The 10 most memorable songs in Stanley Kubrick films

just singin’ in the rain

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To this day, Stanley Kubrick remains undeniably one of cinema’s most important and influential figure. The American Director, master of adaptations,  not only introduced an innovative approach to storytelling contributing to the New Hollywood cinema, his work also greatly advanced film techniques. But we’re not here to discuss his technological prowess, today we look -or listen- instead at the music of his films.

While not always necessarily present, the soundtrack of a film is as important as the film itself. It reveals characters’ feelings, tells the audience what to expect, as well as what to feel. And there’s no doubt about it, Kubrick mastered it like no other.

“A film is – or should be – more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what’s behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later.” -Stanley Kubrick

If you focus of…

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Why Skin is A-peeling: Transgenesis in Cinema

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There are three realms of understanding: there are the things we know that we know; there is stuff we know that we don’t know; and then there’s stuff that we don’t even know that we don’t know. In my sophomore year English class, my high-heeled, leather-clad, too groupie to be a teacher teacher asked us to write a paper on what it means to be human. I was fifteen years old at the time, way too uncultured and privileged to even begin to understand the complexities of human nature in this second realm of understanding. By reading Pride and Prejudice, Macbeth, and A Tale of Two Cities, I was able to write a paper well enough to get an A in the class, but I certainly did not learn what it means to be human, nor could I recognize a question that, at the time, was in the third…

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Technology and the Writers of Tomorrow by Katie Kapro

Paving My Author's Road

Every summer in my small city, the streets of downtown are overrun by flocks of elementary school kids wielding notebooks and pencils. They wear neon yellow backpacks with “Summer Writing Camp” emblazoned on the front. The flocks, generally corralled by a teacher and TA, hole-up in coffee shops, museums, and public parks, dispersing amongst the patrons with eager observational stealth. They listen in on strangers’ conversations, taking notes on people’s speaking patterns, storytelling rhythms, and mannerisms. They eavesdrop, in other words.

All the kids in these flocks are aspiring writers. Somewhere along the line they fell in love with stories. Some will tell you it’s because they love to read, others because they love to imagine, others because they simply nerd out over the art of stringing words together. Twenty years ago, I was one of those kids; squarely in the reading camp.

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Buddhism, Nietzsche, Jung, Christianity, and Plato: Religious and Philosophical Themes in Westworld

Lost Among the Walking Dead

HBO recently aired the finale of the first season of Westworld, answering many of its most important questions and mysteries (Who is the Man in Black?  What is the Maze? Who is Wyatt? Were there multiple timelines? Are there other parks?). There are many blogs, sites, and podcasts devoted to the show in which you will find theories and discussions about the multiple mysteries of the show (see some recommendations at the end of the article, although I particularly recommend Joanna Robinson’s coverage of the show in Vanity Fair). This post though will only outline some of the many religious and philosophical ideas behind the show, something that you don’t see covered so much in most articles and sites dedicated to Westworld. The point of the article is not to conclude that the creators have purposefully used these religious and philosophical ideas to construct the unique worldview of the…

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Eyes Wide Shut and the Paranoid Style in American Pop Culture

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What is it about Stanley Kubrick that makes people crazy?

I was truly excited about the release of last year’s film Room 237—as a historian and Kubrick fan, the idea of an hour or two of deep interpretation of the themes and symbolism of his 1980 horror classic The Shining sounded delightful.  It would be like taking a cultural history or film studies class where all the insights of a semester’s discussions were distilled into one megacut.

As it turned out, though, the film was more like a documentary about a cult or conspiracy theory, or simply the adherents of a weird fetish or hobby (say, a King of Kong for ersatz anthropologists).  Fairly ludicrous and elaborate inferences about the genocide of Native Americans or the faking of the Moon landing were narrated by the film’s motley, disembodied lot of amateur analysts, who even admitted that they may be…

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Potato Chips & Giant Pumpkins: The Secrets of Horror Film Effects Revealed…

In my personal opinion, one of the true hallmarks of a good horror film is great utilization and creation of sound. I’m not just talking about sound quality, I’m talking about tone, pitch, practical sound effects and even the complete absence of sound when it’s necessary. I feel like the element of sound than often goes under appreciated by filmmakers, thus making for some pretty crappy horror, if you ask me. If you get a chance, I highly suggest checking out this short video by David F. Sandberg (creator of Lights Out) talking about the importance of sound in film – seriously interesting!

“The right sound is sometimes really hard to nail down. Sometimes just silence is a beautiful thing.” -David Lynch (Director)

Let’s focus on practical sound effects for now though. This week I was surfing the internets (as I do so often) and I came across a cool article written by Andrea Strong on Refinery29. The article reveals some of the creative ways horror producers create practical sound effects using household items. Each factoid is also accompanied by some absolutely great artwork by Mallory Heyer, whose portfolio you should definitely check out. From pumpkins to whole grain pasta, bags of chips to chocolatey syrups. Everything you need to make a realistic sounding horror film is probably laying around in your own kitchen right now.

I. Casaba Melon

According to the book, Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho, by Stephen Rebello, this was the kind of melon that Hitchcock decided to use to produce the sound of Janet Leigh being stabbed over, and over, and over in that scenefrom Psycho. Apparently they tried using a watermelon at first, but it just didn’t cut it for old Alfred. As legend has it, Hitchcock would close his eyes while his prop man hacked away at different kinds of melons. After several messy auditions, Hitchcock decided that the ‘Casaba’ would be his melon of choice.

II. Watermelon

So, it turns out that watermelons aren’t completely useless on horror movie sets. Apparently, when you smash a watermelon it quite resembles the sound of somebody’s head being split open. Don’t believe me? Scrape together some loose coins and buy a watermelon solely for the purpose of smashing it on the pavement. If you do, compare it to this, then come back and tell me what you think.

III. Pumpkins

Giant pumpkins are often put to use to mimic the sound of someone’s heart and internal organs being ripped out of their stomach. Sound specialists on the set simply cut the top off of a pumpkin and start pulling out pulp and seeds with their hands. Yeah, keep that in mind when you’re carving pumpkins this halloween.

IV. Dried Pasta

THIS one honestly makes me cringe just writing about it. To create the sounds of bones breaking and ankles twisting, sound artists play around with all different kinds of pasta, cracking and smashing them in different ways to get their desired sound. I wonder what kind of noodles they used to create the sound of Paul Sheldon’s foot breaking in this scene from Misery?

V. Potato Chips

I want to start off by saying that smashing potato chips with no intention of eating them is a cardinal sin, it’s just plain EVIL. If I was working on a movie-set and my director told me to step on a bag of salt and vinegar Lays to only create the sound of walking through a forest, I think I might be out of a job. I mean it totally works, but what a waste!

VI. Celery, Lettuce and Bok Choy

Spoiler alert: These are NOT the key ingredients to make a delicious, healthy salad. If you take these veggies and roll them up, twist them and contort their shapes in different ways, you can produce the authentic sound of muscles tearing and skin ripping apart. Don’t believe me!? Let’s take a look at another classic clip then, shall we?

VII. Chocolate Syrup

More deliciousness coming your way. Back in the day when films were still in black and white, chocolate syrup was used as blood because it created a darker contrast on the skin.

“But who would waste perfectly good syrup like that!?”

VIII. Corn Syrup

Today, in the world of color, prop managers and SFX designers prefer to use corn syrup mixed with red and yellow food coloring to create realistic looking blood stains and splatters. For example…

IX. Half-Coconuts, Stuffed with Padding

You can probably already guessed what these are used for. When it’s necessary, hollowed out coconuts are used to recreate the sound of horses galloping. Perfect for a headless horseman chase sequence, or a scene of a black stallion losing it’s head.

Long live practical FX.

Film Study: How Andrei Tarkovsky Inspired ‘The Revenant’

The other day I was doing some exploring on the interwebs (as I so often do) and I came across an incredible video edit made by The Petrick, a direction/animation company based in Moscow, Russia. The less than three minute clip is a side by side comparison of 17 scenes from several of Andrei Tarvovsky’s earlier works, to Alejandro Iñárritu’s The Revenant (2015). You can check out the full video for yourself, below.

The Revenant vs. Stalker

 

I was so taken by the clip that I decided to contact the creators and ask them some questions about the project, simply to satisfy my own curiosity. I was able to get in touch with Misha Petrick, the head producer of the company and she was kind enough to write me back. I asked her what drove her to create this piece and humbly, this is what she had to say:

“The idea of making The Revenant by Tarkovsky hasn’t came into my mind while I was watching a movie – I’ve heard about the influence that Andrei Tarkovsky‘s films had on Iñárritu’s movie, and a couple days ago I saw an article with a few shots with a comparison. After that I immediately started to review films of Andrei Tarkovsky as well as The Revenant to find more references. I managed to find 17 scenes from the each side and they perfectly fit in the main theme from The Revenant. I was in a hurry to finish it because it seemed to me that someone could make the same cut right now because the similarities between the two films were so obvious. In my opinion Lubezki cites Tarkovsky in his work not for the first time, for example The Tree of Life is very similar to Tarkovsky’s The Mirror. I hope that these videos will be useful for those who are just beginning to understand the language of cinema, or making films themselves.” – Misha Petrick

So there you have it. If you’ve yet to experience any of Tarvovsky or Iñárritu’s work I highly suggest that you do. If you have seen these films, what did you think about the parallels shown in the video above? What other inspirations did you notice? What are your thoughts on these films now that you’ve seen this? I’m incredibly curious and would love to hear what you have to say in the comments.

For more fantastic film tributes and analyses such as this, you can follow The Petrick on Vimeo.