.: Introduction

The aim of this essay is to explore the connotations and implications that are apparent in an analysis of Royal S. Brown’s notion of classical music’s function as a ‘parallel emotional/aesthetic universe’[1] in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). In his essay ‘Music as Image as Music: A Postmodern Perspective’, Brown discusses the postmodern movie soundtrack and describes how technological advancements in ‘high-fidelity sound-reproduction equipment’ have enabled the ‘listener/viewer’ an experience of ‘hyper reality’, which seemingly removes any visible trace of the human aspect of music process, aided by increasing new technologies and adoption of these devices by the film industry, new conventions such as ‘digital re-mastering’. As Brown puts it; “Classical music has entered the popular arena but at a price”[2].

I am also going to look at Mark Crispin Miller’s ‘2001: A Cold Descent’, article in Sight and Sound, in which he illustrates how the dual function of musical and visual in the film’s narrative omits an aura of elegance associated with technology that is contrasted with human imperfection in the film’s diagesis. “With the machines doing all the dancing, bodies are erotically dysfunctional - an incapacity suggested by Kubrick’s travesties of dance”[3].

I will also be discussing the modes responsible for the ‘listener/viewer’ position to shift into a more passive position in which sound aesthetics are constantly redefined and the loss of authenticity in favour of the synthesised are reflected in 2001 through it’s combination of musical and visual and it’s narrative ‘special effect’.