2001: A Space Odyssey Featuring Philarmonia Orchestra and Chorus

Yesterday night I probably attended the most emotional event of my life so far. Since I am obsessed with Kubrick's work I just couldn't miss the occasion of rewatching his masterpiece with live orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall.

The event was presented in association with BFI with support from Warner Bros.

A Word from Christiane Kubrick about Stanley Kubrick

"Stanley was very happy when he came across Richard Strauss' Thus Spoke Zarathustra. For him it expressed the overwhelming thoughts and longings we all feel when we as children look at the sun and the moon and the stars. How wonderful it would be if we could know more, understand more and be a million times smarter. That's what I feel today when I am looking at the latest Hubble telescope-wonders. Last time he was at Royal Festival Hall Stanley heard Verdi's Requiem; he could never have imagined that his film 2001: A Space Odyssey would years later be projected in this very hall over a live orchestra performance. Stanley was interested in the politics of power and his film expresses a deep wish for humanity to survive and to escape self-destruction. Is there outside help? Can we count on it? Stanley was not religious, but, like most of us, speculated in the face of the unknowable, hidden in an endless universe in which our little planet may not play any role at all. But it's all we have - it is a world to us."

Music and films are for me the most powerful combination of arts. As the amazing conductor, Benjamin Wallfisch, started preparing for the big opening sequence, my heart was pounding, I was feeling the whole range of emotions that the film text, the immensity of the universe, and the glorious Strauss' music, could possibly suscitate. 

The most impressive thing was that the conductor standing in front of the screen and his orchestra, directing all the elements, checking the timing and emotional impact of the musical language, was like Kubrick. In that moment he became the director, feeling, suffering, for his work of art. And entering someone else's feeling and their intensity is not something everyone can do.

I want to thank the Philarmonia Orchestra, whose work is of immense importance. Thank you for giving me a new and different way of looking at one of my favourite films of all time.

Don't miss out my next post in which I will talk about the The Rest is Noise Festival, and about the great events you can attend during the next three months.

My Favourite Film Soundtracks

I always say that the process of making films does not only include directors and actors, but a wide range of people some of whom I'm trying to celebrate in my most recent posts. I've been thinking about listing my favourite film soundtracks for a long time and here they are! 

 "I can remember soundtracks that you just can't separate from the film -
It's just so intertwined,
so important.
Like the Hitchcock ones where they kind of inform each
other and become this larger thing as a result."
Jonny Greenwood

"The Sound of Silence" - Simon & Garfunkel from The Graduate (Mike Nichols, 1967)

"And in the naked light I saw

ten thousand people maybe more

people talking without speaking

people hearing without listening

people writing songs that voices never share

noone dare, disturb the sound of silence."

"Mrs. Robinson" - Simon & Garfunkel from The Graduate (Mike Nichols, 1967)

"Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio,
Our nation turns it's lonely eyes to you.
What's that you say, Mrs. Robinson.
Jolting Joe has left and gone away,

Hey hey hey."

"Moon River" - Henry Mancini from Breakfast at Tiffany's (Blake Edwards, 1961)

"Two drifters off to see the world.

There's such a lot of world to see.

We're after the same rainbow's end..."

"Oh Pretty Woman" - Roy Orbinson from Pretty Woman (Garry Marshall, 1990)

"Pretty woman, won't you pardon me

Pretty woman, I couldn't help see

Pretty woman

That you look lovely as can be

Are you lonely just like me..."

"Tara's Theme" - Max Steiner from Gone with the Wind (Victor Fleming, 1939)

"Le Tourbillon de la Vie" - Georges Delerue from Jules and Jim (Francois Truffaut, 1962)

"Chacun pour soi est reparti.

Dans l'tourbillon de la vie.

Je l'ai revue un soir ah là là

Elle est retombée dans mes bras."

"Also Sprach Zarathustra" - Strauss from 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)

"Sweet Transvestite" - Richard O'Brien from The Rocky Horror Picture Show (Jim Sharman, 1975)

"Don't get strung out by the way that I look,
Don't judge a book by its cover
I'm not much of a man by the light of day, 

But by night I'm one hell of a lover."

"Deborah's Theme" - Ennio Morricone from Once Upon A Time in America (Sergio Leone, 1984)

 "Tubular Bells" - Mike Oldfield from The Exorcist (William Friedkin, 1973)

"Think" - Aretha Franklin from The Blues Brothers (John Landis, 1980)

"You better think (think) think about what you're trying to do to me
Yeah, think (think, think), let your mind go, let yourself be free..."

"The Murder" - Bernard Herrmann from Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)

"Jack's Lament" - Danny Elfman from The Nightmare Before Christmas (Tim Burton, 1993) 

"Oh, there's an empty place in my bones
That calls out for something unknown
The fame and praise come year after year
Does nothing for these empty tears."

"Shark Attack" - John Williams from Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1975)

 "Shout" - The Isley Brothers from Animal House (John Landis, 1978)

"Every time I think about you, You feel so good to me
You know you make me want to (SHOUT)
Throw my hands back and (SHOUT)
Throw my head back and (SHOUT)
Kick my heels up and (SHOUT)."

"Come What May" - David Baerwald and Kevin Gilbert from Moulin Rouge (Baz Luhrmann, 2001)

"Oh, come what may, come what may
I will love you."

The story behind the song - Chelsea Hotel by Leonard Cohen

I started thinking about this new idea for the blog when I was listening to Leonard Cohen's 1985 live when he dedicates Chelsea Hotel to Janis Joplin. In that moment I thought that some songs in particular have entire personal stories behind them, so I will try to discover them, analyze the songs' lyrics and, when relevant, music videos.

Leonard Cohen wrote Chelsea Hotel no. 1 in 1972 and then replaced with Chelsea Hotel no. 2. I will now publish both songs' lyrics to see their differences, and the one thing they have in common, a splendid elegy by a songwriting's master to another, in memory of the great woman, and lover, Janis Joplin was. Nonetheless, with the glorious New York Chelsea Hotel as setting.

Chelsea Hotel #1  

                                                                                   
I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel  

You were talking so brave and so free
Giving me head on the unmade

bed
While the limousines wait in the street
And those were the reasons and that was New York
I was running for the money and the flesh
That was called love for the workers in song
It still is for those of us left.
But you got away, didn't you, baby?
You just threw it all to the crowd
You got away, they can't pay you now
For making your sweet little song
I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel,
In the winter of 67
My friends of that year they were all trying to go queer
And me I was just getting even
And those were the reasons and that was New York
I was running for the money and the flesh
That was called love for the workers in song
It still is for those of us left
But you got away, didn't you, baby?
You just threw it all to the crowd
You got away, they can't pay you now
For making your sweet little song

 Chelsea Hotel #2

I remember you
well in the Chelsea Hotel,
you were talking so brave and so sweet,
giving me head on the unmade bed,
while the limousines wait in the street.
Those were the reasons and that was New York,
we were running for the money and the flesh.
And that was called love for the workers in song
probably still is for those of them left.
Ah but you got away, didn't you babe,
you just turned your back on the crowd,
you got away, I never once heard you say,
I need you, I don't need you,
I need you, I don't need you
and all of that jiving around.

I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel
you were famous, your heart was a legend.
You told me again you preferred handsome men
but for me you would make an exception.
And clenching your fist for the ones like us
who are oppressed by the figures of beauty,
you fixed yourself, you said, "Well never mind,
we are ugly but we have the music."

And then you got away, didn't you babe...

I don't mean to suggest that I loved you the best,
I can't keep track of each fallen robin.
I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel,
that's all, I don't even think of you that often.  

As we can notice, the first version is a proper elegy focused on the singer's death, whereas the second one is more universal and focused on the world of music, on the pros and cons of success, and on the lust that accompanied them inside room 424.
Before performing the song, Leonard Cohen explained how they met in the hotel's elevator... In his words:

"Every concert that I give, I dedicate this song to a great American singer that I met one night in an elevator in a shabby hotel in New York City. It was a fine elevator, we found ourselves there often. I don't know what she was doing there, I think she was looking for Kris Kristofferson, I told her that I was Kris Kristofferson, but she said: "I thought he was bigger." I said I used to be bigger, but I've been sick. And we spent a little time together, and I love the way that she sang, and she died, and sometime later I think I was sitting at a bar in a Polynesian restaurant in Miami Beach, I don't know what I was doing that either. I have no programme, no five-year-plan. I just move from hotel to hotel, and from bar to bar, and by the grace of the one above, the song comes. And I remember sitting at this particularly abnotious Polynesian restaurant where they served a kind of coconut drink that was particularly little and sinister, which contained no alcohol, but a certain chemical that demoralized you entirely. And I remember writing on one of their very badly designed napkins  "I remember you well at the Chelsea Hotel..."

Link to the 1985 live version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVq9K3lGtN4

Lana del Rey recently covered the song and gave it an amazing hommage through her terrific performance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jj_myXdOLV0