| Collector's Corner August 2003
 2001:
A Space Odyssey
- Starring: Keir Dullea,
Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester, Douglas Rain (the voice of HAL)
- Directed by: Stanley Kubrick
- Theatrical release: 1968
- DVD release: 2003
- Video: Widescreen (anamorphic)
- Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
- Released by: Warner Home Video
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.
-- Stanley Kubrick’s rather straightforward explanation of 2001: A Space Odyssey
to interviewer Joseph Gelmis (1969).
1968 was an eventful year in the United States. The Vietnam
War was looking as if it would never end, causing President Johnson to refuse to run for a
second term. Martin Luther King was assassinated, and Sirhan Sirhan killed Presidential
candidate Robert Kennedy. The Summer of Love was fresh in everybody’s minds. The
music was psychedelic, and the entire entertainment industry seemed intent on capturing
the youth market. Hallucinogenic drugs created a new group of thrill seekers looking for
ambiguous art with a touch of insanity. And then the notorious perfectionist, Stanley
Kubrick, decided to make a science-fiction film -- 2001: A Space Odyssey.
When the movie premiered at the Warners Cinerama Theater in
Los Angeles, the audience was split. Some felt they had witnessed one of the great sci-fi
movies of all time. Others felt they had been through a religious epiphany. Many thought
it was a jumbled mess. Rock Hudson stormed out of the theater, frustrated, demanding,
"Will someone tell me what the hell this is about?" However, one group clearly
understood its charms.
Back in 1968, you could still smoke in theaters, and
when the "Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite" section starts as György
Ligeti’s aleatory music fades in, many of the smokers had more in their pipes than
tobacco. In fact, the prior year’s Summer of Love still had enough adherents to
ensure that each screening had several viewers peaking on Purple Double Dome or Psylocibin
as they traveled through the wormhole. MGM was quick to pick up on the possibilities. The
film’s tagline morphed from "An epic drama of adventure and exploration" to
"The ultimate trip!"
Today, with 35 years of (I hope) additional wisdom,
watching 2001 reconfirms that it is much more than a psychedelic artifact. It
really is one of the greatest of sci-fi films.
Start with the script. Kubrick originally approached Arthur
C. Clarke about a story for a science-fiction film. Clarke offered his 1948 short story
"The Sentinel," but Kubrick was looking for something bigger. They decided to
collaborate on a dual venture, with Kubrick writing a screenplay and Clarke writing a
novel. They would use "The Sentinel" as the centerpiece of the story, but both
would work on developing other story angles to go along with it. I can imagine Kubrick, a
devotee of the art of film, knowing in his heart that 2001 would speak to deep
levels of the human psyche. Clarke probably thought that no film could touch the
imagination of a novelist. The competition certainly made the story better.
The power of the final story has almost nothing to do with
the simple narrative. Granted, the section where Bowman and HAL are fighting has genuine
dramatic power. But the real intellectual and theatrical muscle of the film lies in 2001’s
intentional ambiguity. Arthur Clarke said, "If you understand 2001 completely,
we failed. We wanted to raise far more questions than we answered." That
ambiguity offers a sense that we, as viewers, are taking part in something greater and
more meaningful than simply sitting through a film. Kubrick, ever the intellectual,
likened film more to music than novels. 2001 is a perfect example. Let me draw a
comparison in religious terms: The written Bible tells the Deity’s story richly and
directly. But Michelangelo’s frescoes or Bach’s B-Minor Mass do the same, just
as precisely, by activating different intellectual and emotional synapses. In that same
way, in the right hands, film has the force to tell us far more than a simple story.
Kubrick was convinced that film also had the power to touch
the psyche in ways completely unrelated to the story. As he said in the interview with
Joseph Gelmis, "Reactions to (2001) will have elements of philosophy and
metaphysics that have nothing to do with the bare plot outline itself." Cheers
Stanley. I’ll go a step further. Look at all the comic-book philosophers in the movie
houses this summer. They offer their metaphysics on a serving platter. If it’s not
clear enough how this alien-manipulation stuff works, then they will show you! A movie
like 2001 doesn’t pander. It allows you to exercise your own brain and
appreciate the philosophy and metaphysics. Just as a lingering kiss and a fade can be more
sexually thrilling than a naked wrestling match, the ending of 2001 gives us more
pause about the nature of reality than ten Matrix movies. Who has been controlling
earth’s evolution, and are we simply here as fodder for some alien voyeurs? What is
free will, and do we possess it? Why is the most emotional and sensitive character in the
film a computer?
2001 is also visually stunning. Kubrick and his
special photographic effects supervisor, Douglas Trumbull (Close
Encounters of the Third Kind), start with some of the most beautiful sunrise and
sunset photography ever shown on film, and progress through the movie to an art attack
that is so totally abstract it might have confused Jackson Pollack. The space effects from
the Moon to Jupiter still look better than most of today’s CG work, probably because
Kubrick showed enough restraint never to parade his effects for oohs and aahs.
Instead, his effects (at least until the wormhole) were simply to move the story along.
One of the most iconic scenes in film is the triumphant ape throwing his bone-weapon in
the air and having it change into a space station. The effect was breathtaking, but it
also had the sense to seamlessly advance the story line 4,000,000 years in ten seconds.
As a perfect antithesis, I was watching Blade II the
night before and the effects were stunning. Thirty minutes of the pummeling force of the
effects was enough to beat me into submission. But I wonder how many people will still be
watching Blade II in 2037? Blade II also reminded me of another strength of 2001
-- what they didn’t show.
Through science-fiction movie history, one of the most
troubling issues is how to deal with the "monster problem." After spending a
good deal of time building up fear, nearly every time we finally saw the monster, it was a
letdown. Invaders from Mars, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Crawling Eye
-- all set us up to be scared, then showed us something positively silly. Disney’s Forbidden
Planet could scare anyone, until they let the animators show the id-monster. Then fear
fled the room. The scariest sci-fi film of the 1950s, Invasion of the Body Snatchers,
neatly sidestepped the issue by making cloned humans the monster. But Kubrick beat them
all. He didn’t even waste time trying to represent the aliens. As he said, "An
encounter with an advanced interstellar intelligence would be incomprehensible within our
present earthbound frames of reference." His restraint and what he didn’t show
help to make the picture timeless.
Finally, Kubrick’s choice of music was inspired. He
had commissioned a full score from Alex North, his composer in Spartacus, but he
had cut the film using what’s called in the industry "temp tracks" -- music
not intended to be used in the final film, but something to give the raw film some life
during editing. In this case, he became so enamored of the temp tracks, he discarded
North’s score. As it turns out, this was an expensive choice. Besides having to pay
North for unused music, Ligeti sued him for using his music without permission.
2001 was nominated for four Oscars, but only won for
Best Special Effects, losing Best Director and Best Art Design awards to Oliver!
and Best Writing to The Producers. 2001 wasn’t even nominated for Best
Picture. 2001 ended up being a big hit with the public. It was the third biggest
moneymaker of the year (after The Graduate and Funny
Girl). The movie had great staying power, too. Almost seven months after its premiere,
it was still pulling in huge crowds. 2001 ended up with the dubious distinction of
being the only film ever to be removed from its prime Cinerama venues while still making a
good profit. The reason: MGM wanted to replace it with their hot new film, Ice Station
Zebra, starring Rock Hudson (who apparently understood what it was about).
In the past five years, we’ve had six DVD versions of 2001.
The first version (MGM 1998, $24.98) has a wonderful 21-minute discussion by Clarke and a
nice eight-page booklet. Unfortunately, it’s letterboxed with a picture likely
sourced from the 1997 laserdisc mastering. The second release (Warner Brothers 1999,
$24.98) has the Clarke talk, but no booklet, and is still letterboxed. The third version
(Warner Brothers 1999, $178.92) was identical to the second, but came in a box with six
other Kubrick films. The fourth version (Warner Brothers 2001, $24.98) dispenses with the
Clarke interview and the booklet, but gives us an anamorphic picture. The fifth version
(Warner Brothers 2001 $59.98) gives you a commemorative frame from the film and a new
booklet. It is also spread over two discs for minimum compression and the sound has been
remastered. Unfortunately, there is still no Clarke. The sixth version (Warner Bothers
2003, $19.98) released in June, is the same as the fourth but $5 cheaper.
Is it just me, or does having six versions in five years
lead you to believe they are still trying to figure out how to market this movie? I bought
two of the six versions (numbers one and six) so I could have the two most important
features: anamorphic picture and the Clarke interview.
Final verdict: no psychedelics required. 2001 is
thought-provoking and enlightened filmmaking.
...Wes Marshall
wesm@hometheatersound.com
Note: Some of the background material for this piece came
from a brilliant interview of Stanley Kubrick by Joseph Gelmis in 1969. Fans of the film
should read it. The first third of the interview is about a project on the life of
Napoleon that Kubrick never finished. The rest is riveting reading about 2001. You
can download it here. |
