2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY — Stanley Kubrick finds heavenly music on vinyl

In 1968, Stanley Kubrick’s sci-fi epic 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY pushed movies light years into the future. It pioneered the use of special effects, makeup, sound design…and needle drops.

For the season debut of our audio documentary series, host Rico Gagliano tells the story of the now-legendary classical tracks Kubrick dropped into his space movie—something the director did against the advice of just about everybody, and to the detriment of at least two composers’ mental and physical health. It’s an epic tale about an epic film, featuring guests like Kubrick’s longtime executive producer Jan Harlan.

The third season of the MUBI Podcast, titled “Needle on the Record,” dives into the unifying power of movie music and tells the stories behind some of cinema’s most renowned “needle drops”—moments where filmmakers deployed pre-existing music instead of an original score. Each episode explores an iconic marriage of song and image that’s become part of pop culture. It’s a six-part mixtape for film lovers.

To stream some of the films we've covered on the podcast, check out the collection Featured on the MUBI Podcast. Availability of films varies depending on your country.

MUBI is a global streaming service, production company and film distributor dedicated to elevating great cinema. MUBI makes, acquires, curates, and champions extraordinary films, connecting them to audiences all over the world. A place to discover ambitious new films and singular voices, from iconic directors to emerging auteurs. Each carefully chosen by MUBI’s curators.

Also, check out Notebook magazine, our print-only publication devoted to the art and the culture of cinema. Created, prepared and published by MUBI. Each issue will come with an exclusive surprise, just for magazine subscribers. Subscribe at mubi.com/magazine

Transcript

0:04

Heads up, this episode contains spoilers. But honestly from a movie you probably should have seen by now, people. Picture a little bushy haired third grader. Big, thick plastic glasses, wearing a baseball shirt. He's cowering in a movie theater seat, eyes glued to the screen, mouth half open. That's me, at a matinee screening, July 1977. Getting my mind blown. A few months before I'd seen this new movie called <i>Star Wars</i>. And it made me and a few million other kids space movie obsessed. So now, July 77, the folks at MGM Studios are wisely capitalizing on this new audience by rereleasing another space movie. The one that's scrambling my young brains. Stanley Kubrick's<i>2001: A Space Odyssey.</i> Honestly, I came in not expecting much. The film's old and rated G. I figured it would be like <i>Star Wars</i> with worse special effects and no shootouts. Instead, the first quarter hour doesn't even happen in space. It's about creepy, primitive ape men, scrounging for food, howling at each other. Being attacked by wildcats. Huddling at night in fear, in a cave. And then one morning, out of nowhere appears the monolith. A tall, slim rectangle impossibly deep black. The ape men swarm around it. They're freaked out, cries slowly drowned out by a choir of moaning, almost satanic voices. Getting louder. And louder. And I'm thinking, "My God, how much louder is this going to get?"And how much more can I take?" It's an emotional reaction, like the dread you feel from the hum of buzzing bees. Now the ape men are touching the monolith. In awe. Can they hear these voices? Are they becoming possessed? I've never seen a horror movie before. I figure this is what one must feel like. No words, no explanation. Just these intense visuals and that overwhelming music. This, I realize, is not <i>Star Wars</i>.

<i>2001: 2:46

A Space Odyssey</i> is around two and a half hours long with just 40 minutes of dialog. In between? long stretches like these. Some harrowing, some hypnotic, of just otherworldly images, atmospheric sound and lots and lots of classical music. That buzzing choral piece called Requiem by Giorgi Ligeti, A 19th century Waltz, a Soviet adagio. And when the film came out in 1968, the whole world was a lot like me in 77. A kid pinned to his seat. Not quite sure what the hell was going on, but sensing everything he thought he knew about movies and movie music was wrong. I am Rico Gagliano and welcome back to the MUBI podcast. MUBI's the streaming service that elevates great cinema. On this show, we tell you the stories behind great cinema. Today we launch season three. We're calling it Needle on the Record'cause we're diving into some of movie history's most iconic needle drops. Those moments when filmmakers take preexisting tunes, drop them in their films and end up with something legendary. And you can't get more legendary than the soundtrack to <i>2001.</i> Today, 55 years since it came out, it's still the ultimate classical music mixtape. The pieces Kubrick picked for it are still synonymous with space travel, but back then, even the concept seemed insane. Some people thought the waltz, it's not space music. It's totally ridiculous. How can you make such a technical movie with this high tech and futuristic stuff and use a Viennese waltz? I mean, give me a break. That is Kubrick's longtime executive producer, Jan Harlan, and he's one of many folks who told me how Kubrick came to pair waltzes with spaceships, about the musicians he pissed off along the way. Ligeti went to see it and it was furious about it. And in fact, he initially called the film a piece of Hollywood shit. And about at least one musician who suffered for this film. Physically. He was taken to the recording on a stretcher in an ambulance. It's an epic tale about epic music, so turn up the volume as we drop the needle on A Space Odyssey</i> to understand just how radical this movie's music was for the time, let's start by meeting a composer whose work did not end up in <i>2001</i>, though he tried valiantly to get it in there. His name was Alex North. He was a very gentle man. He was totally in love with his music, and committed to music. That Steven North, the late Alex's son, he's also a movie and TV producer. His friends were musicians. Very often I remember trying to sleep and he would be doing forehands with Andre Previn, and John Williams, and Jerry Goldsmith on the two grand pianos. How'd Alex end up jamming on his living room pianos with the greatest movie composers alive?'Cause he was one too. Ever since 1950, when... He was brought to Los Angeles by Elia Kazan to score <i>A Streetcar Named Desire.</i> Which was the first film to use jazz as part of the core of the score, as opposed to just as incidental music. He then did the cinema version of <i>Death of a Salesman.</i> He did <i>Viva Zapata,</i> which was Kazan's picture as well. That was his introduction to Hollywood. Pretty good introduction. All three of those scores got Oscar nominations. Then he got another for<i>The Rose Tattoo</i> in 1955. A year he was also nominated for Best Original Song, with a melody he wrote for a prison flick called <i>Unchained</i>.<i>♪ Oh, my Lord ♪</i><i>♪ My darling ♪</i><i>♪ I've hungered for your touch ♪</i> Perhaps you've heard it?<i>♪ A long, lonely time, ♪</i> North, in other words, was on a roll. And he ended the 1950s with one of his greatest and definitely most fateful gigs, writing the score for the Gladiator movie classic <i>Spartacus</i>. His first time working with the then 30 year old director named Stanley Kubrick. A guy whose four previous films had already shown he had a meticulous eye and a wide ranging ear. Kubrick was very familiar with classical music, and Kubrick played jazz drums. He played drums in high school. That's Michael Benson. He wrote<i>Space Odyssey, the Making of 2001</i>. For it he interviewed basically everyone Kubrick ever met, including the director's wife, Christiane. Christiane told me that he had a drum set, set up, in their home. A jazz drum set up in one of the rooms, and he would blow off steam playing drums. So I've even compared Kubrick to a kind of jazz band leader in the sense that he was definitely in control. He was the director. He had iron control of his project, but he knew how to let his players, solo. Players like Alex North, who hit it off with his new director. Well, during the making of <i>Spartacus,</i> they got on very well. Alex was privy to most of the cuts of the film and was brought in constantly to discuss concept with Kubrick, because Kubrick was very, very concerned about music and how it was used. So Alex had a very close relationship with him during the making and during the filming. The movie was a huge hit, winning four Oscars. The winner is...<i>Spartacus</i>... <i>Spartacus</i>... <i>Spartacus</i>. Peter Ustinov. And that ignores yet another nomination. It was the biggest, most expensive flick he or Kubrick had ever undertaken, and they'd nailed it. It might have even been the beginning of a beautiful creative partnership. But after the film was cut, Kubrick was no longer to be found. Yeah, Steven says he just winked out of Alex's life. Incommunicado, which he says was not uncommon. Kubrick is a strange bird. He apparently was best friends with Malcolm McDowell on Clockwork Orange, and they worked very, very closely together and spent a lot of private time together. But when the film ended, Kubrick never spoke to McDowell again. Which made this next part extra surprising. Cut to Alex North, seven years later, December 1967. He was called out of the blue. He was, Alex was staying at the Chelsea Hotel in New York, Kubrick called him and said, would he be available to come to England that day or the next day to spot <i>2001</i>? What does that mean to spot? Spot is when you sit with the director and you pick the moments that the director wants music on the screen. I think that there was the first half, I think 70 minutes of film was done at that time. And Michael Benton says after North saw that footage, Kubrick's long silence was quickly forgiven. Not just because the film was spectacular, but because there was so much room for music. He was delighted at first when he heard about how little dialogue there was in <i>2001,</i> and he naively thought that he would have, you know, that would give him more freedom, and so on. But actually, for North, this was not going to be some carefree gig. In fact, he'd be just the latest player in a drama over the movie's music that had been unfolding for years. Flashback to the beginning of that saga, Sri Lanka in 1964. That's where the late, great sci-fi author Arthur C Clarke lived. And that spring, he got a letter from Kubrick who introduced himself and asked if maybe they could collaborate on the story for a new kind of sci-fi flick. He wanted to make the proverbial good science fiction movie, implying there hadn't been any good ones before then. That's Clarke interviewed in Paul Joyce's

documentary <i>2001: 11:04

The Making of a Myth.</i> I didn't agree with him. There had been some good ones,<i>Fantastic Voyage</i>'s one, and I was rather fond of <i>Things to Come,</i> a version of H.G. Wells' book, and I called Stanley to see it, and he thought it was absolutely terrible. And of course it was very naive. Kubrick told Clarke he wanted to make a sci-fi that was intellectually deeper than those flicks, more inventive with a vaster scope and a way bigger budget. And since he just scored a huge hit with the black comedy Dr.<i>Dr Strangelove</i>, he could get whatever he wanted. What Kubrick managed to do with all that credibility he had after doing <i>Strangelove</i> and with the full support of MGM, was make an avant garde experimental art movie on an epic, big budget Hollywood pile of money. And not just cash. MGM also granted Kubrick endless production time to innovate just about every aspect of the movie. You know, <i>2001</i> was a research and development. It was a think-tank from beginning to end. And invented dozens and dozens and dozens of new ways of producing film, in visual effects, in makeup, the sound design was incredibly experimental as well. There was just one thing the studio had expectations around. One thing they wanted that went without saying. Oh, I mean, it was just assumed there would be a score of course, you know, the film would have an original score that was just that was a requirement by MGM. I didn't even have to be stated. That was just the way things were. In big budget Hollywood productions part of the whole PR strategy was to hire a big name composer and have an original score. So after wrapping the live action photography for <i>2001</i> when Kubrick dutifully hunted for someone to write a score as groundbreaking as the rest of his film. It turned out to be an odyssey unto itself. It's really a very convoluted tale. I mean, first Kubrick approached Frank Cordell, who had done <i>Khartoum</i> which was a United Artists, Cinerama film. But Kubrick obviously didn't know what he wanted, apart from having a fascination with Mahler's <i>Third Symphony.</i> And David de Wilde, who was the first assistant film editor in <i>2001,</i> told me that Cordell couldn't get a meeting with Kubrick. And got increasingly tense. And then finally had a nervous breakdown. So one down. Next up, the great German classical composer Carl Orff. Who was then 71 and simply declined. I mean, he said "I'm too old to handle the pressures of such a major production." He might have also heard about Kubrick's reputation. So then Kubrick approached Bernard Herrmann, who did scores for <i>Psycho</i> and <i>Vertigo,</i> and also <i>Citizen Kane</i>. And Herrmann detested Kubrick ever since Kubrick wanted him to do the score for <i>Dr Strangelove</i>. Yeah, back then, Kubrick bruised Herrmann's ego when he dared to tell him his score would be sharing the Strangelove soundtrack with a couple of lowly pop tunes. And so Herrmann's response was, he said, "Well, I'm really busy,"but I'll do <i>2001</i> for double my normal fee." Which was a complete provocation, and he knew that Kubrick would never agree to that. Okay, so that's already three composers, one of whom actually tried to do something. By now, it was two years into production, some of <i>2001</i>'s long, wordless special effects sequences were starting to come together without any music. And right around then is when necessity led Kubrick to invention. The MGM brass showed up to see a show reel in late January 1966. So the initial impetus was, Oh my God, the people funding this movie are showing up. We got to show them something and we can't do it in silence, you know, he wanted to have some music to play. And, you know, he sent Tony Frewen, one of his assistants, off to buy something like $5,000 in today's dollars of records, in a downtown record store in London called Discurio. And there were so many LPs in that car on the way back to the studio that Frewen was worried the police would pull them over because, you know, the car was sagging, you know. Frewen's haul included recordings of Mendelssohn, of course Mahler, all the great composers. They picked, the stuff they thought would work best for the MGM screening. And it went well. So well the crew started spinning all that vinyl during their own screenings. They had a hell of a lot of viewing of rushes and in their screening rooms for two and a half years of continuous production. And so it was it was far more interesting to watch that material with music playing. Until one morning. All of that resulted in a fortuitous moment when the space station footage, they had probably ten shots of the camera moving towards the space station turning. And the <i>Blue Danube Waltz</i> happened to be cued up. You know the shot. Everybody does. A space station like two giant wheels connected with an axle rotating above the earth as a sleek PanAm space shuttle slowly moves towards it, also rotating as it lines up to dock. Two pieces of technology spinning together in circles. like waltzing dancers. And Kubrick kind of, you know, lit up and said, would I... Would I be crazy or would I be a genius if I dared to use this piece? Most of the crew thought he'd be crazy. Nobody else liked it. Jan Harlin, executive produced Kubrick's last five films. But in 1966, he was a computer data processor who also happened to be Kubrick's brother in law. I visited him on the set of <i>2001</i> quite often. And then one day he brought into the cutting room Johann Strauss, <i>The Blue Danube Waltz</i>. And again, and again... And he heard it and Ray Lovejoy told me the story, he was the editor, Ray Lovejoy became worried. What's with this? The waltz is not space music. Thought it ridiculous. How can you make such a technical movie with this high tech and futuristic stuff and use a Viennese waltz? I mean, give me a break! Kubrick's response? Anyway, let's try it. Two weeks went by and he added it, this music to the film. And was happy with it. It seems like his first inkling that maybe he didn't need to find a composer to write him a perfect score. Maybe the most heavenly, groundbreaking music for his movie was already out there, on vinyl. It was a suspicion that was confirmed almost immediately. So, you know, essentially his inner circle was all instructed, please listen, keep your ears peeled or whatever, for works of music, you know, works of classical music that might work with some of these, you know, weightlessness scenes or the so-called Stargate sequence and so forth....This is the BBC Third Program. And so one day in 67, Christiane Kubrick and the wife of one of the visual effects leads, Charlene Pedersen, were working together. They were listening to the BBC. And actually, Christiane was not in the room'cause she was arranging for a lunch to be delivered. And Ligeti's Requiem came on the radio. And Charlene immediately recognized it as a very powerful and unusual piece. And she ran to get Christiane, and they listened to it together. And she heard Ligeti. She didn't know anything about him. But she heard this music, and she ran over to the cutting room and said,"Stanley, listen to the radio!"I think this is what you want." She was right. Because what he wanted and what he'd been missing was something that conveyed exactly what I felt, watching the movie, cowering in my theater seat in 1977. This music that simultaneously conveyed horror and beauty and awe. I think that Ligeti's work changed the course of <i>2001,</i> and Kubrick's thinking about the soundtrack. It just clicked into place such that Kubrick really couldn't justify using anything else, I think. With Strauss's <i>Blue Danube</i> and Ligeti's <i>Requiem</i> both clicking,

it was decided: 20:05

The <i>2001</i> soundtrack would be nothing but classical needle drops. There's just one little problem. When the MGM brass came to visit that was always assumed to be so-called "temp tracks". And then Kubrick tried to get MGM to agree to simply use the temp tracks. They said, "No, we're not going to, you know,"you've got to have an original score." So then Kubrick was persuaded in November 67 to approach Alex North. And Alex North was the second composer to have a breakdown. Yeah, remember Alex North? His crash meant<i>2001</i>'s liftoff. Coming up in just a minute, stay with us. MUBI is a curated streaming service showing exceptional films from around the globe, all of them hand-picked by real people who really know movies. So you can explore the best of cinema, streaming anytime, anywhere. And if you love going deep into movies like we're doing here today, there is more where that came from, written by some of the world's best filmmakers, artists and critics in MUBI's print only magazine notebook. It is just a gorgeous thing to hold in your hands, and every copy comes with an exclusive surprise gift just for magazine subscribers. So do it. Subscribe now at MUBI.com/magazine to reserve issues three and four, delivered to you for free no matter where you are. Finally, after you've finished listening to me, you can stream some of the films we featured on this very podcast. All you got to do is head to MUBI.com and look for the collection called 'Featured on the MUBI Podcast'. Go figure. That's on the 'Now Showing' page. As always, you'll find all the links you need in the show notes of this episode. Speaking of which... Let's get back to it. All right, so it's December 1967. Alex North has just agreed to try his hand at scoring the first half of <i>2001</i>. But according to Stephen North, it was clear from the start this collaboration with Stanley Kubrick... Was going to be way different than the first. He was given a year to do the scoring for <i>Spartacus,</i> and he was given literally two weeks to write the score for <i>2001: A Space Odyssey</i>. Why so quick? After more than three years of development and production, Kubrick had finally run out of time. They had a release date already for the picture, and the film had been booked into theaters across America and Kubrick wanted to hit the release date. And I think MGM was insisting he hit the release date. In April, just over three months away. So that's a lot of pressure on North. But wait, there's more. So from the very beginning of Kubrick's correspondence with North, North knew that Kubrick wanted to use classical and concert works. That is Kate McQuiston. She is a professor of musicology at University of Hawaii at Manoa, specializing in film music, Kubrick's in particular. And from what she says, it sounds like Kubrick was still hoping to get his needle drops past the honchos at MGM. But he would commission a score from Alex North that he would use in the event that he couldn't use the music that he really wanted to use. So while North is writing the score, he knows Kubrick has his eye on using something else. That's right. And I think he was hoping as any composer in his shoes would have hoped, that he could come up with something good enough to replace these other pieces. He just has to come up with something that beats Strauss. It's a terrible assignment for a composer, to tell you the truth. Now, accounts differ on the details here, but yeah, bottom line: North's job was to outshine some of the classical greats, and he tried... Really hard. Kubrick rented an apartment for him and for his orchestrator, Henry Brant. And they went to work with a recording date of January 1st. Were you experiencing it? Were you with him? You know, in England at this time? No, I was in England, but I wasn't with him. And I was precisely not with him because he said, "Steve, I can't see you."I'm working 24/7" So we actually didn't see each other at all during the composing period. And as is famously known, he was taken to the recording in an ambulance. Kubrick was astonished to see the composer arriving in a stretcher, wheeled from the ambulance into the recording studio. So he was physically there, but he was he had had a physical collapse. Because the stress that he had been under writing this music completely put him out and he had back spasms, which made it impossible for him to stand. And his orchestrator, Henry Brant, conducted the score. But Alex managed to get propped up in the control room, approving takes during the recording, while Kubrick on the floor with the orchestra, looked on. And the good news... Kubrick had been very complimentary and not only complimentary, but had given very good suggestions about what Alex could do in the next recording session to improve on what they had done that day. Except there never was another recording session. Steven says Alex got his full paycheck and figured Kubrick planned to use his work alongside the needle drops. But according to crew members, Michael Benson talked to you. You know, he was far less diplomatic when he spoke to his inner circle. You know, he basically said, this is shit. Which was not fair. Not at all fair to North because he was just too in love with his temp tracks. Now, I should say some insist Kubrick actually gave North score a fighting chance. Once it grew on him. He added it even. He added it to this scene of the PanAm space model, you know, flying. He added it all. The whole thing, at two weeks work to Alex North's music and he likes it. But he didn't love it. He had to love it. I can't stress it enough how important that is, and that's why it took him so long. Everything, he took a long time to, to finish a film. He had to be in love with it. And at this point, yeah, even North's best work probably couldn't have made Stanley Kubrick fall out of love with his needle drops, not just 'cause he liked how they sounded, but also what they represented. Like, check out this North track. It's the one Kubrick dropped into the sequence Jan Harland just mentioned, the PanAm space shuttle docking with the space station. The scene Kubrick had originally paired with Strauss's <i>Blue Danube Waltz</i>. Kind of works, right? It feels like an elegant dance. Go on YouTube and you'll find fan edits of the scene swapping in this music for Strauss's. And it's pretty cool. But you can just tell something doesn't quite fit the same way. And Kate McQuiston thinks she knows what it is. North style is this distinctively American. The voicings of the chords, the use of instruments, particularly the use of high woodwinds like piccolos and flutes in the high register. That was part of the American classical sound and as well the American film scoring traditions up to that time. While on the other hand.<i>The Blue Danube Waltzes</i> were in their time a symbol of internationalism, a sort of international cosmopolitanism. And so I think Kubrick simply made the choices he made to try to achieve something that transcended, and transcended works in many ways here, transcended any particular national magnetism in the score for something more international. Yeah, Kubrick's movie was about humanity, trying to transcend borders, to break free of even the earth itself. And he picked music to match. Whereas North's work, as much as it danced, felt grounded to a specific place on terra firma. That's one theory anyway. But whatever the problem was, now Kubrick knew he'd have to battle with MGM to go back to his so-called temp tracks, and it sounds like he wasn't sure it's a battle he'd win. In fact... There's a little, very interesting little flash in the pan moment when Kubrick was exhausted and despondent about the fact that he didn't like what North had produced. And at one point, Kubrick said,"Maybe I should contact The Beatles?" Hey, they just dropped <i>Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band</i>, right? Which was pretty far out. But... Finally, you know, conspiracy theorists might say, and I think North's wife did say, she thought Kubrick had this all in the plan anyway, to delay and delay. And then finally, there was no choice but for MGM to agree to the temp tracks. But that story about The Beatles indicates to me that Kubrick really didn't know what to do, and then finally had maneuvered himself into a position where the only thing to do was use these extraordinary pieces of music that we all associate with the film and are so perfect for the film that it's hard to imagine the film without them. At first, though, things didn't seem quite so perfect. On April 4th, 1968, Stanley Kubrick attended the New York premiere of <i>2001: A Space Odyssey.</i> Christiane Kubrick persuaded him to put on a tuxedo. It was one of the very rare sightings of the director in anything other than a rumpled blazer. and he spoke to the press. Well, I became interested in the idea that the universe was full of intelligent civilizations, which is the current scientific belief. And, you know, the screening was for predominantly older, entitled people who could get a ticket to the premiere screening of <i>2001</i>. And it did not go well. To put it mildly. What was the knock on it? Oh, that it was incoherent, opaque. The leading film critics lined up to knock Kubrick down. In <i>The Times</i> Renata Adler called it "Somewhere between hypnotic"and immensely boring." In <i>The Village Voice</i> Andrew Sarris, dubbed <i>2001</i>"A thoroughly uninteresting failure and the most damning"demonstration yet of Stanley Kubrick's inability"to tell a story coherently"and with a consistent point of view." And Kubrick's choice of music wasn't spared either. The critics didn't like it generally. Yeah, because Johann Strauss, I mean, goodness me, is old fashioned music. I remember Pauline Kael's response about the <i>Blue Danube</i> in this outer space context was that this was somehow a cynical commentary. She referred to Kubrick as having "A sour heart." The soundtrack even drew the ire of some of the musicians who were on it. Like, for instance, one Gyorgy Ligeti, who went to see <i>2001</i> after someone told him his music was in it, and was dumbfounded when he saw just how much. The multiple tracks, multiple compositions of Ligeti work that are in the film were licensed under this strange mechanical rights license, which allowed MGM to use those compositions as background music. Except those tunes aren't background music. In some scenes, they're the only sound you hear for minutes at a time. Plus, one of them called <i>Aventures</i> had been electronically altered. Plus, apparently accidentally...<i>Aventures</i> wasn't even in the credits. So he was very upset about that. And in fact, he initially called the film a piece of Hollywood shit. And finally, there was Alex North. Who saw <i>2001</i> and got the opposite sort of surprise. He went to a screening in New York City to an industry screening and found out in that industry screening that not one note of his music had been used. I mean, what was your dad's, you know, opinion at that point? What was his feel? Well, he was devastated. He was shattered. And he was hurt even more by the fact that Kubrick never contacted him, never called him and said,"Alex, we're not using your score." But Alex never actually, to the end of his life, never heard from Kubrick again. All in all, not an auspicious start to <i>2001's</i> life. But while Steven says Kubrick never repaired his relationship with Alex North, he did make some repairs to his movie. So the screenings for the press, the screenings for the first audience were all a cut that had 20 minute, about 20 minutes more material than the film we know today. There were redundant scenes, and so there was an all night session in the basement of the MGM headquarters in New York, and they cut about 19 minutes. So they make these cuts and then what happens? Well, then a lot of critics either wrote about the film for the first time because they weren't in that New York circle. Or some reevaluated and wrote second reviews. And meanwhile, the word of mouth was incredible. It was hard to get tickets. And they added additional screenings from the first weekend. Really? So regard... Despite the fact that the critics panned it? Yes. And it was predominantly under 30. Now, you probably remember that in the sixties there was this line, you know, "Never trust anybody over 30." Which would have excluded Arthur Clarke and Kubrick. But the audience that got it most were under 30. People who were like,"I don't care what Andrew Sarris says!"I don't trust them to begin with." Or they might even say, "Who is Andrew Sarris? I don't know.""And pass... You know, pass me that joint and let's go see that film." Yeah, Thanks to young moviegoers, some of them chemically altered.

<i>2001: 34:12

A Space Odyssey</i> became the biggest box office hit of 1968. And the music hit a nerve, too. Especially the tone poem Kubrick had placed under the opening titles. Composed by Richard Strauss. I think <i>Also Sprach Zarathustra</i> was probably not very widely known. Certain conductors liked Strauss's tone poems in concert for top flight ensembles. But <i>Also Sprach Zarathustra,</i> probably less well-known than the others. After this movie, that changed. A year later, the BBC played <i>Zarathustra</i> during TV coverage of actual Apollo space missions. In the early seventies, Elvis Presley's stage band played it as his intro music at concerts. Later Deodato's disco jazz version hit number two on the Billboard charts. And you can probably name a couple dozen more examples. 20 years ago for my film on Stanley Kubrick, I needed to have obviously Richard Strauss, and I went to the publisher I said, "Look, I make a documentary"and I need to buy the rights from you." And he said, 2Look, man,"we are honored to give it to you for free!"Yeah, we made so much money"because Stanley Kubrick used this."We sold it for commercial, endless times, and we made a fortune."We are honored to give it to you for free!" I can tell you that all of those pieces became incredibly popular. The film was so popular. I mean, Kubrick had never had a highest grossing film of any year before or since. And people wanted that stuff so they could play it at home. And so, yeah, the soundtrack was very successful and has been rereleased ever since. And that's how the atonal, mind piercing music that freaked me out in that theater in 1977 ended up on a certified gold record. All of which marked a turning point in the relationship between movies and classical music. Till then, there was the lofty classical world and there was Hollywood pop culture. And only rarely did they meet. And we can even look at Alex North's own career as an example. He really wanted to be a composer of serious concert music, and he came to film scoring very reluctantly as he tells it. So I do think for those who had classical aspirations, it took a very long time for working in film to cease to be a stigma.<i>2001</i> went a long way toward erasing that stigma for good. Meanwhile, for filmmakers, the movie opened up whole new ways of marrying music, especially classical music, to images. And I think we still see plenty of evidence of Kubrick's influence. If we think of something like Paul Thomas Anderson's,<i>There Will Be Blood</i>. It includes a Brahms violin concerto, and it has music by the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt. Or there's Terrence Malick's <i>Tree of Life.</i> Life by life. I search for you... Which to my mind, is a very elaborate musical extravaganza. My all. It's a visual accompaniment to music. My child. By composers including, gosh, so many Mahler, Smetana, Respighi, Tavener, Holst, Gorecki, Berlioz. That's a film that couldn't exist without <i>2001.</i> Yeah, it's almost like he gave the idea that you can just have these bliss outs of music and image and it will result in something transcendent, maybe. Yeah, I love the word "bliss outs" and it does highlight the fact that Kubrick wanted people to hear this music. Kubrick was such a fan of classical music. And though he could obviously be a difficult guy, classical musicians came to respect Kubrick too, including, by the way, Ligeti. Despite his whole "Piece of Hollywood shit" thing. He gradually modified that opinion, and I think the reason he modified that opinion is, first of all, MGM made an appropriate payment. But I wouldn't be so crass as to say that Ligeti modified it because he was paid off. I think he realized, like a lot of people, he needed to reevaluate <i>2001,</i> see it a couple of times before he recognized what was going on. And certainly it's undeniable that Ligeti's career catapulted from obscurity into this kind of front rank of avant garde composers of the last quarter of the 20th century. His work ended up in two more Kubrick films, <i>The Shining</i> and <i>Eyes Wide Shut</i>, fully credited and paid for, I should say. And as for Alex North, he actually came out of the <i>2001</i> crucible okay with his music in hand. Kubrick was very generous in one way. When he didn't use Alex's score, he gave Alex back the rights to his score. And it turns out that one of his longer cues he used in a picture that he scored for me, a Marcel Marceau picture called <i>Shanks</i>. Oh, right. You produced <i>Shanks</i>. And there's a whole cue in that picture, maybe it's a three and a half minute, four minute cue, which is directly out of <i>2001: A Space Odyssey</i>. And Mike, remembering correctly, <i>Shanks</i> it's a horror movie starring a mime. Exactly. Exactly. Not exactly anything like <i>2001</i>. And yet the music was, you know, usable. And not only usable, he was nominated for an Academy Award for it. That, to me, is an artist's career, right? Sometimes full of horror and awe, like a wailing choir. And sometimes all of a sudden spinning elegantly full circle, like a waltz. And that's the MUBI podcast for this week. Follow us to make sure you get a front row seat for more deep dives into music and movies. Next week, the story of a box office flop that rose from the ashes of 9/11, and sent an unlikely cover tune to the Top of the Pops. It was so big. I mean, it's hard to fathom how big. I mean, people were calling in the radio sting like,"I heard it and I pulled over On the highway 'cause I"couldn't drive and listen to it at the same time."<i>Donnie Darko</i> helps pull Tears for Fears into the 21st century. Follow us so you don't miss it. Meanwhile, this episode was hosted, written and edited by me, Rico Gagliano. Jackson Musker is our booking producer. Ciara McEniff is our producer. Steven Colon mastered and engineered. Martin Austwick composed our original music. Additional music by the most excellent band, People with Bodies. Thanks this week to Rebekah Wineman, David Harper, JP Davidson and Mike Pachelli. The show is executive produced by me, along with Jon Barrenechea Efe Çakarel, Daniel Kasman and Michael Tacca. If you love the show, tell the world, won't you? By leaving a five star review wherever you listen to it. Helps others find and love us too. Also, if you've got questions, comments, or if you've got a fan edit of <i>2001</i> you want me to check out, email us at podcast@mubi.com And of course, to stream the best in cinema, including some of the films we talk about on this very podcast, just head over to MUBI.com to start watching. Thanks for listening. Be safe. Now go watch some movies.