Blue Danube, from "2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968), directed by Stanley Kubrick
There's a famous (and true) story about Kubrick dumping the originally-commissioned musical score for "2001," so he could go with classical music like Richard Strauss's "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" and Johann Strauss's "Blue Danube." Apparently, Kubrick neglected to inform the composer, Alex North, who turned up at the premiere fully expecting his music to be used throughout the movie ... and there wasn't a note. Can you imagine? But when you listen to North's score for the opening "Dawn of Man" sequence (see below), you can't argue with Kubrick's decision to go with the classical selection. If you recall, "The Dawn of Man" ends with the ape-man tossing the animal bone skyward, followed by probably the most famous match-cut in film history, as the bone floats back "down" as the spaceship, and "Blue Danube" begins. In some ways, this is the warmest sequence in a very chilly movie -- the waltz music borders on tongue-in-cheek; we get flashes of whimsical humour with the oddball rotating-wheel space station and the pen adrift in zero gravity; and (gasp) there's an actual female in a mid-period Kubrick movie! But "Blue Danube" earns its classic status from the gorgeous celestial dance of the spacecraft (special effects orchestrated by Douglas Trumbull), wedded to the stately and sprightly music. An excellent recent book on "2001" is Michael Benson's "Space Odyssey: Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke, and the Making of a Masterpiece," included below, along with a fine background documentary by Tyler Knudsen about "the Floyd section" (Dr. Heywood Floyd, played by William Sylvester, is the character spacebound to investigate the alien artifact discovered on the moon). Fun fact: the Pan Am Jet Clipper flight attendant who rescues the pen was uncredited in the movie, but identified subsequently; she's Heather Downham, and she's shown below rehearsing her scene. An equally iconic sequence of 2001 is the dismantling of the HAL computer near the climax. But my mother was a Pan Am flight attendant too, so this one gets the nod.
How Kubrick made 2001: A Space Odyssey - The Floyd Section
"Zarathustra" sequence and "The Dawn of Man."
Gets on my nerves a bit, actually.
4 Ways 2001: A Space Odyssey Was a Visual-Effects Pioneer
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