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Sarah Canice Funke
- Music and Film
Much of the time the soundtrack that accompanies a film is originally composed, but sometimes a film composer will draw on music of previous artists. The pre-existing music that film composers utilize can range from pop tunes to works from the classical repertoire. Perhaps one of the most well-known examples is director Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” in which Richard Strauss’ “Thus Spake Zarathustra” accompanies the opening scene and Johann Strauss, Jr.’s “The Blue Danube” sets the mood for a montage of scenes that illustrate living in space. Alex North wrote music for the film, but Kubrick liked the classical music he had used throughout the production phase of the filming so much that he decided to discard North’s music and stick with the “temp track” (directors commonly used a temporary soundtrack during production in order to give an idea of what the film would sound like with music). Another of Kubrick’s films, “Clockwork Orange,” also drew up the Classical repertoire, Beethoven’s 9th Symphony playing a large role in the protagonist’s social development in the distopian world depicted by the film. What are other films that rely heavily on music drawn from Western Art music? Does it seem strange in the context of a film or does classical music fit with a film score?
