Something that might interest you, because really nobody knows, we had a variation of the piano accompaniment of “In the Greenhouse” (for soprano), and he loved it. Forget the singer. We had the piano accompaniment. It was transparent and we tried different variations. So for a year, he had this piece of music again and again through the film.
The choice of the Wesendonck Lieder would have been perfect for the film in terms of the music’s historical context. Although Kubrick was unaware of the history behind the song cycle—he didn’t really care to know, and besides, he didn’t think that highly of Wagner as a person35—he intended to use it for about a year before tossing it out.
At the time Wagner composed the cycle, he was living on a small house on the property of the Wesendoncks, a wealthy husband and wife who supported Wagner’s work. Wagner, who had been living in Dresden with his wife Minna, had become part of a revolutionary group who staged an uprising in 1849. The May Uprising was quashed, and Wagner fled. He settled eventually in Zurich, but endured difficulties both health related and financial. He continued to write operas and essays, and in 1852 met Otto Wesendonck and his wife Mathilde. Wagner appears to have been enchanted both by Mathilde’s personality and her poetry. He stopped working on the Ring Cycle (his massive, four-opera epic) in order to focus on a story of forbidden love, Tristan und Isolde, and a set of songs using Mathilde’s poetry. (Die Walküre, one of the Ring Cycle operas, does owe some inspiration to Mathilde, as Wagner made notes in his manuscript to her, especially in scenes between the destined lovers, Sigmund and Sieglinde.)36 Details about an affair between Wagner and Wesendonck are scant, although whatever did transpire between them happened under the noses of both Wagner’s wife and Mathilde’s husband. To whatever extent the two were involved, the “affair” ended after Minna intercepted a package meant for Mathilde and read the eight-page letter Wagner had attached. Although the letter says nothing specifically incriminating, Minna’s interpretation of the letter was damning enough.37 Wagner’s professional relationship with both Wesendoncks continued, however, and both parties appear to have been influenced favorably in their art by the experience. Jan Harlan describes that Kubrick ultimately decided not to use it: “Maybe six weeks before he died, he tossed it out, because he thought it was too beautiful, so he used the biting Ligeti piece. Dominic [Harlan] recorded it because Stanley wanted the hammering.”
Once again, Kubrick demonstrated that his highest priority was finding music that worked for the film. Its historical context didn’t matter, and even if something pushed the boundaries of being chronologically acceptable—like the 1930s tunes at the 1920s party in The Shining or the Romantic Schubert piece in the Classical time period of Barry Lyndon—he was willing to make those concessions if the music fit the scene best. And in the case of the Wagner piece, Kubrick put aside his own feelings for the work, and Harlan seemed to admire Kubrick’s uncompromising way of doing what was best for the narrative:
This is someone who lives in the cutting room for a year with the Wesendonck lieder, and then kicks it out although he loves it. He didn’t love the Ligeti in the same way, but he loved it for the narrative. The Ligeti had the biting element of jealousy and sexual fantasy, which is the poison in almost all relationships. It ruins you.38
From Harlan’s comments, we might assume that “In the Greenhouse” was going to be used instead of Ligeti’s Musica Ricercata, perhaps all five times that it was used, but we cannot be certain of that. In the end, Kubrick’s choice was the right choice, as the Ligeti piece made a huge impression on filmgoers, appearing in a trailer and TV spots advertising the film and becoming indelibly intertwined with Eyes Wide Shut.
Echoes of Beethoven
The music of Beethoven does not appear in the film, but the composer does make an important cameo appearance in Eyes Wide Shut. In Schnitzler’s book, the password to the party is “Denmark,” which is incidentally where Albertine had seen the man with whom she was willing to be unfaithful (as she describes to Fridolin). In the film, instead of making the password Cape Cod, which is where Alice is tempted by the naval officer, Kubrick (and Raphael, perhaps) chose the name of Beethoven’s only opera, Fidelio. The opera is a rescue story in which a wife, Leonore, saves her husband from certain death because of her loyalty both to him and to his political beliefs. To this end, Leonore dresses up as a boy named Fidelio so that she can work at the prison where her husband is being held. The opera idealizes marriage and the conjugal bond, something Beethoven hoped desperately for but never experienced. The name “Fidelio” has symbolic meaning as well because it is derived from the word “fedele,” or “faithful.”
Minor/Major Seconds
There is a musical gesture that seems to link together some of Kubrick’s musical choices, and that is the interval of the second. A second is simply an interval that goes from a pitch to its neighbor. A minor second is a half step, the smallest distance one can travel on a piano and still go somewhere. The Ligeti piece Musica Ricercata (second movement) is based on the minor second between E-sharp and F-sharp. Jocelyn Pook’s “Migrations” likewise begins with a minor second, this time between D and E-flat. Pook says the use of the particular interval at the beginning of the piece is a “complete coincidence,” but the coincidence, unintentional though it may have been, links the music together in an almost subliminal way. The major second covers the distance of a whole step, and it is an interval we can hear at the beginning of “Strangers in the Night” and in the backward voice of “Masked Ball.”39
Shostakovich: Waltz 2 from Suite for Variety Orchestra
Appearances:
0:00:00–0:01:45 Opening credits; Bill and Alice get ready for Ziegler’s party
0:20:43–0:22:19 Bill and Alice’s daily activities
2:33:27–2:38:46 (End) Closing credits
The first music heard in the film is a waltz arranged by Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich. It is part of an eight-movement work that has been collected from some of his works including the film scores. Shostakovich wrote many film scores, beginning with music intended for live performance with the silent film New Babylon in 1929. From then on, he wrote perhaps one or two scores a year until 1941. When the Nazis invaded Russia in 1941, Shostakovich’s duties as a composer for the state took up most of his time, and he composed patriotic music—including his Seventh Symphony—for the cause. He started writing film music again in 1944 and continued writing scores until 1970. The eight-movement Suite for Variety Orchestra appears to use music from films from the 1940s and 1950s, like 1940’s The Adventures of Korzinkina (from which the first and last movements from the suite are drawn), The Gadfly (1955), and The First Echelon (1956), which is the source of the waltz in Eyes Wide Shut. The suite was performed publicly for the first time outside of Russia in London in 1988.40
On Riccardo Chailly and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra’s recording Shostakovich: The Jazz Album, the Suite for Variety Orchestra is misnamed Jazz Suite No. 2, but in fact the actual Jazz Suite No. 2—a three-movement work written in the late 1930s—was lost.41 However, in 1999, piano sketches for Jazz Suite No. 2 were discovered, and in 2000 British composer Gerard McBurney used the sketches to produce a fully orchestrated version of the piece.
Kubrick had chosen the Waltz 2 from Suite for Variety Orchestra for Eyes Wide Shut long before the first frame was shot, and it appears three times in the film. It accompanies the opening credits and bookends the film by appearing over the closing credits as well. In its first appearance, Bill and Alice get ready for Ziegler’s party. In between credit cards, Alice appears naked as she tries on and rejects a dress. The waltz plays under the couple’s conversation, and although it seems like it’s part of the score, it turns out to be sourced from a stereo on-screen when Bill turns it off as they leave for the party. This is a narrative sleight of hand that shows how permeable the boundary is between the Harfords’ reality and the reality of the film experience wherein a scene is scored with music.42 Bill will switch off music aga
in, later, in a scene with a prostitute.
The choice to call the film Eyes Wide Shut might seem puzzling, but there is a clue to its meaning as it pertains to the narrative at hand. In this opening scene, Alice asks Bill, “Is my hair okay?” to which he answers, “It’s great.” But Alice correctly notes that he’s “not even looking at it.” In marriage, familiarity—as evidenced by Bill’s presence in the bathroom while Alice uses the toilet—can lead to a couple becoming blind to each other. Michel Chion also suggests that the title is a reference to dreaming as “a dreamer’s eyes are at once both open and shut.”43
Its second appearance accompanies a montage of Bill and Alice’s daily activities. Bill works in his office, seeing patients. He seems to be a general practitioner because he sees patients of different ages and seems to be treating a wide variety of ailments. Again there is nudity: one of the patients—a beautiful young woman—appears topless during an exam, and Alice again appears naked as she gets dressed. Alice eats breakfast with Helena, the Harfords’ daughter, who is watching a Warner Bros. cartoon. (The scene calls to mind Wendy and Danny at the beginning of The Shining.) Alice also helps Helena get ready, wraps Christmas presents, and sits down with Bill in the evening as he watches a football game. This is the Bill and Alice the world sees: he’s a successful doctor and she’s the perfect wife and mother. The music represents the image Bill and Alice “like to have of themselves, that they would like us to have of them.”44 The waltz fades out—replaced by the sounds of the football game on the television—after Helena goes to bed. Their perfect image takes a hit when Alice rolls a joint from some marijuana she has hidden in a Band-Aid container in the medicine cabinet, and it is further damaged—perhaps irreparably?—when Alice confesses that she was tempted by a man on their vacation.
The waltz finally reappears over the final credits, suggesting that Bill and Alice have reached a détente, in which they are willing to put indiscretions behind them and move forward together. Alice says, “The important thing is we’re awake now, and hopefully for a long time to come.” In their final exchange, Alice says, “And you know, there is something very important that we need to do as soon as possible.” Bill asks what that is, and Alice answers simply, with one word: “Fuck.” Kubrick leaves a few seconds of silence before bringing the waltz back and starting the credit sequence.
Chris Isaak: “Baby Did a Bad, Bad Thing”
Appearance:
0:19:49–0:20:42 After Ziegler’s party, the Harfords begin to kiss in front of their bedroom mirror
Chris Isaak released the song “Baby Did a Bad, Bad Thing” on the 1995 album Forever Blue. The song gained notoriety because of its risqué video featuring model Laetitia Casta and Chris Isaak. Kubrick chose the song early on, and it appeared in advertisements for the film. Isaak’s lyrics are written from the point of view of someone whose lover appears not to care about hurting him.
After Ziegler’s party, Alice is standing naked in front of a mirror in the bedroom, taking off her earrings. The song appears to be sourced on-screen because Alice seems to move to the beat. Bill comes up to her and begins kissing her neck. Alice removes her glasses, but still watches herself in the mirror as Bill kisses her. At the beginning of the scene, we see Alice’s bottom from behind and her breasts in the mirror, but by the time Bill enters the frame, the camera has tightened in on the scene, and we do not see Bill’s bottom. The gaze seems to be aimed at Alice here—even her own gaze, as Bill ends up half-hidden by his wife.
The Music of Jocelyn Pook
Jocelyn Pook’s musical background includes classical training, but she has also collaborated with pop artists, choral artists, and dance companies. It was the choreographer for the masked ball sequence in Eyes Wide Shut, Yolande Snaith, who brought Jocelyn Pook’s music to a rehearsal, specifically her “Backwards Priests.”45 Once Kubrick heard the piece—music critic Mike Zwerin characterized it as sounding like “medieval punk”—a track from Pook’s album Deluge, he knew that the composer would be right for the film. According to Pook, Kubrick got in touch with her the very day he first heard her music. They spoke on the phone, he asked her for samples of her work, and just a couple of hours later, a car came to pick up the cassette she had compiled. The next day, the car returned to pick her up. At their meeting, Kubrick played some of the music that he had chosen for the film, including Liszt’s piano piece Nuages Gris. Once Kubrick had decided to hire Pook for the film, “we got to work immediately,” she says. “I was writing music well before a single frame of film was shot. He would describe the atmosphere of the scene to me, filling in some specific details, and then I would go away and write. When I had a completed demo, I’d come back and we’d discuss it.”46 Kubrick ended up with four pieces by Pook: “Masked Ball” (a reworking of “Backwards Priests”), “Migrations,” “Naval Officer,” and “The Dream.”
“He delighted in music, and had so much respect for musicians,” Pook says, noting one of her first impressions of the director. Aware of Kubrick’s unique use of music in his films—especially 2001—Pook was at first intimidated; but in the end she found Kubrick extremely personable, “even fatherly.” Since Kubrick stayed close to home, Pook recalls that he would invite musicians to perform concerts, like small salons, in his home. In that way, music came to him. In the years since Eyes Wide Shut, Pook has been involved in many film projects, still performs with various groups, and still writes music for the concert hall, even composing a commission for Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee festivities in 2012.
Pook: “Naval Officer”
Appearances:
0:31:44–0:36:20 Alice tells Bill about the naval officer
0:37:22–0:37:49 While in a taxi to the judge’s house, Bill imagines Alice with the naval officer
0:45:37–0:45:59 Bill walks through the city and thinks about Alice and the naval officer
1:08:51–1:09:14 In a taxi to Somerton, Bill imagines Alice with the naval officer
When Alice tells Bill about the first time she saw the naval officer in Cape Cod, her description is accompanied by this cue. The harmonies move slowly at first, and Kubrick allows Alice’s voice to be the most important sound. Bill listens, the illusion of his secure world shattering around him in his silence. The layers that the instruments create move in and out of dissonance. Pook’s cue works under the surface, the rich sounds of the string instruments underpinning the monologue. The conversation is interrupted by a phone call, and Bill is called away to visit the family of a patient who has just died. When he leaves Alice, his own sexual adventure is beginning, and he is urged on by the jealous feelings he has about Alice’s story. In a taxi on the way to his patient’s house, he imagines what it might have been like if Alice had actually slept with the naval officer. It’s his fantasy of her fantasy because Bill isn’t imagining something that actually happened; he’s imagining what Alice thought, or perhaps what might have happened. The music accompanies Bill’s fantasy. After leaving the judge’s house (and Marion, who just professed for love for Bill and kissed him), he walks through the streets, obviously still troubled by his wife’s story. After seeing a couple on the street kissing, Bill imagines Alice and the officer together, kissing, his hand wandering down between her bare legs. Bill claps his hands in anger, as if willing the mental movie to stop, and the music stops at his command.
Pook is a violist by training, and for this work she chose strings for the instrumentation. Part of this ostensibly came from her level of comfort with these instruments, but she has also said that although she wanted to use an oboe or a horn, the texture didn’t seem to work best for the scenes.47 Chion called the work “beautiful, mysterious.”48 In an interview, Pook explained that the strings allowed the music to be more unobtrusive: “[The cue] had to be quite subliminal, quite low in the mix in the end with these sections. I actually added the solo cello for the CD version of ‘Naval Officer,’ which I couldn’t use in the film version because it was too intrusive.”49 In the film, certain voices
rise out of the texture, like that of a single violin or viola, or a pair of instruments playing a melodic line, while the other strings undulate a throbbing accompaniment.
Pook: “The Dream”
Appearances:
1:33:42–1:38:25 Alice tells Bill of the dream she was having when he woke her up
1:47:34–1:47:53 Bill sits in his office during the day and imagines Alice with the naval officer
1:54:01–1:54:47 Bill sits in his office at night and thinks about Alice with the naval officer
Musically speaking, Pook’s cue “The Dream” has a lot in common with “Naval Officer.” This similarity was by design as the two fantasies are both written for Alice. They connect to each other and to the life of her imagination. This cue is somewhat more troubled and tense than the music of “Naval Officer.” There are still undulating lines, seemingly echoing the earlier cue, but there are more pronounced dissonances and downward glissandos in the strings that seem to add to a sense of foreboding. As Alice says, “I was fucking other men,” the music swells in the higher strings, and a sinuous melody emerges in the solo cello before the cue fades down into underscore again. The music is replaced by the sound of street noise in the next scene.
A brief excerpt of the piece appears as Bill sits in his office thinking about Alice and the naval officer. Again, his jealous feelings spur him on to action. He has not yet consummated any kind of affair yet, but he is also concerned about the woman in the headdress from the previous night’s masked ball. At Bill’s mock trial, she offered herself in Bill’s place, and he is concerned that something has happened to her. He cancels his afternoon appointments and drives his own car back to Somerton. Later that day, Bill returns to the office, and he again sees the image of Alice having sex with the naval officer. A short excerpt of music, about forty seconds, accompanies this image of Alice and the officer having sex with the officer on top, and Alice underneath, seemingly crying out in ecstasy. The fantasy inspires Bill to call Marion, the judge’s daughter. We do not know what he was planning because Marion’s fiancé answers and Bill hangs up the phone.
Listening to Stanley Kubrick Page 31