Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1 – Early Projects
Chapter 2 – Love Themes, Leitmotifs, and Pop Music
Chapter 3 – The Music of the Spheres
Chapter 4 – “It Was Lovely Music That Came to My Aid”
Chapter 5 – “I Was Lucky Enough to Have Superb Material to Work
With”
Chapter 6 – Midnight, the Stars, and You
Chapter 7 – Kubrick’s Final Word
Appendices
Films and Their Source Material
Synopses of
Soundtracks and Track Lists
Bibliography
Christine Lee Gengaro, PhD, is associate professor in the department of music at Los Angeles City College. She has contributed essays to The Journal of Popular Music and Society, Anthony Burgess and Modernity (2008), and The Worlds of Back to the Future (2010).
This is a fascinating look at the films of Kubrick as well as the
importance that music plays in setting a scene in a film. It is
appropriate for larger universities with extensive film studies
collections.
*American Reference Books Annual*
In a study that focuses on Kubrick's use of music in both his
full-length features and his documentaries, Gengaro (Los Angeles
City College) succeeds in her aim to reach readers both with and
without musical background. As is well-known from the literature on
Kubrick, especially Paul Merkley's article "'Stanley Hates This but
I Like It!': North vs. Kubrick on the Music for 2001: A Space
Odyssey" (published in the fall 2007 issue of The Journal of Film
Music), there are behind-the-scenes twists and turns with the
director's decision making vis-à-vis music: for example, his opting
to use a temp score rather than composer Alex North's original
music. This aspect, sometimes believed to be simply Kubrick's own
sense of directorial authority, makes the history of the music
difficult to track down. Gengaro offers analyses that will satisfy
those who know the film music and at the same time enable those new
to the study of film music to find a place to begin their
explorations. An engaging read, this book is the most comprehensive
study of its kind in English. Summing Up: Essential. All
readers.
*CHOICE*
Christine Gengaro’s book is a comprehensive overview and analysis
of American film director Stanley Kubrick’s musical practices. A
notable extension of her dissertation research on Kubrick’s A
Clockwork Orange, it fills an important gap in the bibliography of
film studies, Kubrick studies, and film score studies, locating
important sources for research on Kubrick’s soundtracks and
highlighting some of the major scholarly arguments and concerns
surrounding his work. This book is a compendium, pulling together
diverse materials on the director’s approach to film scoring:
Kubrick biographies, commentaries on his craft, articles on the
effects of his musical choices, and analyses of the scores
themselves, including composition and reception histories for the
many pre-existing pieces he used. In short, Listening to Stanley
Kubrick should be any scholar’s first stop when embarking upon a
study of the auteur’s musical choices. . . .Gengaro also shares
many of her own observations, based on a wide breadth of research,
while making reference to and synthesizing the work of other
scholars in the field. What makes her book especially valuable,
then, is its usefulness as an introduction to lines of scholarly
inquiry that are essential to understanding not only Kubrick’s
approach to scoring his films, but also trends in the academic
study of Kubrick more generally. Listening to Stanley Kubrick is a
biography, a bibliography, and a preliminary analysis of Kubrick
and his musical choices, and is an important first stop for
anyone—scholar, enthusiast, or both—looking to pursue a deeper
understanding of Stanley Kubrick’s influential body of films.
*Notes: Quarterly Journal of the Music Library Association*
Listening to Stanley Kubrick is intended foremost to be a useful
resource for anyone interested in the music in Kubrick’s films. It
achieves this goal and much more. Readers who are unfamiliar with
any of the films will find it an excellent starting place.
*Journal of the Society for American Music*
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