“When there’s a question, the violins go up, and then they go down on the answer.”

More from Felix Martinez’s great interview with Gordon Stainforth:

Felix E. Martinez: I also love the cue where Jack and Danny are in the bedroom, and the question and answer dialogue between them is punctuated by the rising and falling violin glissandos in the music. When there’s a question, the violins go up, and then they go down on the answer – much like the cadence in our voices when we ask and answer a question. How did you manage to work that one out with a piece of pre-recorded music? Gordon Stainforth: That’s the contribution I’m proudest of in the whole movie! Stanley really liked the Bartok and I suddenly had this crazy idea that it must just work phenomenally well with that dialogue scene. So I just did it. I seem to remember working most of the night on it, because they were dubbing the music of that reel first thing in the morning. But to make it fit, if my memory is right, I had to cut out about 15-20 frames of the music with two very subtle cuts, and then we had to lengthen at least two of the cuts of Jack and Danny, and I think the very last cut to get the final chord to come right on the title ‘Wednesday.’ Ray agreed to this, first thing in the morning, which was great. Then I took the tracks over to the dubbing theatre and actually met Stanley just outside. He was initially appalled when I said I’d laid music over that scene – ‘oh we can’t have music there’ – but I just begged him to listen to it. I’d deliberately laid it on a separate track as a so-called ‘optional extra.’ I remember saying very simply something like ‘please just listen to it, because I’m sure you’ll like it.’ And he did, and he did! I remember feeling absolutely over the moon about this. [my emphasis added]

I keep thinking back to the title of that article about Alex North and Stanley Kubrick: "Stanley Hates This But I Love It" — whenever you are working for someone else, you run the risk that they will hate what you do, and throw your work out. And how much that hurts! As it did North when Kubrick rejected all his hard work on “2001”.

And also of a Kubrick quote that a director is an idea and taste machine — required to generate many ideas, and judge everyone else’s ideas, all on a strict deadline.

FM: Well, it’s amazing you did such an outstanding, detailed piece of work on such short notice! GS: As I say, I could talk for hours about this, certainly by far the most satisfying job I ever did in the film industry. I have really, really good memories of working with Stanley, and we seemed to get on incredibly well. We were both just really enthusiastic about the music. But on just a slightly sour note, one or two of my colleagues - who shall remain nameless – actually made a point of coming up to me and saying ‘great movie, but a bit wrecked by the music.’ I kid you not!

The first time I watched The Shining, I was a bit put off by some of the music — it verged on the cartoonish, how synched it was with the action — but over subsequent viewings I adjusted to it, and … well, here is my favorite quote ever about Kubrick; it leads off the 1971 edition of Alexander Walker’s book:

Only a few film directors possess a conceptual talent — that is, a talent to crystallize every film they make in to a cinematic concept… Essentially, it is the talent to construct a form that will exhibit the maker’s vision in an unexpected way, often a way that seems to have been the only possible one when the film is finally finished. It is this conceptual talent that most strongly distinguishes Stanley Kubrick.

First encounters with the unexpected tend to be disturbing. It is this which most strongly characterizes initial reviews of Kubrick films. Think of the apes’ initial reaction to the Monolith. They don’t like it suddenly popping up in their midst. Then…

Credit Stainforth for having the idea and not being afraid to put it out there, but also Kubrick for recognizing it, right away, as something which worked with the unique concept he had in mind for the Shining.

I believe part of that was “obscure synchronicity”. Two things happen together and it seems like they might be connected. Our whole belief in the supernatural is based on that, because there never can be any empirical evidence of it. If there ever was, then it would no longer be supernatural, and probably no longer that interesting.