cinema-scene.com
A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (2001) - Cinema Scene
Everyone knows Richard Strauss' "Also Sprach Zarathustra," a fanfare made famous by Stanley Kubrick by using it to segue into space for his 1968 masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey. What people often don't know, however, is that there is more to the piece than the fanfare they know -- half of the actual orchestrations are of an eerier sense, a type of music that fit the later moments of 2001. Now with A.I., Steven Spielberg has made another place where Kubrick could have used that "Zarathustra" opening -- even more than 2001, the opening theme fits A.I. almost perfectly. By now, the stories of Spielberg collaborating with Stanley Kubrick on A.I. have been documented ad nauseum. No longer does it matter how the two worked or what happened when Kubrick died soon after finishing Eyes Wide Shut, the true importance is in the final product and whether it is the glorious, yet cold perfection that each director would have brought to the film on their own. Yes, the film is dedicated to Kubrick and carries a production credit (unusually might I add, the actual credit is "An Amblin/Stanley Kubrick Production), but the actual production was completely helmed by a Steven Spielberg trying desperately to be his mentor without losing his own touch.