiting for Gloria, from whom he was separated in the aftermath of Vince’s death. Among all the sounds of the station, a lone violin plays the “Once” theme. Davey picks up his suitcases and begins to walk to his train. But then Gloria runs toward him, kissing him, and the words “The End” show up on the screen, as just a short phrase from Fried’s first cue (the boxing fanfare) plays to end the film. Even though they are never heard in the film, there are lyrics written by Norman Gimbel.