Space Odyssey Image Vs. Sound

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#2: Image versus Sound – 2001: A Space Odyssey Despite the deficiencies of any verbal activity and profound human dialogue, Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey communicates with its audiences on a deeper level. The film’s narrative structure and the messages behind it are vaguely, not necessarily poorly, demonstrated. And Kubrick himself explained that the purpose of his movie was “intended to be an intensely subjective experience.” Alexander Walker, supporting Kubrick’s claim, noted that in order to experience this film, the audience must “make their own imaginative connection.” As he explained that adding captions to the Mona Lisa would shut off the viewer’s appreciation , Kubrick minimizes the use of conversations and also incorporates the futility of dialogues in order to maximize the subjective experiences of the audience. Also he wants the viewing to be a musical experience. Appropriately throughout the film, Kubrick uses pre-existing music to translate the images. For a major portion of the film, music becomes a primary language. Kubrick meticulously juxtaposes certain music with certain images to conjure up a specific emotion. For example every time the Monolith appears, Ligeti’s Requiem and its eerie tone suggests eminence of destruction. Also when Strauss’ Zarathustra plays its famous 5 notes, it signifies a sense of triumph or rebirth, as seen in the Star-Child scene in the end. But more specifically, we can take the first time the Blue Zanube Waltz enters the film. This is when the bone spinning in the air slowly fades into the round spacecraft and the space shuttles docks into the spacecraft. The image creates a “documentary feel” but with the accompaniment of the music it almost becomes a “sexual act” in that there is a sense of intimacy that is being created in the spaces of the image. The Blue Zanube communicates the beauty of movement

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