2001: A Space Odyssey

i still remember the first time seeing 2001 and it being a crappy VHS copy on a tiny CRT it still shaking me to the core so many times. sometimes you see a movie or hear an album that leaves you charged, maybe jittery, wanting to do something, wanting to tell the world about this experience you just had. 2001 is like that concentrated in the most potent form.

good for Nolan the celebrating films he likes. i don't see any reason to compare his work to Kubrick's. people be inspired by art and then make art in response to that inspiration which can be entirely different.

imo Kubrick's humanist side is vastly underrated. there is so much humor and pathos throughout his filmography, so many strange interpersonal conflicts nobody else touches upon in that way. i think it's an easy leap to go "Well his films are pretty, they must not have much to offer" when movies like A Clockwork Orange or Barry Lyndon are knee deep in the question of what it means to be human.

Looks like the UHD disc release has been pushed to the fall.

imo Kubrick's humanist side is vastly underrated. there is so much humor and pathos throughout his filmography, so many strange interpersonal conflicts nobody else touches upon in that way. i think it's an easy leap to go "Well his films are pretty, they must not have much to offer" when movies like A Clockwork Orange or Barry Lyndon are knee deep in the question of what it means to be human.

― Hazy Maze Cave (Adam Bruneau), Wednesday, 4 April 2018 22:48 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Looks like the UHD disc release has been pushed to the fall.

― Spencer Chow, Thursday, 5 April 2018 00:25 (nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Kubrick street team report:

Hallmark ornament coming in October

https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--qp9AdUf_--/c_scale,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800/h3alsc3jvzzmrc79oj4g.jpg

https://io9.gizmodo.com/hallmark-has-a-talking-glowing-hal-9000-ornament-heade-1824995676?utm_campaign=socialflow_io9_facebook&utm_source=io9_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

I had an opportunity to see the original HAL, Discovery 1 and starchild model props (plus a Bowman lithograph) at a big Kubrick retrospective.

https://scontent-sjc3-1.cdninstagram.com/vp/d932425303b99f34b96ea9a57937f006/5B697174/t51.2885-15/e35/14719159_1237523612971450_5037676212172881920_n.jpg
https://scontent-sjc3-1.cdninstagram.com/vp/0904b0aed83b9ba13111684af202376d/5B6BFD1A/t51.2885-15/e35/14540580_187259038396489_2470394673886134272_n.jpg
https://scontent-sjc3-1.cdninstagram.com/vp/df6a4dbf17262a4e3cb379cc01d35100/5B7002EA/t51.2885-15/e35/14726477_1114684005268120_4923423742727553024_n.jpg
https://scontent-sjc3-1.cdninstagram.com/vp/6e9038c8b443ecb4fbc4a851e1092cf1/5B747F72/t51.2885-15/e35/14714456_724506451040115_2110870189967933440_n.jpg

so cool!

the filming of that starchild in those brief shots at the end is so masterful, it's almost shocking to see that it's just a static plastic doll!

Excerpt from the book

https://io9.gizmodo.com/the-unspeakably-disgusting-way-stanley-kubrick-created-1824112455

Returning from the factory in the early hours of the morning with red eyes and swollen from the fumes, he ignored the foul reek for weeks on end, scrupulously writing down what percentages, temperatures, and densities of which liquids required what heights to drop from to create a given effect.

it's ponderous but tbf there's a lot to ponder

and no Jedi blather befouling your ears!

If you're in the DC area this April and May you can hang out in a replica of the room from the end of the film.
https://airandspace.si.edu/events/2001-space-odyssey-immersive-art-exhibit

(for a whole two minutes)

Haa...

https://i.imgur.com/JOocJGh.jpg

why isnt that fucking Kubrick exhibit ever coming to NYC

Got to attend this tonight. I asked Benson if there were any great mysteries/questions left - really the only thing he couldn't get were some of the more (presumably) volatile letters from MGM HQ to Kubrick. Also, apparently an original Aries IV model was recently discovered?

Dan Richter says he can easily play Moonwatcher shopping for groceries at Whole Foods.

http://www.indiewire.com/2018/04/james-cameron-2001-a-space-odyssey-lacks-emotional-balls-1201958421/

https://imgur.com/a/Uz2qLaf

i bet Cameron thinks i remember 5% of what happened in Avatar

"emotional balls"

One does have to admit that Titanic really brings the emotional sack

Aliens has quite a nut.

Sorry, quite a Newt.

Avatar has balls of a different color

About 3/4 done with the new Michael Benson book, Space Odyssey: Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke, and the Making of a Masterpiece, and man is it full of some great anecdotes I hadn't heard before:

- Clarke was apparently really concerned about Kubrick finding out he was gay, so one day he simply said, "Stanley, I want you to know I'm a very well-adjusted homosexual." Kubrick blithely replied, "Yeah, I know" and kept working.
- Gary Lockwood came up with the scene where Bowman and Poole get into the pod to secretly discuss disconnecting HAL, because he thought the existing scene where they received instructions from Earth was too corny.
- David Birkin (brother of Jane), who started as a tea boy before working his way to location scout and second-unit aerial photographer, was asked by Kubrick to move some protected trees from one location to another while shooting plates in South West Africa. He led a nighttime raid with a bunch of hired goons, cut through the fence, sawed down the trees then nearly lost them all trying to ford a surprise river.
- A crew member fell from a very high set and broke his back during an effects shot. When Kubrick was told, he responded, "Gee, that's terrible. Did he ruin the take?"
- Both the stuntman doing the wire work for the zero-g shots of Bowman and Poole, and the actors in the ape-man costumes, regularly suffered from oxygen deprivation/CO2 buildup and passed out.

Definitely a recommended read. Gives a much less worshipful, much more inside-baseball look at the entire production from conception to screen.

lol at the concept of 'surprise river'

def wanna read this though, there's so much mystique around kubrick and this movie in particular that a nuts-and-bolts 'here's how we did it' sounds fascinating

I saw it last night on the big screen for the second time. each time I see it, a little bit more of it clicks into place but I never understand the ending. I'd love to read this book

dog latin, there's plenty written and recorded about the ending (not to mention the Clarke novel-ization)

yeah I figured I should finally read up more on it

SPOILERSSSSS!!!!!!!11

The final scenes of the film seemed more metaphorical than realistic. Will you discuss them -- or would that be part of the "road map" you're trying to avoid?

No, I don't mind discussing it, on the lowest level, that is, straightforward explanation of the plot. You begin with an artifact left on earth four million years ago by extraterrestrial explorers who observed the behavior of the man-apes of the time and decided to influence their evolutionary progression. Then you have a second artifact buried deep on the lunar surface and programmed to signal word of man's first baby steps into the universe -- a kind of cosmic burglar alarm. And finally there's a third artifact placed in orbit around Jupiter and waiting for the time when man has reached the outer rim of his own solar system.

When the surviving astronaut, Bowman, ultimately reaches Jupiter, this artifact sweeps him into a force field or star gate that hurls him on a journey through inner and outer space and finally transports him to another part of the galaxy, where he's placed in a human zoo approximating a hospital terrestrial environment drawn out of his own dreams and imagination. In a timeless state, his life passes from middle age to senescence to death. He is reborn, an enhanced being, a star child, an angel, a superman, if you like, and returns to earth prepared for the next leap forward of man's evolutionary destiny.

That is what happens on the film's simplest level. Since an encounter with an advanced interstellar intelligence would be incomprehensible within our present earthbound frames of reference, reactions to it will have elements of philosophy and metaphysics that have nothing to do with the bare plot outline itself.

An Interview with Stanley Kubrick (1969)
by Joseph Gelmis
http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0069.html

beat me to it

This literal explanation doesn't really do the film any favours though, it somehow just turns it into the banal sci-fi flick it's patently not trying to be. I don't think the ending needs an "explanation" as such, the imagery is powerful enough on its own.

SK says the same

but as far as plot goes, that's it

love that they don't show the interstellar intelligence. this is the most important decision in the film imo. certainly having an alien looking creature explain "We made this hotel room for you" would take away all the mystery (as well as nail down the ending from a more symbolic/archetypal exploration to a linear narrative plot). by not personifying it, the film allows your mind to work on a more abstract, subtle, even spiritual level.

dog latin, did the new print look noticeably different? i'm taking it this screening was part of the official 'unrestored' presentations?

the new Nolan-approved print looks like it has more of the original 60s warmth in this comparison..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1JIkK7-fUI

ah I figured the zoo part okay. yeah that makes sense.

i really enjoyed the ape parts, seeing them cohabiting as rough equals of their fellow leaf-eating mammals before having to cower from dangerous predators; encountering other tribes but ultimately leaving each other alone without serious violence.
And then this Hobbesian turnaround once they come into contact with the monolith. They become warlike, carnivorous and violent towards each other.
They learn to use (or wield) tools as weapons, and so in the same way the monolith is described as an 'artifact' so is the bone/spaceship.
So going by Kubrick's answer above, it's possible that the beings who sent the monoliths are actually an advanced, time-bending version of humankind influencing their own betterment, their own existence, in this millenia-spanning recursive move.
And in a nice flourish we're made to ask what these beings are like. Are they benign and peaceful beings? Or is the monolith a forbidden fruit, a poisoned gift from Leviathan that encourages warlike, tribalistic behaviour?
Then going to other parts of the film, this is all reflected by the calculated cold war that takes place first between the US and Russia, and later the astronauts and Hal.
Hal, is an artefact and also as much a projection of humanity as the humans are a projection of the Starbeings. Hal has one interest in mind: furthering his own existence at the expense of all others. For him - for the astronauts, for the US embassy, for the Russians, the ape-men, possibly the Starchild - it's a tribal kill-or-be-killed solution. Survival of the fittest. The possibility of collaboration, of cooperation, is never considered. Instead, as the astronauts agree, there is no other choice but to try to shut Hal down.
It could be fair to say that a little bit of the monolith's influence has been passed on to Hal. He appears to exhibit pride in being without error. When he 'malfunctions', is it really a malfunction or a simply a low-down conniving trick? Is he - an advanced AI who seems to be able to experience pride, pain and fear - at once a prototype for the future human race who would eventually be created by the Starbeings, but also a sort-of test to see if humanity had become smart enough to reach Jupiter?

sorry I didn't expect to type all that out, I was trying to piece together what I'd made of it myself in my head although I'm sure it's all been said before in one way or another

piscesx, I can't really tell you about the print I'm afraid. I felt like the sound could have been better but it was a fairly small cinema and it was a bit trebly - especially the opening Strauss piece

Some of this guy's ideas are hooey (like pondering the significance of 237 shots following intermission), but some are not.

http://idyllopuspress.com/idyllopus/film/2001_5.htm

Helps if you dig structuralism, I think.

xp: Unrestored looks a lot more like blue pigment degradation, than anything intended.

saw the new print a couple weeks ago. it's as gorgeous as you'd expect -- i could've happily seen it more than once. i think someone mentioned this on another thread but the lightshow at the end looks and feels better, more vivid and involving, than ever. (so effective that my poor friend that i dragged along, who'd never seen it before, told me she felt nauseous afterward.)

this film really gives you a lot of space to wonder about basically everything that happens in it. this time around, i found myself wondering how long dave is in the room at the end. i suppose i always assumed it was a dreamlike scenario where his transformation happened fairly quickly -- and kubrick seems to back that up by calling it "a timeless state" -- but i think you could also read it as happening to dave in real time, so he experiences it as growing old year after year in this isolated environment. an eerie thought. it's been too long since i read the clarke novel, so i can't remember if that's how it's portrayed there -- i recall that the novel spent a lot of time on the post-HAL journey to jupiter.

also, the more i read about the making of this movie the more i appreciate how brilliant a creation HAL is. i mean, think about it: he's a prop and a disembodied voice by an actor who wasn't told what any of his lines meant and never even got to meet the other actors. that's it. and yet HAL is probably one of the greatest characters in any movie. the way kubrick creates a sense of him as an actual person, so alive and fully present that it's actually devastating when he "dies," just by cutting to the close-up of his "face" at just the right moments, is probably the craziest and most unlikely accomplishment of the entire film.

this film really gives you a lot of space to wonder about basically everything that happens in it. this time around, i found myself wondering how long dave is in the room at the end. i suppose i always assumed it was a dreamlike scenario where his transformation happened fairly quickly -- and kubrick seems to back that up by calling it "a timeless state" -- but i think you could also read it as happening to dave in real time, so he experiences it as growing old year after year in this isolated environment. an eerie thought. it's been too long since i read the clarke novel, so i can't remember if that's how it's portrayed there -- i recall that the novel spent a lot of time on the post-HAL journey to jupiter.

It's effective in being temporally disorientating, even today when a lot of it looks a bit like the old Winamp 'Milkdrop' visual generator, I can never quite work out how long I've been watching it for.

i really love that "Space to wonder" take, J.D.! the deliberate pacing of everything is perfect for inducing a particular mindset.

last night i was thinking of the famous jump cut from the bone to the spaceship: there is a humor and a humility to it, the way we've been following this pretty linear storyline with the apes, then suddenly fast-forward thousands of years, only to stop pause and wonder at the ballet of spaceships drifting to the Blue Danube. it's funny cos in any other movie a jump cut will dive right back into the story.

yet here it's another 5-10 minutes before you even hear a human speak. it almost seems to suggest "Yeah nothing much has changed for the humans except the formal trappings so let's glory in those". it's a movie about Dave and Hal and their mission all that but that isn't the whole enchilada.

too many space threads

the space ballet always strikes me as kind of humorous and i'm never sure if that's the intention. is it because of the Blue Danube being played? would it seem different with different music?

seems to suggest "Yeah nothing much has changed..."

An additional element is that the satellite is supposedly a weapon. Someone, perhaps Clarke says this is the making of documentary. Maybe everyone knows this now but it put a different spin on it for me when I heard that.

So to speak.

That sequence (Floyd's journey and the moon monolith) is still part of THE DAWN OF MAN after all.

Certainly it would be different with the Alex North score that Kubrick ditched.

Or the explanatory voiceover that Kubrick ditched at the last minute.

Know I've mentioned it before, on this thread or elsewhere, but the BFI Film Classics on 2001 by Peter Kramer is very good, especially on the film's 'nuclear threat' subtext (again, present much more strongly in early drafts of the screenplay, and more prominent in the Clarke novel version).

The passive-aggressive chat with the Russians in the Earthlight lounge is a companion to the rivalry of the man-ape tribes.

yeah, morbs otm - the only difference between human and ape is the sophistication of human tools