I attended the Los Angeles premiere of the film, in , at the Pantages Theater. It is impossible to describe the anticipation in the audience adequately. Kubrick had been working on the film in secrecy for some years, in collaboration, the audience knew, with author Arthur C. Clarke , special-effects expert Douglas Trumbull and consultants who advised him on the specific details of his imaginary future -- everything from space station design to corporate logos.
Fearing to fly and facing a deadline, Kubrick had sailed from England on the Queen Elizabeth, doing the editing while on board, and had continued to edit the film during a cross-country train journey. Now it finally was ready to be seen. To describe that first screening as a disaster would be wrong, for many of those who remained until the end knew they had seen one of the greatest films ever made.
But not everyone remained. The film did not provide the clear narrative and easy entertainment cues the audience expected. The closing sequences, with the astronaut inexplicably finding himself in a bedroom somewhere beyond Jupiter, were baffling. The overnight Hollywood judgment was that Kubrick had become derailed, that in his obsession with effects and set pieces, he had failed to make a movie.
What he had actually done was make a philosophical statement about man's place in the universe, using images as those before him had used words, music or prayer. And he had made it in a way that invited us to contemplate it -- not to experience it vicariously as entertainment, as we might in a good conventional science-fiction film, but to stand outside it as a philosopher might, and think about it. The film falls into several movements.
In the first, prehistoric apes, confronted by a mysterious black monolith, teach themselves that bones can be used as weapons, and thus discover their first tools. I have always felt that the smooth artificial surfaces and right angles of the monolith, which was obviously made by intelligent beings, triggered the realization in an ape brain that intelligence could be used to shape the objects of the world.
The bone is thrown into the air and dissolves into a space shuttle this has been called the longest flash-forward in the history of the cinema. We meet Dr. Heywood Floyd William Sylvester , en route to a space station and the moon. This section is willfully anti-narrative; there are no breathless dialogue passages to tell us of his mission.
Instead, Kubrick shows us the minutiae of the flight: the design of the cabin, the details of in-flight service, the effects of zero gravity. Then comes the docking sequence, with its waltz, and for a time even the restless in the audience are silenced, I imagine, by the sheer wonder of the visuals.
On board, we see familiar brand names, we participate in an enigmatic conference among the scientists of several nations, we see such gimmicks as a videophone and a zero-gravity toilet. The sequence on the moon which looks as real as the actual video of the moon landing a year later is a variation on the film's opening sequence. Man is confronted with a monolith, just as the apes were, and is drawn to a similar conclusion: This must have been made.
And as the first monolith led to the discovery of tools, so the second leads to the employment of man's most elaborate tool: the spaceship Discovery, employed by man in partnership with the artificial intelligence of the onboard computer, named HAL Life onboard the Discovery is presented as a long, eventless routine of exercise, maintenance checks and chess games with HAL.
The way Kubrick edits this scene so that we can discover what HAL is doing is masterful in its restraint: He makes it clear, but doesn't insist on it. He trusts our intelligence. At journey's end is the comfortable bedroom suite in which he grows old, eating his meals quietly, napping, living the life I imagine of a zoo animal who has been placed in a familiar environment.
Watch options. Storyline Edit. Sometime in the distant past, someone or something nudged evolution by placing a monolith on Earth presumably elsewhere throughout the universe as well. Evolution then enabled humankind to reach the moon's surface, where yet another monolith is found, one that signals the monolith placers that humankind has evolved that far.
Now a race begins between computers HAL and human Bowman to reach the monolith placers. The winner will achieve the next step in evolution, whatever that may be.
Did you know Edit. Trivia According to Douglas Trumbull , the total footage shot was some times the final length of the film. Goofs Bowman inhales deeply before attempting to re-enter the ship from the pod. Arthur C. Clarke in an interview later noted that this is incorrect. Bowman should have exhaled, as the vacuum of space would have damaged his lungs had they been full of air. Quotes HAL : I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
Crazy credits No opening credits for actors, writers, producer, director, etc. Although by the s it had become quite common for major films to not have opening credits, it was still unusual in Alternate versions To create the 35mm general release prints, the Super Panavision image was slightly truncated on the top and bottom to achieve the standard 2.
User reviews 2. Top review. A film of monolithic proportions. A review I have put off for far too long Bluntly, is one of the best science-fiction films made to date, if not the very best.
Stanley Kubrick was a genius of a film maker and this is one of his very best works. And although it is misunderstood by many, and respectively underrated, it is considered one of the best films of all time and I'll have to agree. Back in , no one had done anything like this before, and no one has since. It was a marvel of a special effects breakthrough back then, and seeing how the effects hold up today, it is no wonder as to why.
The film still looks marvelous after almost forty years! Take note CGI people. Through the use of large miniatures and realistic lighting, Kubrick created some of the best special effects ever put on celluloid. This aspect alone almost single-handedly created the chilling void of the space atmosphere which is also attributed to the music and realistic sound effects. I can't think of another film where you can't here anything in space, like it is in reality. Not only is the absence of sound effects in space realistic, it is used cleverly as a tool to establish mood, and it works flawlessly.
Aside from the magnificent display of ingenious special effects, there are other factors that play a part in establishing the feel of the film. The music played, all classical, compliment what the eyes are seeing and make you feel the significance of man's journey through his evolution from ape to space traveler.
The story, while seemingly simple, is profound. Sequentially, several mysterious black monoliths are discovered and basically trigger certain events integral to the film. What are they? Where did they come from? What do they do? These are all questions one asks oneself while watching the story develop and is asked to find his own way. While most come away with a general idea of what took place in the story, each individual will have to decide what it means to them.
Any way one decides to answer these question results in profound solutions. It's not left entirely up to interpretation, but in some aspects it is. Experience it for more clarification. Don't get me wrong. I love all those movies. Fifty years after "Space Odyssey" I'm more inclined to share Kubrick's pessimistic view of human horrors. What would he have made of today's tribalism; Jack D.
Ripper from "Dr. Strangelove" could be secretary of state. Still, after going back to its first showing at the Somerville Theatre, this time with just one friend and a shared pilsner as my inebriant, it's "Space Odyssey" that leaves me in awe of Kubrick as an artist and of "" as filmmaking's highest achievement. As much as I love being an arts critic, I'm kind of happy that part of his legacy is, historically, having the last laugh on such hallowed critics as Andrew Sarris my hero , Pauline Kael, Renata Adler and Stanley Kauffmann, who all hated the film.
It should be humbling to see fellow critics proved so wrong in the end Media maven Marshall McLuhan and filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky, who also damned the film, don't look so hot either. No one since has so deftly matched form and function while telling such a sophisticated and complicated story.
Or told such an eventually optimistic story without a hint of sentimentality. In fact, Kubrick's dark side is evident throughout. All this is on such glorious display with the Somerville's pristine handling of Nolan's "un-restoration" of the film, bringing back all the analog glory of the original pre-CGI film. From the parting of the yellow curtain to the spectacular stereo soundtrack, this is the way to see a movie. If only they could find a way to keep the lobby noise from drifting into the quieter moments of Keir Dullea's transformation at the end of the film.
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