In the first appearance of this movement, Bill is led to the main room of the mansion where the masked ball takes place under the pretense that his taxi driver has asked for him. Arriving there, he sees the red-clad figure sitting in a throne-like chair, flanked by two figures in dark purple robes. The man in the middle asks Bill to come forward, and as he does the surrounding crowd fills in behind him, trapping him. The man in red asks for the password, to which Bill replies, “Fidelio.” But when the man asks for the house password, Bill says that he’s forgotten it. The murmuring crowd immediately signals that he has made a mistake, and Bill is asked to take off his mask and then his clothes. Up to this point, we have heard only E-sharp and F-sharp, but the entrance of the pitch G begins hammering, as if it’s the panicking heart of Bill. The music continues as Bill attempts to talk his way out of this. The mysterious woman appears alone on the second level, and she shouts, “Stop!” The music obeys. She offers herself in Bill’s place, and he is allowed to leave unharmed, so long as he promises to keep the evening’s events silent. An excerpt of the piece is heard again as the mysterious woman is taken away.
The second time, it is the next day and Bill returns to the mansion to find out what happened to the woman. He carefully approaches the locked gate and sees that a camera is watching him. A car drives down from the house, and a man gets out. He gives Bill an envelope, and when Bill takes it, the pitch G emerges and hammers away, as Bill sees that it is his name typed on the outside of the envelope. The letter tells him to “give up your inquiries” and “consider these words a second warning.” The music is replaced by street noise and ostensibly an exterior shot of the Harford home.
After Bill is inspired to meet up with Domino again, only to find out that she’s HIV positive, he walks through the streets of Greenwich Village alone. Bill looks back to see a man on the otherwise deserted street. The Ligeti cue begins as he walks, even before he realizes the other man is there. He attempts to hail a cab to escape, but cannot find one. In front of a newsstand, he turns to look at the man following him. It is at this stalemate that the G hammers away. Bill buys a New York Post that has the headline “Lucky to Be Alive.” Eventually, the man walks away, and Bill takes refuge in a café called Sharky’s. Only a minute or so later, the piece returns as Bill opens the paper to read a story called “Ex–beauty queen in hotel drug overdose.” The story, easily read in freeze-frame, concerns former Miss New York Amanda Curran (possibly the Mandy from Ziegler’s party). There are some glitches in the text, like repeated lines, but it’s a fully written story. Amanda’s sister Jane is quoted as saying, “The overdose must have been an accident. Mandy and I were as close as sisters can get. If there had been anything wrong, she would have told me.” The piece continues as Bill goes to New York Hospital to see her, where she is reportedly in critical condition. In this instance, the piece never gets to the hammering G. Bill feels in control. The music stops when he talks to the receptionist. He finds out that Amanda Curran died at 3:45 that afternoon. Bill is led down to the morgue to see the body.
Finally, the Ligeti cue plays as Bill arrives home, at the end of his odyssey. Alice has placed Bill’s mask on the pillow next to her, but when he gets home he doesn’t go to bed right away. He turns off the lights on the Christmas tree in the living room, getting himself a beer from the refrigerator. When he enters the bedroom, he sees the mask, and the pounding G begins, his hand is over his heart. He sits down on the bed and begins crying, and when Alice wakes up, he says, “I’ll tell you everything.” The music is replaced once again by street sounds.
For Jan Harlan and perhaps Stanley Kubrick, the piece represented jealousy, “the poison in almost all relationships.” For Michel Chion, the Ligeti piece represents “the Law.”60 For Ligeti, it was, “a knife in Stalin’s heart.” It is also the kind of piece that Kubrick seemed particularly fond of, a work that could possibly be film music, but that over time reveals itself to be something else. 61 Ligeti’s work fulfilled this criterion in both 2001 and The Shining. Penderecki’s music in The Shining could easily fit this category as well.
Mozart: “Rex Tremendae” from the Requiem
Appearance:
2:04:38–2:05:42
The presence of Mozart’s Requiem on the score, even for a minute, is to make manifest the presence of death in music (see chapter 6). Historically, the Requiem Mass is the Roman Catholic liturgy that is performed upon someone’s death. There are Gregorian chants that make up the liturgy, the most famous being the Dies Irae (heard famously in The Shining), but in Mozart’s time, it was customary to set the texts of the mass to new music. In 1791, Mozart received a mysterious commission for a Requiem Mass. The man who was paying for the commission preferred to remain anonymous, sending an emissary to Mozart in his place.62 They negotiated a price and the mysterious man paid half up front, intending to pay the other half upon the Requiem’s completion. Unfortunately, Mozart died before finishing the piece, and in order to collect the rest of the money, Mozart’s widow—who had been left in a difficult financial situation—employed the help of her husband’s assistant, Franz Xaver Süssmayer, to complete the work.
The part of the Requiem that appears in Eyes Wide Shut is the opening of the choral movement called “Rex tremendae.” The text of this movement is actually a part of the Sequence of the mass, the text that begins “Dies Irae, dies illa.” Mozart broke down the very long Dies Irae text into different movements including the “Tuba mirum,” which precedes the “Rex tremendae,” and the “Recordare” and “Confutatis,” which follow. The text of the “Rex tremendae” is short, just one stanza of the Sequence. It can be translated as:
King of tremendous majesty,
Who freely saves the worthy,
Save me, source of mercy
There is no specific justification for Kubrick’s use of this particular segment of the Requiem, as many others would have fit well enough in the scene.
The piece is heard—ostensibly sourced on-screen—at Sharky’s café. Bill opens up the New York Post and reads the article about Amanda Curran. The excerpt from the Requiem likely continues in Sharky’s but it is replaced, in Bill’s mind and heart at least, by the Ligeti piece. It has been suggested that the placement of this piece is another one of Kubrick’s commentaries: Bill reads about a dead girl and we hear the Requiem, but it should be noted that Bill is reading about a girl who is still alive, as far as he knows. If this is Kubrick’s commentary, the soundtrack is omniscient, knowing of her death before Bill finds out.
The Requiem’s explicit reference to death brings up one of the most important tropes of the film, and that is the relationship between sex and death, eros and thanatos. At the beginning of the film, Marion, the judge’s daughter, professes her love for Bill while the two are in the room with her father’s corpse. Domino, the prostitute with whom Bill would have had sex—were it not for the interrupting phone call of his wife—finds out she has an incurable sexually transmitted disease. Bill asks to see the body of Amanda Curran and is led down to the morgue after learning of her death. He leans over her, possibly compelled to touch her, but he does not. He wants to know if this is the same woman who “saved” him, but ultimately he can’t tell.
Liszt: Nuages Gris
Appearance:
2:08:22–2:09:59 Bill sees the body of Amanda Curran in the morgue
When Franz Liszt composed Nuages Gris (Gray Clouds), the nearly seventy-year-old composer had been well known for writing extremely virtuosic piano works. Nuages Gris, however, represented a departure from this aspect of Liszt’s style. It is a short piece, exceedingly simple, but it is infused with interesting and haunting harmonies. It prefigures the work of impressionists like Debussy,63 and it was composed at a difficult time in Liszt’s life. At the beginning of July 1881, Liszt fell down a flight of stairs and ended up in bed for two months. The fall started the seventy-year-old composer on a path of ill health that included a cataract in one of his eyes, insomnia, and edema (known then as
dropsy).64 Nuages Gris was composed on 24 August 1881, near the end of Liszt’s convalescence. The words “restless” and “unresolved” have been used to describe the harmonies and mood of the piece.65 Tremolos in the left hand add to a feeling of uneasiness; the dynamic level stays quiet. There is repetition and regular phrase structure, but the harmony is approaching a level of nonfunctionality, meaning that the internal harmonic logic of much Western music—in which one chord logically leads to another—is disappearing. This would happen more and more in music at the turn of the century, leading eventually to atonality and different modes of structuring musical pieces.
As Bill looks at the corpse of the woman, he hears the mysterious woman’s voice from the party. She warns him that she cannot show her face to him “because it could cost me my life, and possibly yours.” After hearing this in his head, Liszt’s music begins. Leaning down, it looks as if Bill might kiss her on the forehead, but he stops a few inches away. The orderly stays turned away from this intimate moment, as the tremolos in the pianist’s left hand build tension that instantly dies away as Bill pulls back. In Schnitzler’s original text, Fridolin does touch the body:
Instinctively, as though compelled by and directed by an invisible power, Fridolin touched the forehead, the cheeks, the shoulders, and the arms of the dead woman with both hands, and then entwined his fingers with those of the corpse as though in love play. Rigid as they were, it seemed to him that the fingers tried to move, to seize his; yes, it seemed to him as though from underneath the half-closed eyelids a vague and distant look was searching for his eyes, and as though pulled by a magic force, he bent over her.66
He is interrupted by his colleague, and Fridolin places her arms at her sides again at once. In the film, Bill walks down the hallway of the hospital, obviously still troubled, but his thoughts are interrupted by his ringing cell phone. The music stops at the interruption.
Other Music/Sounds
The sound design of the film captures New York more authentically than even the elaborate set. Sirens, car horns, and construction sounds linger around the quiet conversations. When Bill and Alice are having their serious conversation at the beginning of the film, a loud siren goes by, perhaps warning them of this dangerous territory. Notably, after Bill confesses “everything” to Alice, and we see her with red-rimmed eyes the next morning, you can hear the sounds of a jackhammer outside. It is the sound of morning in the city, the sounds of construction, rebuilding, which are wholly appropriate after the destruction brought about by Alice and Bill’s actions and confessions. The sounds of the city also provide a great sense of space and give the feeling that, despite all of the troubles of these characters, life goes on as usual outside. Worlds collapse and are rebuilt, and all the while time marches on.
When Bill leaves the apartment after Alice tells him about her temptation, she calls him to find out when he’ll be home. She is watching a movie on television, and we hear the music and dialogue of that film twice, at 50:57–51:11 and 52:28–53:08.
The Christmas carol “Jingle Bells” appears while the Harfords are shopping at F.A.O. Schwarz (2:28:53–2:30:50). The happiness of the song and the liveliness of the surroundings appear in stark contrast to Bill and Alice, who seem to be cautiously and vaguely discussing what they should do about their current situation. It fades out during their final conversation, allowing their conclusions to be the central focus of the scene.
Music Interruptus
So many times in the film Bill is a passive character. His reaction to Alice’s initial confession is silence, yet in Schnitzler’s original novel, Fridolin at least responds with a confession of his own. The Bill of the film is often led around by other people. He believes he is in control of his life, but allows himself to be moved all the time. At Ziegler’s party, he is led away from Gayle and Nuala by one of Ziegler’s associates. At the masked ball, Bill is led around by the woman in the headdress and then led out by the man in the gold mask. At Domino’s apartment, he allows her to take the lead, unsure how to proceed.
Bill is also at the mercy of interruptions, as is the music of the film. The weight of Alice’s story about the naval officer is hanging heavily in the air when a phone call interrupts not just his thoughts, but Jocelyn Pook’s music as well. Alice’s phone call to Bill later that evening stops Bill from sleeping with Domino (and in response to the call, Bill turns off the music) and urges him on to the next part of his odyssey. In the judge’s house, Marion’s confession is interrupted by the arrival of her fiancé. As Bill is walking away from the morgue, his thoughts are interrupted again by a ringing cell phone, this time asking him to come to Ziegler’s place. And in one final blow to Bill’s sense of self-empowerment, Ziegler suggests that the tribunal that singled out Bill from the other partygoers was a charade put on for his benefit. It could also be that Ziegler is just trying to protect Bill from the harsh truth. Since Ziegler is an unreliable character at best, it’s difficult to know where his motivations lie, and Bill seems utterly at the mercy of the whims of others.
The reaction to Eyes Wide Shut was mixed. Some complained that it wasn’t sexy enough, while others said that they just didn’t get it. Nicole Kidman’s performance was widely praised, while Tom Cruise’s performance—of an admittedly more thankless part—paled in comparison in some estimations. One of the problems, if we can call it that, of interpretation of the film is that the film itself does not “impose on us a hierarchy of what is important and what is not.”67 We are left to make our own decisions about the lesson of the story and perhaps what really happened. Was the whole mock trial at Somerton real or staged for Bill? Was the Mandy from Ziegler’s bathroom the same woman from the masked ball and the dead girl at the morgue? Can we believe Ziegler? Were parts of Bill’s odyssey a dream? Some of his experiences certainly seem dreamlike. What about Alice’s final word? If she and Bill “fuck,” will it solidify their new commitment to each other? Will this act conceive a child? Michel Chion interprets the film as a story told from the point of view of this possible child—this starchild, if you will—who comes into being only because of his parents’ mistakes, indiscretions, and confessions.68 The best indication of Kubrick’s success on Eyes Wide Shut is the simple fact that every time the film is brought up in a group of intelligent adults, it begins a conversation.69 It stirs up strong feelings, differing opinions, and interesting theories. The passionate discourse it inspires seems to indicate that Kubrick, as always, was onto something.
Kubrick considered Eyes Wide Shut to be, in the words of Jan Harlan, “his greatest contribution to the art of filmmaking.” One wonders then what he might have done after it, had he lived. Perhaps he would have returned to Aryan Papers or started developing something entirely new. Since the death of Stanley Kubrick, which occurred a week after he showed the completed version of Eyes Wide Shut to Cruise, Kidman, and Warner Bros. executives, Kubrick has not really left the movies. Eyes Wide Shut premiered in the U.S. on 16 June 1999. Since then, Kubrick’s name appears in film credits of more than a dozen films to date, receiving dedications (the end credits of A.I. Artificial Intelligence say “For Stanley Kubrick”), special thanks, grateful acknowledgment, and inspirational thanks. Film directors who never met him, but still consider him a mentor, will continue to honor Kubrick with praise and gratitude for generations.
Conclusion
Over the course of his career, Kubrick worked with hundreds of people on his films. It is certain that he found the work of these individuals indispensible and important. He undoubtedly learned from these colleagues and worked with some again and again. Music was an aspect of filmmaking that Kubrick absorbed so much information about in his formative years, and it was something that he made unique decisions about as he developed his style. From his earliest films, in which he collaborated with Gerald Fried, to the later films, which prominently featured preexistent tunes, it seems that the music in every project had something to teach Kubrick, and Kubrick was always willing to learn.
The
aim of this book has been to illuminate the intricacies of Kubrick’s relationship with music, to put to rest notions of Kubrick’s “rejection” of traditional scoring techniques, and to show that he was not the proverbial lone wolf. It has also offered an opportunity to delve deeper into the meanings of the preexistent musical pieces themselves, perhaps not known by Kubrick but still there, influencing our readings of the films, our interpretations of the stories. Kubrick’s musical choices were often made with the gut or the heart, and that is where they hit us. All of us—fans and scholars alike—may want to understand why something has touched us so, and that is why we research and write and attempt to explain an emotional or visceral response to a work of art. It is a testament to Kubrick’s art that we continue to do this, with no signs of stopping.
In 1972, Kubrick said, “The thing a film does best is to use pictures with music, and I think these are the moments you remember.”70 It was an idea he lived by, making musical choices a priority in his films long before he loaded film into a camera. His films have a distinct sound to them, a sophistication for the ear that is often overlooked in favor of Kubrick’s incredible eye. He did not make explicit the reasons for his musical choices, did not seek out pieces based on historical background or extra-musical meaning, but what he did create is a sound world of film that was unlike anything that had come before. Every filmmaker who uses music in such a creative way stands on Stanley Kubrick’s shoulders and builds on the work of the master.
Listening to Stanley Kubrick Page 33