Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T16:00:48.776Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Real Feelings: Music as Path to Philosophy in 2001: A Space Odyssey

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2011

DAVID J. CODE
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A recurring trope in the literature on Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey holds that the HAL 9000 computer has more feelings than any of the human characters. But the film itself presents the question of HAL's ‘real feelings’ as something no one can truthfully answer. One way to begin negotiating this contradiction is by attending anew to the way the Jupiter Mission episode, in which HAL appears, is cut to the Adagio from Khachaturian's ballet Gayane, the excerpt that remains the least discussed in this renowned compilation score. Suggesting that the elusive affect of this music, as it is deployed through several interrelated scenes, brings focus to questions of emotion and embodiment that fundamentally inform the conflict between human and machine, I go on to offer a new hearing of HAL's unforgettable death song ‘Daisy Bell’ in this light, and to re-evaluate some of the director's own words about his film. Ultimately, I carry the same questions forward to inform a contribution to the ongoing debate about the Nietzschean philosophical inflections occasionally thought to enter the film with its much more famous cue from Richard Strauss's Also sprach Zarathustra.

Type
Articles
Information
Twentieth-Century Music , Volume 7 , Issue 2 , September 2010 , pp. 195 - 217
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Filmography

Kubrick, Stanley. 2001: A Space Odyssey. Written by Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, music by Aram Khachaturian, György Ligeti, Johann Strauss jr, and Richard Strauss. With performers Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, Douglas Rain (voice), and William Sylvester. MGM, 1968. Reissued DVD, Region 2, Warner Home Video D065000, 2001.Google Scholar

Bibliography

Abrams, Jerrold J. ‘Nietzsche's Overman as Posthuman Star Child in 2001: A Space Odyssey’, in The Philosophy of Stanley Kubrick, ed. Abrams, Jerrold J.. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2007. 247–66.Google Scholar
Adorno, Theodor W., and Eisler, Hanns. Composing for the Films. London: Athlone Press, 1994.Google Scholar
Bernstein, Jeremy. ‘Profile: Stanley Kubrick’ (1966), in Stanley Kubrick: Interviews, ed. Phillips, . 21–46.Google Scholar
Blondel, Eric. Nietzsche: the Body and Culture, trans. Hand, Seán. London: Athlone Press, 1991.Google Scholar
Chion, Michel. Audio-Vision: Sound on Screen, ed. and trans. Gorbman, Claudia. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994.Google Scholar
Chion, Michel. Kubrick's Cinema Odyssey, trans. Gorbman, Claudia. London: BFI, 2001.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ciment, Michel. Kubrick: the Definitive Edition, trans. Adair, Gilbert, 2nd edn. New York: Faber & Faber, 2001.Google Scholar
Code, David J. ‘Rehearing The Shining: Musical Undercurrents in the Overlook Hotel’, in Music in the Horror Film: Listening to Fear, ed. Lerner, Neil. New York: Routledge, 2010. 133–51.Google Scholar
Docherty, Thomas. After Theory. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Eagleton, Terry. After Theory. London: Allen Lane, 2003.Google Scholar
Geduld, Carolyn. Filmguide to 2001: A Space Odyssey. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1973.Google Scholar
Gelmis, Joseph. ‘The Film Director as Superstar: Stanley Kubrick’ (1970), in Stanley Kubrick: Interviews, ed. Phillips, . 80–104.Google Scholar
Gorbman, Claudia. Unheard Melodies: Narrative Film Music. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987.Google Scholar
Gorbman, Claudia. ‘Ears Wide Open: Kubrick's Music’, in Changing Tunes: the Use of Pre-Existing Music in Film, ed. Powrie, Phil and Stilwell, Robynn. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006. 4–18.Google Scholar
Grant, Barry Keith. ‘Of Men and Monoliths: Science Fiction, Gender, and 2001: A Space Odyssey’, in Stanley Kubrick's 2001, ed. Kolker, . 69–86.Google Scholar
Hanson, Ellis. ‘Technology, Paranoia and the Queer Voice’. Screen 34/2 (1993), 137–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kassabian, Annahid. Hearing Film: Tracking Identifications in Contemporary Hollywood Film Music. New York: Routledge, 2001.Google Scholar
Kassabian, Annahid. ‘Some Futures for the Study of Sound, Music and the Moving Image’, in CineMusic? Constructing the Film Score, ed. Cooper, David, Fox, Christopher, and Sapiro, Ian. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008. 181–9.Google Scholar
Kolker, Robert, ed. Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey: New Essays. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Landy, Marcia. ‘The Cinematographic Brain in 2001: A Space Odyssey’, in Stanley Kubrick's 2001, ed. Kolker, . 87–104.Google Scholar
Mateas, Michael. ‘Reading HAL: Representation and Artificial Intelligence’, in Stanley Kubrick's 2001, ed. Kolker, . 105–26.Google Scholar
McQuiston, Katherine. ‘Recognizing Music in the Films of Stanley Kubrick’. PhD diss., Columbia University, 2005.Google Scholar
Merkley, Paul. ‘“Stanley Hates This but I Like It!”: North vs. Kubrick on the Music for 2001: A Space Odyssey’. Journal of Film Music 2/1 (2007), 1–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Michelson, Annette. ‘Bodies in Space: Film as Carnal Knowledge’. Artforum 7/6 (1969), 53–63. Repr. in The Making of 2001, ed. Schwam. 194–215.Google Scholar
Michelson, Annette. ‘A Note on “Bodies in Space: Film as Carnal Knowledge”’, in The Making of 2001, ed. Schwam, . 193–4.Google Scholar
Miller, Mark Crispin. ‘2001: a Cold Descent’, in Depth of Field: Stanley Kubrick, Film, and the Uses of History, ed. Cocks, Geoffrey, Diedrick, James, and Perusek, Glenn. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2006. 122–45.Google Scholar
Naremore, James. On Kubrick. London: BFI, 2007.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nelson, Thomas Allen. Kubrick: Inside a Film Artist's Maze, 2nd edn. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Nietzsche, Friedrich. Thus Spoke Zarathustra: a Book for Everyone and Nobody, trans. Parkes, Graham. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Nordern, Eric. ‘Playboy Interview: Stanley Kubrick’ (1968), in Stanley Kubrick: Interviews, ed. Phillips, . 47–74.Google Scholar
Patterson, David. ‘Music, Structure and Metaphor in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey’. American Music 22/3 (2004), 444–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Payne, Michael, and Schad, John, eds. Life. After. Theory. New York: Continuum, 2003.Google Scholar
Phillips, Gene D., ed. Stanley Kubrick: Interviews. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 2001.Google Scholar
Rosen, Stanley. The Mask of Enlightenment: Nietzsche's Zarathustra. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.Google Scholar
Schwam, Stephanie, ed. The Making of 2001: A Space Odyssey. New York: The Modern Library, 2000.Google Scholar
Sperb, Jason. ‘I Can Feel It: Sounds, Intensities, and Subjectivities in 2001’, in The Kubrick Façade: Faces and Voices in The Films of Stanley Kubrick. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2006. 77–95.Google Scholar
Strick, Philip, and Houston, Penelope. ‘Modern Times: an Interview with Stanley Kubrick’ (1972), in Stanley Kubrick: Interviews, ed. Phillips, . 126–39.Google Scholar
Tanner, Michael. Nietzsche: a Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Toles, George. ‘Double Minds and Double Binds in Stanley Kubrick's Fairy Tale’, in Stanley Kubrick's 2001, ed. Kolker, . 147–76.Google Scholar
Walker, Alexander. Stanley Kubrick, Director, 2nd edn. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1999.Google Scholar
Wheat, Leonard. Kubrick's 2001: a Triple Allegory. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2000.Google Scholar