Careful with that Axe (Jack)

"It was no longer a group. It was just a marketing exercise that had nothing to do with music."
-Roger Waters (3.33)

The music of Pink Floyd has long been associated with film. The music group rose to international stardom in the course of composing soundtracks for European art films. A cinematic quality, and the use of special effects sounds, are distinct characteristics of the music of Pink floyd. A complete audio-visual experience is a Pink Floyd trademark. In 1969 the band released their first soundtrack recording for the movie More. This would be followed by a complete soundtrack album for the film La Vallee. The use of "Come in Number 51, Your Time is Up" (a.k.a. "Careful with that Axe Eugene") in Zabriskie Point was revolutionary in the way that the pop music track completely dominated the film space. The band was truly on the cutting edge of film music. As David Gilmour is quoted to have said: "We would have done almost anything in terms of film." (7) In the middle of this film music production spree the group released "Meddle". The album wasn't a soundtrack album but it had a distinct cinematic quality. Michael Watts called it: "a soundtrack to a non-existent movie." (7) Many people, however, think otherwise. When the last song on the album, Echoes, a symphonic poem with a choral apotheosis, is played simultaneously with the end of 2001, "Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite", the twenty plus minute song works strikingly well as a soundtrack. This idea is explained at the Synchronicity Arkive. Roger Waters is reported to have admitted that his "greatest regret" is that they didn't do the score for 2001: A Space Odyssey. (7)

Kubrick probably wasn't a fan of the group though the association between the band and him is not random at all. If Kubrick was to exploit the music of Pink Floyd in the same way that Pink Floyd may have exploited the work of the film-maker, then we might think of it as a sort of payback, or getting even. We might even think of it as a sort of confrontation, rather than repression, of a certain past murder - something that happened about ten years previously that is.

"One of these days I'm going to cut you into little pieces"

There are several allusions to 2001 in The Shining, such as Danny's Apollo sweater, the Tang container (out of place in the classy hotel), and even the decor of room 237 and the way in which scene is shot, brings to mind the hotel room setting in the end of 2001. The setting of the hotel, and the sense of isolation and remoteness that it induces, might be seen as another similarity to 2001. The framing of the snow cat as Halloran returns in the end, for example, is strikingly similar to the shots of the space pods towards the end of 2001.

After Meddle, Pink Floyd would break ground in music film production as well with the release of Pink Floyd Live at Pompeii, a live performance movie, as well as the 1981 film The Wall. In several Pink Floyd songs one can sense an underlying resentment of the mode of production and the culture industry. This is expressed quite explicitly on the album "Wish You Were Here". Just look at the album cover. Isn't that the lot of a movie studio, though? Also consider the paradoxical success of the poppy Free Four. A recurring theme in both the films of Stanley Kubrick and the music of Pink Floyd is communication, particularly the failure to communicate. This theme adds something of a self-reflexive tone to the works of both. This might be one possible motive for collaboration between the director and the musicians. Making a film for Kubrick involved a struggle for control of the final product in light of the many cultural, institutional, and technological determinants involved in the film making process. There are several similarities in the general attitudes and ideas expressed by both camps.

One film that works well with a mirror soundtrack, as The Shining does, is Ridley Scott's Blade Runner. Footage from the beginning credit sequence of The Shining is used at the end of that film. Stanley Kubrick reportedly sent Scott over six hours of footage to use for the sequence. When Roger Waters asked Kubrick for permission to use sound effects from 2001 for a solo album, Amused to Death, he was refused. Why would Waters go through the trouble of putting a backwards message to Stanley Kubrick on the album Amused to Death? There certainly is a sort of psychedelic quality in some of Kubrick's work. The final flight sequence in 2001 has definitely become something of a psychedelic film cliche. In other films Kubrick incorporates similar effects through extreme wide angle shots, bright colors, and freaky carpet designs and such.

The sound effects used in The Shining are remarkably similar to those used in Echoes, the final track on Meddle. The howling wind and the bird sounds are nearly, if not exactly, the same.