There is the use of the music of the past to illuminate a vision of the future ( 2001): the exploration of what music might become, given different bodies and minds ( The Fifth Element): and how music might become a way of communication when language proves inadequate ( Close Encounters).Īny definition of a field as broad as classical music – or science fiction – must include or exclude particular works on a relatively arbitrary basis. Yet these films mirror three of the ways in which science fiction writers treat music. Besson’s opera singer may have blue skin and more than the usual number of limbs, but her voice remains that of the Albanian soprano Inva Mulla Tchako. Music, like special effects, is limited by the technology available when the film is made: written SF is limited in its effects only by the imagination of the reader. Portrayals of future music are also omitted, such as the alien diva’s rendition of the 'Mad Scene' from Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor (1835) in The Fifth Element (dir. Spielberg, 1977), in which a simple five-note motif becomes a means of communicating with aliens. Neither will Close Encounters of the Third Kind (dir. Kubrick, 1968: featuring Richard Strauss’ 1896 Also Sprach Zarathustra) won’t be discussed here. That serendipitous coupling of Strauss and space in 2001: A Space Odyssey (dir. This article focuses on written SF, rather than the cinema. Vector is the critical journal of the British Science Fiction Association This article, which is © Tanya Brown (1999) and may not be used without permission from the author, first appeared in Vector #204, March/April 1999.
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