Adieu Stanley, Catch Ya Later

 
  Well, Stanley, this is where we part ways for now, alas. I could continue singing your praises almost eternally but this isn’t a Kubrick Fansite. I’ve saved one of the best parts for the denouement, though .In fact “singing” just might be the apropos verb here.






 


Stanley Kubrick has, for me at least, been the best example of something I was on about in these very pages a few months back - the sometimes beautiful, sometimes unsettling but always fruitful melding of music and cinema. I have not been able to see the musical “ Singing in the Rain”, nor have I been able to hear the Blue Danube Waltz, or the William Tell Overture, or Ode to Joy or a number of other musical pieces without being instantly and indelibly sent to a scene in one of Kubrick’s movies. Yes, he’s effectively nullified the original impact of that iconic scene from the Gene Kelly musical for me forever. He's also sent  my mind's eye to the moon when my ears used to tell me that I was  in a Viennese Ballroom.

 But , talk about the sum exceeding its parts! On more than many occasions I have, when looking to soothe my brain in anticipation of sleep, strapped on the well worn I-pod Touch and earphones ( the in-ear buds so nothing outside can intrude) and summoned the Blue Danube sequence from You Tube. Even on that miniscule screen, once the orchestra is struck up, I am stricken, most happily, with that wonderful combination of candy for both the eyes and ears and will happily doze off once it has finished. ( wow, I think I just rhapsodized there !! )




This, for me is one of the best parts of my Kubrick-itis.



It pops up elsewhere too. Whenever I hear The Beach Boys " All Summer Long " I am right back with Kurt, the young cerebral Richard Dreyfuss in American Graffitti leaving, bleary-eyed, on the early morning plane for college after a last furtive night of experience-cramming in small-town U.S.A. He looks down and on the highway is that spectral white T-Bird once more. You know, the one that just a few hours before had haunted him with flashes of " The most perfect, dazzling creature ever seen. " The camera spends a moment or two on his face and then cuts to a blue sky and the credits start to roll and All Summer Long's first cheerful chords begin. I am left to contemplate just how great the movie I just saw, was.  Damn, that's feel-good stuff!

 


But wait, there's more. The only instance for me of a two songs back-to-back in a movie experience of the same phenomenon. Ferris Bueller's Day Off  is the flick here and Ferris has disappeared. His best friend Cameron and girlfriend Sloane are looking for him in the middle of the Chicago Von Steuben Day parade. Boom! he turns up on a float amidst a bevy of Bavarian babes lip-synching   Wayne Newton's uber-cheesy  Danke Shoen. That's funky and quirky all by itself ( remember, this was an 80's teen flick.... ) and it's a satisfying moment even then but just as the dust is settling on that, the opening chords of The Beatles cover of The Isley Bros.  Twist and Shout  crank things up a notch or twelve and the next few minutes are just plain make ya feel good visual and musical manna from celluloid heaven. I won't describe it for ya, just check it out yourself, if you've not seen it before.

 I defy anyone who is battling the blahs to watch that sequence through and not get some feel-better out of it.  Double Damn, that's feel-good good stuff!

So, I'm 85% sated here just from going back to those moments above so there's not quite enough left for an onslaught of riddling. In fact, I'll follow your lead, Carolyn, and take a one entry hiatus from it. My previous entry was " belt". I shall return with more next time, make no mistake.



Don.





Fig. 1 - entertainment.time.com
Fig. 2 - just-mygoal.blogspot.com
Fig. 3 - locallygrownnorthernfield.org
Fig. 4 - theImagazine.com