Free Listening to Stanley Kubrick by Christine Lee Gengaro

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    North’s use of the leitmotif technique in Spartacus was particularly effective, since it allowed the audience to recognize—within North’s wall-to-wall score—certain important musical gestures. The character of Spartacus has a theme, as do the slaves. Spartacus’s love interest, Varinia, also has her own theme. North not only wrote different melodies for these themes but chose different instrumentation based on the context of the scene. The orchestra at North’s disposal had almost ninety pieces, including some unusual instruments North thought would enhance the sound of the cues. 20 He was also aware of the emotional associations of certain instrumentation.
    I tried for a deliberately cold and barbaric quality, avoiding strings until the thirteenth reel, when the love story begins to blossom between Kirk Douglas and Jean Simmons. . . . I relied on combinations of brass, woodwinds and some quite unusual and exotic percussion—for instance, I underscored a party scene with Novachord, vibes, marimba, boo-bams, crotales, fixed piano, harp, lute, guitar, sleigh bells (various pitches) and Chinese tree bell. 21
    North clearly equates the strings with love, but in contrast Bernd Schultheis, composer and Kubrick scholar, believes that the use of strings—not just in Spartacus but across Kubrick’s oeuvre—represents loneliness or solitude. He uses as an example the scene in which Roman senator Crassus attempts to seduce Varinia. The instrumentation of the cue is solo violin (emphasizing Varinia’s aloneness without Spartacus) accompanied by other string instruments and ondioline, an electronic keyboard instrument. Varinia refuses the advances of Crassus, refuses to love him. Varinia’s theme—a symbol of the love between Varinia and Spartacus—emerges as almost an echo in her memory and plays against a theme associated with Crassus. Schultheis explains that the combination of leitmotifs shows “Varinia’s faithfulness towards Spartacus and her steadfastness.” 22
    Synopsis and Score Description for Spartacus
    Spartacus begins with an overture of triumphant music. 23 Like the overtures to many operas, it is, in fact, derived from cues within the main work. Despite the ending of the film, which involves the crucifixion and death of the title character, the music here betrays none of the troubles ahead. It is straightforward and lively, with a parade-like atmosphere. Spartacus’s theme is a fanfare. After the overture, the triumphant music continues through the main titles. Drum cadences on the snare proliferate in the main title, suggesting the martial music of soldiers or of training. For the visuals, Kubrick has chosen stills of a statuary, but mostly small details: hands, the very tips of swords, a pair of lips, Latin inscriptions in stone. As the musical cue grows louder and more frantic, Kubrick switches to the images of faces in sculpture. He fades them in and out, while the cue crescendos to a fever pitch. As the music bubbles over, the last face begins to splinter and crumble, a symbol of the fall of Rome. One musical cue that is absent from the overture and the main titles is the theme that represents Varinia and the relationship between her and Spartacus.
    As the voiceover explains that Rome is “fatally stricken with a disease called human slavery,” North has chosen instrumentation for the cue that seems to echo the work of the slaves: metallic percussion sounds and the plucking of the harp (along with low brass), which mimic the pick and axe work of the slaves in the mines. The melody is in a minor key. After Batiatus chooses Spartacus as one of his gladiators, they travel to Capua accompanied by a modal melody. 24 No music accompanies Batiatus’s speech to the slaves, their branding, or the beginning of the training by Marcellus.
    The next musical cue appears after Batiatus and Marcellus choose a female companion for Spartacus. Varinia is sent to Spartacus and when she enters his cell, the