North and Kubrick between Ligeti and Vaughan Williams for the 2001 Soundtrack

Abstract

The story of the missed collaboration between Alex North and Stanley Kubrick for the soundtrack of the film 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) is faced, in the light of the recently recorded North score for the film. The score highlights not only the too close analogies of North’s various music cues with the temporary tracks chosen by Kubrick but also their original position in the film; film that has suffered until the last many changes. In this research, an aspect that has not been investigated so far has emerged- that of the relationship between North’s music and that of Vaughan Williams, author of the soundtrack for Charles Frend’s film Scott of Antartic (1948). This film curiously has some similarities with Kubrick’s masterpiece, montage of photographic images with special effects, prevalence in the mixing of ‘natural’ noises over music. Furthermore, the analysis of the soundtrack, made from the composer’s point of view, does not want to question the integrity of the filmic text, but, in the light of more recent studies (Platte, 2018), open a plural perspective.

Keywords

• film music
• alex north
• ralph vaughan williams
• stanley kubrick