Listening to Stanley Kubrick (6 page)

The tension returns when the track bartender, Mike O’Reilly, visits the bedside of his sick wife. As he pulls out the note Unger slipped him at the track, there’s a driving theme accented by dissonant stopped brass mocking the racing fanfare.

When the teller, George Peatty, returns home to his wife, Sherry, we hear a jazzy song playing in the background. The music continues as Sherry goes to see Val, her lover, and plays as the scene fades to black. When we rejoin Sherry and Val, the jazz music is replaced by ominous underscore when Sherry mentions that George is going to be part of a heist at the racetrack. The cue Fried called “George, That’s How” begins with a repeating figure in the low strings:

Fried added short gestures in the horns, trumpets, piano, and percussion that enhance the tension of the cue. Sherry initially plans to take George’s share of the money, but Val thinks he might be able to steal it all.

At the meet-up with Johnny, George, Mike, Kennan, and Unger, there is no underscore as the men discuss the plan. But when they hear a noise, Fried’s score reflects their suspicion with a high pizzicato note. The music, sinister and questioning, continues as the boys accuse George of telling his wife about the plan. Later, when George and Sherry are both home, the music again is the improvised jazz that seems to be Sherry’s signature. The music swells as the scene—with George and Sherry kissing—fades to black. Kubrick and Fried forgo underscore in the ensuing two scenes: Johnny asks the wrestler, Maurice, to provide a distraction at the track and Johnny hires the sharp-shooter, Nikki.

After meeting with Nikki, Johnny drives to a motel and asks for a room for the week. Ominous dissonant chords with snare rolls play as Johnny puts a bag in the drawer and locks the room. In the next scene, Sherry walks out of her bedroom to find George drinking coffee in the kitchen. Her actions are accompanied by a meandering line in the clarinet:

Once the music stops, the only sound is the ticking of a clock, echoing George’s nervousness. He is anxious, Sherry correctly guesses, because it is the day of the heist.

At the track, Fried’s dissonant fanfare in the muted brass plays as we see Red Lightning, the horse favored to win the race. Johnny talks to Unger before he leaves for the track. Under their discussion is a version of the main theme, which gradually becomes tenser, louder, higher, and more elaborately orchestrated. The cue continues through the next scene as Johnny makes arrangements with the man at the motel. By the time Johnny stashes a shotgun in a box of flowers, the theme is bellowing in the brass section. Instead of continuing the gradual crescendo, Fried occasionally pulls back, giving us momentary respite from the heavy tension, but never quite breaking it either. The score does not stop; it just recedes into the lower parts of the orchestra, under the dialogue. Fried manages to keep the audience anxious, without having the score unduly intrude on the action. The underscore only disappears when Kubrick cuts to the first race.

Unger shows up at the track—unexpectedly—and Fried’s score re-appears with a driving rhythm and tremolos in the winds. Rising four-note figures, played by different instruments, accompany patrolman Kennan’s drive to the track. When he stops the police car under the open window—from which Johnny will throw the stolen cash—the brass plays a final dissonant fanfare and briefly falls silent. Similar music, drawing upon elements of the original main theme, appears under scenes in which Maurice takes his place at the track to start his diversion and as Nikki drives to the track.

After Nikki shoots Red Lightning, we jump backward in time a few hours. Johnny is on his way to the track. The racing fanfare plays, as do some new elements in the high strings. Fried includes the rising four-note figures as well. The result is a relentlessly forward-moving cue, one that continues to grow in both tension and complexity. Johnny’s preparations for the robbery (putting on a mask, getting the gun) and the immediate aftermath, are accompanied by snare rolls, but the actual robbery is unaccompanied by the score. The brass play loudly as Johnny makes his escape from the track.

When Kennan, O’Reilly, and Peatty meet up afterward, they listen to the radio and jazz music begins to play after a news bulletin about the heist. It plays as Val enters, looking for the money. George shoots Val, setting off a shootout after which only George is left alive, although wounded. Meanwhile, Johnny retrieves the duffle bag full of cash from the motel, the score more dissonant and driving than ever. Johnny sees George stumble out of the apartment, wounded, so he drives away, intending to keep the money. As Johnny stashes the loot in an old suitcase, the opening musical conflict of three versus four appears. The jazz music re-appears as George returns home to find Sherry waiting for Val and packing her suitcase. George shoots her and then dies himself.

The rising figures in the orchestra play under the establishing shot of the airport. Due to airline rules, Johnny and Fay are forced to check the bag full of money, instead of carrying it in the cabin. As they wait outside to board their plane, a runaway dog causes Johnny’s suitcase to fall off a luggage cart. The money spills out and is blown away by the turbines of the surrounding planes. Johnny and Fay nervously return to the airport while the three versus four conflict music of the opening plays. This time, the tempo is a bit slower, almost halting, as Fay and Johnny realize they are going to be caught. They try to get a taxi but cannot, and two plainclothes policemen draw their guns and advance on Johnny as “The End” appears on-screen.

This score is Fried’s densest score yet. There is a cue for nearly every scene. True to form, Kubrick and Fried chose to provide music for the tensest parts of the narrative, but left it out during the race, the actual robbery, and Maurice’s diversion (which is basically a wrestling match). Composer Bernd Schultheis observed that the score “is built in modules and can therefore easily be adjusted to the dramatic needs and cutting sequences. It outlines the action superficially and sometimes, to increase the tension, grows beyond the confines of the images.”
39
Fried’s cues, constructed in multiple sections, allowed him flexibility to use bits and pieces throughout the film in order to suit whatever each scene required.

Synopsis and Score Description for
Paths of Glory

The final collaboration between Kubrick and Fried was
Paths of Glory
. What Kubrick does with the sound and music in this film represents what some may see as a turning point in his development. The sound aspect of this film is extremely important. As in other Kubrick films, there are moments where there is no musical underscore at all, and in those moments the sounds take center stage. The sound of gunfire, of artillery, of footsteps: these are the sounds of war. But there are also moments of music and their scarcity speaks volumes of meaning. The opening credits are accompanied by an orchestral version of
La Marseillaise
.
40
Fried has added some snare rolls to this version of the anthem to give it a distinctive military flavor. The song is not allowed to resolve as it was written, but instead ends on dissonant chords that give the listener the sense that something isn’t quite right.

When the film begins, a voiceover explains some historical background on World War I, but underneath this voiceover, Fried has taken the opening phrases of
La Marseillaise
and altered them to form dissonant, distorted versions of the original music, wordlessly commenting on the nature of this conflict.

French General Broulard (Adolphe Menjou) asks fellow general Mireau (George Macready) if his troops can take a position called the German Ant Hill. Mireau first argues this is impossible until Broulard dangles the possibility of a promotion in front of him. Mireau agrees to try it. He asks Colonel Dax (Kirk Douglas) to engage his men in this battle. Dax believes that it will be a difficult assignment, if it is possible at all, but follows orders, bravely leading his men. When the men cannot advance, Mireau claims the men are cowards and orders that the soldiers be urged on by friendly fire. The order is refused and the surviving men retreat. Mireau, angry at the outcome, demands that one hundred men die in front of a firing squad for cowardice. Broulard convinces him that three men will do. Colonel Dax—who was a civilian lawyer before the war—defends the three men in court, although he is not allowed to enter much evidence in their defense. Despite Dax’s efforts and the testimony of the men, the three soldiers are killed by the firing squad.

For most of the film, if there is music at all, it is percussive in nature. Gerald Fried’s longest cue in the film underscores the scene of the night patrol. Lieutenant Roget, who spends most of his time drunk, takes two men with him on patrol and sends one ahead to scout. When the man does not return, Roget becomes anxious and wants to leave. Assuming the scout is dead, and fearing enemy fire, Roget throws a grenade that ends up killing his own man. There are a few important musical gestures in this segment. One features steady hits on a bass drum. A second is a four-note motif intended for a dampened timpani, although Fried said that he ended up changing the instrumentation to a tuned tom-tom because he was not able to find a timpani in Munich—where the score was recorded—that could play the highest note in the motif.

This motif grows in intensity, as the last note—the high A—becomes three notes, then more. The third motif is a tick tock cue very similar to the one heard in
Fear and Desire
, this time played by a timpani.