Reception
In The Art of Film Music George Burt writes that North's score is outstanding and Kubrick's decision to abandon it was "most unfortunate", even though Kubrick's choice of classical music does have merit.
On hearing the score as it might have been in the film, film scholar Gene D. Phillips argued that "it is difficult to see how North's music would have been an improvement on the background music that Kubrick finally chose for the film." In his notes for the Jerry Goldsmith recording (see below), however, Kevin Mulhall argues that "there is no doubt that 2001 would have been better if Kubrick had used North's music. Even if one likes some of the choices Kubrick made for certain individual scenes, the eclectic group of classical composers employed by the director... resulted in a disturbing melange of sounds and styles overall."
Roger Ebert notes that Alex North's rejected score contains emotional cues to the viewer while the final music selections exist outside the action, while uplifting it. With regard to the space docking sequence, Ebert notes the peculiar combination of slowness and majesty that it has as a result of the choice of Strauss's Blue Danube waltz, bringing "seriousness and transcendence" to the visuals. Speaking of the music generally, Ebert writes:
When classical music is associated with popular entertainment, the result is usually to trivialize it (who can listen to the William Tell Overture without thinking of the Lone Ranger?). Kubrick's film is almost unique in enhancing the music by its association with his images.Read more about this topic: 2001: A Space Odyssey (score)
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)
“I gave a speech in Omaha. After the speech I went to a reception elsewhere in town. A sweet old lady came up to me, put her gloved hand in mine, and said, “I hear you spoke here tonight.” “Oh, it was nothing,” I replied modestly. “Yes,” the little old lady nodded, “that’s what I heard.””
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)
“He’s leaving Germany by special request of the Nazi government. First he sends a dispatch about Danzig and how 10,000 German tourists are pouring into the city every day with butterfly nets in their hands and submachine guns in their knapsacks. They warn him right then. What does he do next? Goes to a reception at von Ribbentropf’s and keeps yelling for gefilte fish!”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)