Kubrick's nine symphonies
Gordon Stainforth
Taking away his early movies and Spartacus - which he disowned
- (his ‘Works without an Opus number’, if you like), I am starting to
see Stanley’s films as his ‘nine symphonies’. His first being Paths
of Glory, Dr Strangelove being his ‘Eroica’, and A Clockwork
Orange his Fifth.
A bit of a difference, though, between the final words of
Beethoven’s last symphony - Gotterfunken! (divine spark) and the
final words of Kubrick’s last film - Let’s fuck! Stanley shocking to
the end. (Who else would have ended his film career like that?
Can we imagine the likes of Spielberg ever doing that?)
Actually, both Beethoven and Kubrick ended their careers
laughing. Beethoven’s last Quartet (Op 135) after a sombre
opening with ‘It must be!’ ends with a carefree, jovial dance. His
last piano work, the Diabelli variations, ends in a similar tone, and
the last chord has always sounded to me like him putting down
the piano lid.
Gordon
--
Gordon Stainforth
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~gordonst
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Thornhill
of Nine, given your theory. I'd have hoped that the
Shostakovich title music would have been talisman enough to ward
off "the curse". Thank Bog he didn't suffer 'the curse' of
Keats or Stephen Crane!
Thornhill
* Sent from RemarQ http://www.remarq.com The Internet's Discussion Network *
The fastest and easiest way to search and participate in Usenet - Free!
We Are Our Daughters' Mothers
Kubrick's movies into a broadway musical?
hal and david singing a little ditty together. ah!!
"Thornhill" <cthornhil...@worldnet.att.net.invalid> wrote in message
news:19ade04e...@usw-ex0105-038.remarq.com...
Gordon Stainforth
<14479bb4...@usw-ex0106-045.remarq.com>
, Thornhill
<cthornhil...@worldnet.att.net.invalid> wrote:
> Gordon, does your theory of "9" apply to Broadway
Show-
> Meisters? If not, why not?? If only!!
> Can I add to the disgruntled droogies a pissed-off
> passel of
> pussy cats?
> Thornhill
> * Sent from RemarQ http://www.remarq.com The
> Internet's Discussion Network *
> The fastest and easiest way to search and participate
> in Usenet - Free!
Isnt LW coming up to about his ninth now? If so, have
faith!!
Gordon
* Sent from AltaVista http://www.altavista.com Where you can also find related Web Pages, Images, Audios, Videos, News, and Shopping. Smart is Beautiful
Gordon Stainforth
<y5wZ4.102761$fF5.3...@news1.rdc1.il.home.co
m>, "We Are Our Daughters' Mothers"
<ditas...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> This gives me an idea. Why not have Andrew Lloyd
> Weber turn each one of
> Kubrick's movies into a broadway musical?
> hal and david singing a little ditty together. ah!!
> "Thornhill"
> <cthornhil...@worldnet.att.net.invalid> wrote
in
> message
>
news:19ade04e...@usw-ex0105-038.remarq.c
om...
> > What a deep sorrow it is too that SK was 'victim' of
> the Curse
> > of Nine, given your theory. I'd have hoped that the
> > Shostakovich title music would have been talisman
> enough to ward
> > off "the curse". Thank Bog he didn't suffer 'the
> curse' of
> > Keats or Stephen Crane!
> >
> >
> > * Sent from RemarQ http://www.remarq.com The
> Internet's Discussion Network
> *
> > The fastest and easiest way to search and
> participate in Usenet - Free!
> >
AAaaaggghhh!!!!!!! Talk about 'The Curse'!!
If it were to ever happen they might just find some
droogs visiting the theatre!
Gordon Stainforth
<073e5e80...@usw-ex0101-007.remarq.com>
, Thornhill
<cthornhil...@worldnet.att.net.invalid> wrote:
> >Isnt LW coming up to about his ninth now? If so,
have
> >faith!!
> >
> >Gordon
> (on the other hand, I hope the "Lucretian Swerve" for
> this Curse
> isn't that it strikes ONLY the great and undeserving.
> In that
> case, Grande and Venerable Curses will have lost
their
> Punch!).
> Thornhill
That would indeed be an awful swerve if He missed
out the undeserving!
minotaur1r
, Dr Strangelove being his ‘Eroica’, and A Clockwork Orange his
Fifth.
It's just too bad that the Napoleon project never got made.
That would be his 'Eroica' alright. Everytime I listen to that
symphony I think of what Kubrick might have done...
regards,
Ryan
FMD
In article <8h5gq7$ole$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, Gordon Stainforth <
gord...@globalnet.co.uk> wrote:
>Ok, a bit of fun!
>
>Taking away his early movies and Spartacus - which he disowned
>- (his ‘Works without an Opus number’, if you like), I am
starting to
>see Stanley’s films as his ‘nine symphonies’. His first being
Paths
>Orange his Fifth.
>
>A bit of a difference, though, between the final words of
>Beethoven’s last symphony - Gotterfunken! (divine spark) and the
>final words of Kubrick’s last film - Let’s fuck! Stanley
shocking to
>the end. (Who else would have ended his film career like that?
>Can we imagine the likes of Spielberg ever doing that?)
>
>Actually, both Beethoven and Kubrick ended their careers
>laughing. Beethoven’s last Quartet (Op 135) after a sombre
>opening with ‘It must be!’ ends with a carefree, jovial dance.
His
>last piano work, the Diabelli variations, ends in a similar
tone, and
>the last chord has always sounded to me like him putting down
>the piano lid.
A lovely thought. And I wonder how great the distance really is
between Beethoven's divine spark and SK's "fuck." The Ode to Joy
is a celebration of life, after all....
Gordon Stainforth
<03396d6b...@usw-ex0105-035.remarq.com>,
FMD
<fmdolan...@socrates.berkeley.edu.invalid>
wrote:
> In article <8h5gq7$ole$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, Gordon
> Stainforth <
> gord...@globalnet.co.uk> wrote:
> >Ok, a bit of fun!
> >
> >Taking away his early movies and Spartacus - which
he
> disowned
> I am
> starting to
> >see Stanley’s films as his ‘nine symphonies’. His
> first being
> Paths
> >of Glory, Dr Strangelove being his ‘Eroica’, and A
> Clockwork
> >Orange his Fifth.
> >
> >A bit of a difference, though, between the final
> words of
> spark) and the
> >final words of Kubrick’s last film - Let’s fuck!
> Stanley
> shocking to
> >the end. (Who else would have ended his film
career
> like that?
> >Can we imagine the likes of Spielberg ever doing
> that?)
> >
> >Actually, both Beethoven and Kubrick ended their
> careers
> sombre
> >opening with ‘It must be!’ ends with a carefree,
> jovial dance.
> His
> >last piano work, the Diabelli variations, ends in a
> similar
> tone, and
> >the last chord has always sounded to me like him
> putting down
> >the piano lid.
> A lovely thought. And I wonder how great the distance
> really is
> between Beethoven's divine spark and SK's "fuck."
The
> Ode to Joy
> is a celebration of life, after all....
Yes, and your point is a good one too, I think. Because I
dont believe there is nearly such a gap as is first
apparent. Beethoven was indeed a great celebrator of
life, and a rather extreme mixture of the earthy and the
spiritual (or perhaps transcendent would be a better
word).
Do you know the last movement of his last piano
sonata (Op 131) - the 'Arietta? One of the greatest
things he ever wrote and unlike just about anything else
that's ever been written for the piano. I see the 3rd
variation as almost literally orgasmic, one of the best
depictions of sexual energy that has ever been
conveyed in music. And then it's followed by what can
only be described as postcoital bliss ...
This is my view anyway - I've never seen anybody else
say it before!
David Kirkpatrick
I posted an analogy between Kubrick's films and Beethoven's Symphonies
about a year and a half ago which you might have missed. In the late
seventies either PBS or a Detroit TV station produced a series of 9
broadcasts of Antal Dorati conducting the Detroit symphony in a
Beethoven Symphony, preceded by an interview of Dorati by E.G.
Marshall. The labels Dorati attached to each of the symphonies has
stuck with me and I include them below.
Symphony 1 in C
Dorati: "Beethoven says farewell to the 18th century"
Kubrick: Killer's Kiss
my parallel: a weak one. His 1st film not suppressed. Slighter in
comparison to The Killing as Symphony #1 is to Symphony #2.
Symphony 2 in D
Dorati: "Beethoven says hello to the 19th century"
Kubrick: The Killing
my parallel: another weak one. As Beethoven's genius really begins to
emerge in this Symphony, so does Kubrick's in the film.
Symphony 3 in E-flat "Eroica"
Dorati: The hero
Kubrick: Paths of Glory
my parallel: the parallels get more interesting starting with this one:
Paths of Glory has a heroic character in Dax, a concern with glory,
cowardice and heroism, and a literal connection to the French military
as does Beethoven's symphony originally dedicated to Napoleon
Symphony 4 in B-flat
Dorati: Romance
Kubrick: Lolita
parallel: from eroica to erotica. Beethoven's 4th has been associated
with his own "immortal beloved", and the second movement is particularly
sinuous. The shift from dark to light at the beginning of the symphony
parallels the Nabokov/Kubrick treatment of their material.
Symphony 5 in C minor
Dorati: Fate (nothing idiosyncratic about the maestro's interpretation!)
Kubrick: Dr. Strangelove
parallel: our fate is tied to our nuclear fate
Symphony 6 in F "Pastorale"
Dorati: Nature
Kubrick: 2001: A Space Odyssey
parallel: space is nature on a grand scale; the leisurely pace of 2001
is Kubrick's most pastoral; the film is a kind of treatise on human
nature in contrast to animal and machine; we cannot understand human
nature without understanding technology
Symphony 7 in A
Dorati: The Rhythms of Life
Kubrick: A Clockwork Orange
parallel: Wagner called Beethoven's 7th the "Apotheosis of the Dance";
Alex is something of a dancer with the darkness of 7's second movement
combined with the exuberance of the other three; amusing how the titles
"Rhythm of Life" and "Clockwork Orange" parallel each other!
Symphony 8 in F
Dorati: Life itself
Kubrick: Barry Lyndon
parallel: more than any other film, BL is about *a* life and about *any*
life, often showing how forces of lifelessness confront life; the
symphony as a whole and the minuet in particular is a kind of fond but
ironic look back over the 18th century; BL is similar in that respect
Symphony 9 in D minor "Choral"
Dorati: Death
Kubrick: The Shining
parallel: obviously, TS deals with the horror of death and the undead
Interestingly, Beethoven worked on a 10th Symphony but chose to fuse it
with the 9th, which is why Ode to Joy is at such disparity to the first
three movements.
The connection between Fidelio and EWS becomes intriguing after we
consider the foregoing! Does that mean that Full Metal Jacket's
Beethovenian parallel is the mere Battle Symphony? Or another take on
Symphony #9? (Perhaps Aryan Papers would have fit as a third movement
of the Ninth and EWS as the fourth!) Or does the analogy simply break
down at this point?
David Kirkpatrick
(more below)
Gordon Stainforth wrote:
>
> Ok, a bit of fun!
>
> Taking away his early movies and Spartacus - which he disowned
> - (his ‘Works without an Opus number’, if you like), I am starting to
> see Stanley’s films as his ‘nine symphonies’. His first being Paths
> of Glory, Dr Strangelove being his ‘Eroica’, and A Clockwork
> Orange his Fifth.
>
> A bit of a difference, though, between the final words of
> Beethoven’s last symphony - Gotterfunken! (divine spark) and the
> final words of Kubrick’s last film - Let’s fuck! Stanley shocking to
> the end. (Who else would have ended his film career like that?
> Can we imagine the likes of Spielberg ever doing that?)
>
> Actually, both Beethoven and Kubrick ended their careers
> laughing. Beethoven’s last Quartet (Op 135) after a sombre
> opening with ‘It must be!’ ends with a carefree, jovial dance. His
> last piano work, the Diabelli variations, ends in a similar tone, and
> the last chord has always sounded to me like him putting down
> the piano lid.
>
> Gordon
The last movement he completed was the happy ending of Op 133, which he
used to replace the Grosse Fuge.
I'd like to think that EWS was Kubrick's Ode to Joyce! :-)
David
David Kirkpatrick
my favorite sonata)
But I agree with your thoughts.
David
Thornhill
Yes, great party isn't it??
Or, is it??
>Symphony 9 in D minor "Choral"
>Dorati: Death
>Kubrick: The Shining
>parallel: obviously, TS deals with the horror of death and the
>undead
Oh...I thought this film was first and foremost about the living
and "the horror of life"! (just a little interpretive divigation
there)
>Or another take on >Symphony #9? (Perhaps Aryan Papers would
>have fit as a third movement >of the Ninth and EWS as the
>fourth!) Or does the analogy simply break
>down at this point?
Uh...only at *this* point??
>I'd like to think that EWS was Kubrick's Ode to Joyce! :-)
Ah, Joy's Prick in that one! Bravo!
The other stuff? A neat notion if not examined too closely.
Sorta puts the cart before the horse, doesn't it?? (that's
usually reserved for goins on at the Double-Q Ranch!).
Imagine:
SK - "Okay, and for my next magnificat! But to find the right
work that will be perfect for the secret pattern no one will
ever discover! Hmmm. Getting more difficult all the time.
_The Aeneid_? Nah, done it. _The Painted Bird_? Nah. Hmmm.
Eureka! Broch's _The Death of Virgil_ with Phillip Stone!!!
Then I can kill two birds with one Stone!"
But it is just a game, right?
Thornhill
David Kirkpatrick
>
> >Hi Gordon -- yes this game is fun!
>
>
> Or, is it??
>
> >Dorati: Death
> >Kubrick: The Shining
> >parallel: obviously, TS deals with the horror of death and the
> >undead
>
> and "the horror of life"! (just a little interpretive divigation
> there)
Well, Dorati's take on it took me by surprise, but it makes sense after
thinking about it. The most important motif in the first three
movements is a kind of lightingbolt that opens each movement, though
differently in each case. Without trying to reduce S9 to program music,
here's my personal take on each movement:
1. Fear of death (lots of trembling in the music) Death as Divine.
2. Rage against death (violent reaction) Heroic response.
3. Pity for self and other mortals. Human response.
4. Love for others based on common humanity. Joy of life in face of
death. Transcendent "ricorso".
Oops, did I say those Vico references out loud?
> >Or another take on >Symphony #9? (Perhaps Aryan Papers would
> >have fit as a third movement >of the Ninth and EWS as the
> >fourth!) Or does the analogy simply break
> >down at this point?
>
> Uh...only at *this* point??
>
> >I'd like to think that EWS was Kubrick's Ode to Joyce! :-)
>
> Ah, Joy's Prick in that one! Bravo!
Thank you. For my next pun, I will perform, "Ode to Freud"
>
> The other stuff? A neat notion if not examined too closely.
> Sorta puts the cart before the horse, doesn't it?? (that's
> usually reserved for goins on at the Double-Q Ranch!).
>
> Imagine:
> SK - "Okay, and for my next magnificat! But to find the right
> work that will be perfect for the secret pattern no one will
> ever discover! Hmmm. Getting more difficult all the time.
> _The Aeneid_? Nah, done it. _The Painted Bird_? Nah. Hmmm.
> Eureka! Broch's _The Death of Virgil_ with Phillip Stone!!!
> Then I can kill two birds with one Stone!"
>
> But it is just a game, right?
>
Sure. It's only a game. Art is serious stuff.
Now the Holst-Kubrick connection: that might be a little stronger.
David
Gordon Stainforth
Kirkpatrick <dak...@home.com> wrote:
> That's opus 111. Freudean slip? (131 is my favorite
> quartet as 111 is
> my favorite sonata)
> But I agree with your thoughts.
> David
Yes, bad slip - especially since I've been struggling to
play it for about a decade! (It'll probably take me another
10 years)
And yes, I missed that thread re Dorati. It just shows
there's no new idea under the sun, doesnt it? But I do
find his schema rather / very far fetched. When I raised
it I had no intention of developing any kind of
'programme', more just a parallel with the shape and
number of his main corpus (though EWS of course
feels much more like a piece of chamber music than a
symphony)
Gordon Stainforth
<06e573a0...@usw-ex0108-063.remarq.com>
, Thornhill
<cthornhil...@worldnet.att.net.invalid> wrote:
> >Hi Gordon -- yes this game is fun!
> Or, is it??
Er, I'm starting to wonder whether I should never have
started this!! But if it's not fun, it's certainly very
funny!
> >Symphony 9 in D minor "Choral"
> >Dorati: Death
> >Kubrick: The Shining
> >parallel: obviously, TS deals with the horror of
> death and the
> >undead
> Oh...I thought this film was first and foremost about
> the living
> and "the horror of life"! (just a little interpretive
> divigation
> there)
> >Or another take on >Symphony #9? (Perhaps Aryan
> Papers would
> >have fit as a third movement >of the Ninth and EWS
as
> the
> >fourth!) Or does the analogy simply break
> >down at this point?
> Uh...only at *this* point??
God this is hilarious!!! I love that 'obviously', don't you,
and the 'dead and the undead' had me nearly on the
floor with hysterics. I agree with you, in my
simpleminded I always the Ninth was about the joy of
life, and a very idealistic appeal for everyone to live
happily together (Alle menchen ...)
> Eureka! Broch's _The Death of Virgil_ with Phillip
> Stone!!!
Phillip Stone yes, but Kubrick no. This should have
been Visconti's film, with a lot of very slow Mahler.
> Then I can kill two birds with one Stone!"
> But it is just a game, right?
Right
Gordon Stainforth
Kirkpatrick <dak...@home.com> wrote:
> Well, Dorati's take on it took me by surprise, but it
> makes sense after
> thinking about it.
OK, I'm going to be more serious (and totally OT) about
this now, because I think this analysis of the Ninth is
completely wrong.
The most important motif in the
> first three
> movements is a kind of lightingbolt that opens each
> movement, though
> differently in each case. Without trying to reduce S9
> to program music,
> here's my personal take on each movement:
> 1. Fear of death (lots of trembling in the music)
> Death as Divine.
I dont see this as anything to do with death. Rather the
exact opposite. As many people have commented
before it seems mostly to be about the Creation itself,
and if not the Cosmos coming to life, then at least
creation with a small c.
> 2. Rage against death (violent reaction) Heroic
> response.
Again, not my take on it at all. I think it was Wagner who
described it as being like a dance of the dinosaurs (a
wonderfully apt image). It certainly seems to represent
primitive high spirits, almost scary in it's boisterous
power.
> 3. Pity for self and other mortals. Human response.
I dont see any self pity in this (as I see very little in
any
of Beethoven -- perhaps the Cavatina? one notable
exception) It seems to me to be a much more
generalised emotion of nostalgia with a vast sense of
history, of looking back (and forward) across aeons.
Perhaps a tinge of sadness in that life rolls on with little
progress.
> 4. Love for others based on common humanity. Joy
of
> life in face of
> death. Transcendent "ricorso".
> Oops, did I say those Vico references out loud?
Yes up to a point, but joy as an alternative to futile
human conflict and war. The brotherhood of man set up
deliberately by LVB as an almost impossible,
unreachable ideal (all those straining top Cs etc). As
perhaps humanity's ultimate goal.
> Sure. It's only a game. Art is serious stuff.
> Now the Holst-Kubrick connection: that might be a
> little stronger.
> David
I dont think Holst is in the same class as an artist as
Kubrick (IMHO), so maybe we should keep off that!
Yes, art is serious AND a sort of game.
Cheers
David Kirkpatrick
>
> In article <3937AA72...@home.com>, David
> Kirkpatrick <dak...@home.com> wrote:
> > That's opus 111. Freudean slip? (131 is my favorite
> > quartet as 111 is
> > my favorite sonata)
> > But I agree with your thoughts.
> > David
>
> Yes, bad slip - especially since I've been struggling to
> play it for about a decade! (It'll probably take me another
> 10 years)
>
> And yes, I missed that thread re Dorati. It just shows
> there's no new idea under the sun, doesnt it? But I do
> find his schema rather / very far fetched. When I raised
> it I had no intention of developing any kind of
> 'programme', more just a parallel with the shape and
> number of his main corpus (though EWS of course
> feels much more like a piece of chamber music than a
> symphony)
>
> Gordon
I would agree that parallels with Beethoven Symphonies don't really make
sense before the Eroica Symphony. What Dorati says about Symphonies 1
and 2 isn't really programmatic, just a comment about the dates in which
they were written and the advance of 2 over 1.
But what he has to say about the 3rd, 5th, 6th isn't new at all and I
believe what he has to say about the 4th, 7th and 9th have some
precedents in 19th century musicology. (I was at a concert in which the
conductor echoed Dorati's comments about the Fourth without making
reference to Dorati. I've mentioned Wagner's famous comment about the
Seventh, a comment which inspired at least one ballet.)
It is perhaps the Eighth "Life Itself" which is the most farfetched
comment of Dorati. But as it pertains to Kubrick, the interesting thing
is that the notion that it looks back to the age of Haydn is a very
common one. And Barry Lyndon is certainly a backward glance towards the
18th century.
"Thornhill" took particular issue with the Dorati interpretation of the
Ninth as dealing with "Death". I think the resistance to this idea is
based on contrasting the negativity silence of death with the eloquence
and affirmation of the Ninth. Also it doesn't help for me to throw The
Shining into the mix. In fairness to Dorati, if we change the word
"Death" to "Mortality", then we have an interpretation that does better
justice to the profundity of the Ninth. I think of the Ninth as a
confrontation of mortality (much like Mahler's Ninth) in a way that is
ultimately triumphant -- but it has to get through a lot of darkness
before it reaches the light. To bring The Shining back into the
discussion, Jack Torrance represents an approach to one's mortality that
is 180 degrees opposite Beethoven's, ultimately dealing with the devil
to settle for a pathetic form of immortality instead of confronting his
own demons and achieving immortality through either the success of his
family or the creativity of his work. The Shining is certainly an
incomplete analogy to the Ninth, but perhaps it is analogous to the
first movement, Full Metal Jacket to the black humor of the scherzo and
Eyes Wide Shut somehow analogous the the third movement. "Lucky to be
alive" is a headline that appears in EWS. Premonition of AI being a
kind of Ode to Joy? Just a thought.
I wouldn't go overboard in defending the parallels I've noted, but it
seemed interesting enough to share. That Kubrick was the Beethoven of
film, symphony-aper or otherwise, is something I think many amk-ers
would agree upon.
David
David Kirkpatrick
>
> In article <3937D001...@home.com>, David
> Kirkpatrick <dak...@home.com> wrote:
>
> > Well, Dorati's take on it took me by surprise, but it
> > makes sense after
> > thinking about it.
>
> OK, I'm going to be more serious (and totally OT) about
> this now, because I think this analysis of the Ninth is
> completely wrong.
Fair enough. The Ninth is big enough to bear many alternate analyses.
> The most important motif in the
> > first three
> > movements is a kind of lightingbolt that opens each
> > movement, though
> > differently in each case. Without trying to reduce S9
> > to program music,
> > here's my personal take on each movement:
> > 1. Fear of death (lots of trembling in the music)
> > Death as Divine.
>
> I dont see this as anything to do with death. Rather the
> exact opposite. As many people have commented
> before it seems mostly to be about the Creation itself,
> and if not the Cosmos coming to life, then at least
> creation with a small c.
I'll grant you this, that the emergence of a theme out of nothingness in
the first movement is reminiscent of how Haydn begins The Creation. I
see your point of view. On the other hand, the creation of life doesn't
imply that it isn't mortal. Lightning bolts can be creative and
destructive; perhaps "power" should be identified as the theme. Since I
brought up Vico, I might as well make the point that for Vico,
terrifying "thunderclaps" mark the beginning and ending of cycles or (at
least in Joyce's interpretation) new phases within four-part cycles.
Perhaps for Dorati if it was not the terror of Beethoven's thunderclap
that made him associate the Ninth with death, it was the dramatic key
change that marks the beginning of the recapitulation. Perhaps that
struck him like the irregular heart-beat motif in the first movement of
Mahler's Ninth.
Well, I don't have major disagreements with any of your alternate
takes. I would just point out that I tried to match Kubrick films to
Dorati's interpretations rather than my own because it would be easy for
me to start hearing Kubrick themes in the music if I had only my
subjective interpretation to go by. I'll admit that this game is a
bigger stretch than most I play, but Beethoven and Kubrick are two
artists I feel I have in my bones (though not necessarily to the
tippy-top of my cerebral cortex), so its hard not to note patterns that
pop up.
> > Sure. It's only a game. Art is serious stuff.
> > Now the Holst-Kubrick connection: that might be a
> > little stronger.
> > David
>
> I dont think Holst is in the same class as an artist as
> Kubrick (IMHO), so maybe we should keep off that!
Nor are most of the writers whose novels Kubrick filmed. But the point
I would really like to make is that it is not Holst's music I am
matching Kubrick films against, but rather the associations with the
planets that inspired Holst in the first place. Holst didn't name Mars
the god of war or Venus the goddess of love, etc. Listening to Holst
won't help anyone decide whether the parallel makes sense or not.
> Yes, art is serious AND a sort of game.
Yes! Hey, aren't there nine players on a baseball team? ;-)
David