“I have been compromised. I am now fighting against it.” Ligeti vs. Kubrick and the music for 2001: A Space Odyssey

Authors

  • Julia Heimerdinger Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/jfm.v3i2.127

Keywords:

2001: A Space Odyssey, Ligeti, Kubrick, lawsuit

Abstract

Since the release of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1968, there have been several different accounts of how György Ligeti’s music (Requiem, Atmosphères, Lux Aeterna and Aventures) came to be in Kubrick’s film and much discussion as to whether Ligeti had been treated fairly. One often repeated version asserts that his works were used without permission and that he got only $3,000 in the end. With the help of contemporary witnesses, letters and previously unexploited papers from the György Ligeti collection at the Paul Sacher Foundation in Basel (Switzerland), as well as the findings of Other Author, this article tries to reconstruct the events and traces Ligeti’s legal steps, simultaneously looking at the composer’s changing attitudes towards the film over the years.

References

Culshaw, John. 1982. Putting the record straight: the autobiography of John Culshaw. London: Secker & Warburg.

Gottwald, Clytus. 1998. “Hallelujah”’ und die Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta.

Heimerdinger, Julia. 2007. Neue Musik im Spielfilm. Saarbrücken: Pfau.

Lee, Joanna Ching-Yun. 1993. György Ligeti’s Aventures and Nouvelles Aventures: A documentary history. PhD dissertation, Columbia University.

Ligeti, György. 2001. Ligeti im Streit mit Kubrick: für 3000 Dollar 2001-Atmosphäre – Interview with György Ligeti. Die Welt, 1 March.

Merkley, Paul. 2007. “Stanley hates this but I like it!”: North vs. Kubrick on the music for 2001: A Space Odyssey. Journal of Film Music 2, no. 1, 1-34.

McQuiston, Kate. “An effort to decide”: More research into Kubrick’s Music Choices for 2001: A Space Odyssey. Journal of Film Music 3, no. 2, 145-54.

Osborne, Richard. 2002. Herbert von Karajan: Leben und Musik. Vienna: Paul Zsolnay Verlag.

Published

2011-09-13

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

Heimerdinger, J. (2011). “I have been compromised. I am now fighting against it.” Ligeti vs. Kubrick and the music for 2001: A Space Odyssey. Journal of Film Music, 3(2), 127-143. https://doi.org/10.1558/jfm.v3i2.127

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