Echoes 2001: A Pink Floyd Odyssey
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I have heard and seen "Dark Side of the Wizard of Oz." Same holds true for "Alice in the Wall-derland." Trust me, they both pale in comparison to the best Pink Floyd syncronization ever. Yes, you can stretch the lyrics so they seem analagous to the action on screen; but that is the mind's interpretation, because words have numerous meanings, especially when strung into a poetic sentance. The gauge of syncronicity should lie in the music itself, untouched and in a way that is less open to interpretation. To that end let me point out that Dark Side runs out in the middle of Wizard of Oz; and to make The Wall work with Alice in Wonderland, you have to shave the album. There is no existant synchronicity that would point to deliberate action on Pink Floyd's part.So let me challenge you to try this one for size. Pull out your CD "Meddle" (my favorite by Pink Floyd) and rent a copy of 2001: A Space Odyssey. The movie is divided up into different "acts." The final act, "Jupiter and Beyond," is repleate with the Oscar-winning special effects that were groundbreaking at the time - and are still, in most places, pretty fresh today. There is not one spoken word throughout this 23 minute, 25 second act. Instead, the silence is only broken by a gawdawful "avante guarde" modern operatic travesty of ascending voices that willfully hurts the ears. Who knows what Kubrick was thinking, but this has to be one of the worst scores in one of the best movies ever.Along comes Echoes, a song only 3 seconds longer than "Jupiter and Beyond."Now the length of time may be almost synchronous, but there is much more."Jupiter and Beyond" is presented in a series of visual themes... the first is outer space; the second is one very colorful special effects extraveganda that is homogenous, edited only with flashes of the astronaut's eyes (probably the most memorable part of this act); the third another special effects show that is made of short clips done with all kinds of nifty optical effects and in-camera genious, then edited together; the fourth is false-color shots of mountains, oceans and iceburgs that was meant to convey an alien planet's surface; the fifth is a small room that the main character, David Bowman, ages in until he is on his deathbed; and the final theme is back into outer space.So what does this have to do with Echoes and synchronicity? Well, Echoes is comprised of six thematic parts as well, which are practically syncronous in segue with the film's. Most notably, the midsection of the song has no music, but the members of Pink Floys make crazy, animal-like shreaks and howls - sounds that might evoke some prehistoric or alien creature. This section begins as the false-color images start to play out, and segues back to psychedelic music as Kubrick's movie cuts from those images to David Bowman shaking and sweating in his capsule. So you are hearing haunting, alien cries against an filmic alien land. This is perhaps the most promenent synchronicity, because the images and the sound work so well together and change up at the same time. But this holds true of all thematic segues in the music and the movie.So what does this mean? There are two ways to think about it. Either it is pure chance... or maybe the boys in Floyd decided they couldn't stand the Kubrick soundtrack and were inspired to make their own, more listenable version. Although that certainly comes to mind when you see how much like a true soundtrack it is, synchronous to nearly the second with the themes and the entire act, I will err on the side of caution and say it is just happy coincidence. So how do you do it? Simple... At the moment the title "Jupiter and Beyond" disappears, hit play so you hear the first piano "clink" right there. Then just watch the next twenty three and half minutes of the movie. And then tell me you don't feel shivers run up your spine when the final image of the star-child fades to black as the music fades away with haunting precision.Go on, give it a try. And let me know what you think.
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