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The 50th Anniversary of Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey"
Today marks the 50th anniversary of the original release of Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey," a seminal film in motion picture history and one that has awed millions over the years. Kubrick's title has often been credited with paving the way for science-fiction films that took a realistic approach to depicting the future. Even as "2001" has grown to become one of the most iconic movies of all time, the reception it received when it originally premiered wasn't good. An excerpt: The film's previews were an unmitigated disaster. Its story line encompassed an exceptional temporal sweep, starting with the initial contact between pre-human ape-men and an omnipotent alien civilization and then vaulting forward to later encounters between Homo sapiens and the elusive aliens, represented throughout by the film's iconic metallic-black monolith. Although featuring visual effects of unprecedented realism and power, Kubrick's panoramic journey into space and time made few concessions to viewer understanding. The film was essentially a nonverbal experience. Its first words came only a good half-hour in.
Audience walkouts numbered well over 200 at the New York premiere on April 3, 1968, and the next day's reviews were almost uniformly negative. Writing in the Village Voice, Andrew Sarris called the movie "a thoroughly uninteresting failure and the most damning demonstration yet of Stanley Kubrick's inability to tell a story coherently and with a consistent point of view." And yet that afternoon, a long line -- comprised predominantly of younger people -- extended down Broadway, awaiting the first matinee. The Cannes Film Festival will celebrate the 50th anniversary of "2001: A Space Odyssey" with the world premiere of an unrestored 70mm print, introduced by Christopher Nolan. The event is set for May 12 as part of the Cannes Classics program. The screening will also be attended by members of Kubrick's family, including his daughter Katharina Kubrick and his longtime producing partner and brother-in-law Jan Harlan.
Further reading: Why 2001: A Space Odyssey's mystery endures, 50 years on (CNET); 50 years of 2001: A Space Odyssey -- how Kubrick's sci-fi 'changed the very form of cinema' (The Guardian); The story of a voice: HAL in '2001' wasn't always so eerily calm (The New York Times); and The most intriguing theories about "2001: A Space Odyssey" (io9); and Behind the scenes of 2001: A Space Odyssey, the strangest blockbuster in Hollywood history (Vanity Fair).
Audience walkouts numbered well over 200 at the New York premiere on April 3, 1968, and the next day's reviews were almost uniformly negative. Writing in the Village Voice, Andrew Sarris called the movie "a thoroughly uninteresting failure and the most damning demonstration yet of Stanley Kubrick's inability to tell a story coherently and with a consistent point of view." And yet that afternoon, a long line -- comprised predominantly of younger people -- extended down Broadway, awaiting the first matinee. The Cannes Film Festival will celebrate the 50th anniversary of "2001: A Space Odyssey" with the world premiere of an unrestored 70mm print, introduced by Christopher Nolan. The event is set for May 12 as part of the Cannes Classics program. The screening will also be attended by members of Kubrick's family, including his daughter Katharina Kubrick and his longtime producing partner and brother-in-law Jan Harlan.
Further reading: Why 2001: A Space Odyssey's mystery endures, 50 years on (CNET); 50 years of 2001: A Space Odyssey -- how Kubrick's sci-fi 'changed the very form of cinema' (The Guardian); The story of a voice: HAL in '2001' wasn't always so eerily calm (The New York Times); and The most intriguing theories about "2001: A Space Odyssey" (io9); and Behind the scenes of 2001: A Space Odyssey, the strangest blockbuster in Hollywood history (Vanity Fair).
I loved those scenes. For me, it was the best cinema I had ever seen as a kid and it still holds up now. It is not simply mindless entertainment as much of Hollywood films are (which I can also enjoy depending on mood). The other film I truly love is Lawrence of Arabia, but I bet you find that boring as well. I just saw it in 70mm and it was truly magnificent. I hope to see 2001 in 70mm soon too. I've seen both films dozens of times and have yet to become bored with either.
Different strokes.
It's one of the most beautiful, elegant movies ever made. The visuals are just astounding, especially if you see it in glorious 70mm. I can somewhat see the original reactions though. If you're somehow able to ignore the amazing job Kubrick did presenting the majesty and elegance of Space, you're left with just an OK story.
Combine that with the older straight-laced audiences of the 60s who want everything to fit within some narrow confines, they're going to be disappointing by the ending. Not that the ending DOES make a huge amount of sense, but at least it's beautiful. But you're not going to like it if you're not comfortable with the inexplicable and somewhat disturbing. And you're going to hate it if you want it all to make sense in some conventional, simple way.
I saw the movie in it's theatrical release, and it was unwatchable even back then.
Unless you read the book, much of the movie simply doesn't seem connected - more like a random series of events. It wasn't obvious that the monolith *caused* the monkeys to become smart, it wasn't obvious what the connection with the moon monolith was, and it was completely non-obvious what was going on with a psychedelic light show cutting back-and-forth to a human iris. (David Bowman's apotheosis.)
What remained was a few scenes of breathtaking visual scope, which were admittedly very well done for the time, no action, and almost no plot.
People thought at the time that Kubrick's movie-making days had ended, that he no longer had the ability to make movies that people would want to see.
Actually, the use of pieces like Thus Spake Zarathustra came about somewhat by accident. There was an actual conventional film score written for 2001, but Kubrick used the classical music just sort of as filler while he was editing the film, and decided that those pieces worked so much better. As Roger Ebert once noted, unlike the use of classical music in some films, 2001 managed to enhance those magnificent works.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I still find the space scenes some of the best every filmed. Like the original Star Wars films, there's just something about models as opposed to CGI which gives the visual heft and weight. There's something tangible and real moving through an actual three dimensional space. And because Kubrick and Clarke were obsessed with realism for those shots, there's no sound save whatever the astronauts can hear, and indeed Kubrick was willing to allow for stretches of silence. In fact, considering most of the dialogue is pretty much incidental to the story, much of the film might as well be considered a silent film. And the brilliance of that is that when we do get some heavy meaningful dialogue, it's when Bowman is killing HAL. That's what I love about the movie Kubrick, he saves any emotion-bearing dialogue for a goddamned AI. The humans barely show emotion at all through the film, save for Bowman when he's order HAL to open the pod bay doors, or when he's falling through the Star Gate. HAL 9000 is the most human character in the whole film.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.