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Posted: |
Mar 23, 2014 - 9:47 AM
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By: |
Ralph
(Member)
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I know I will be viewed as a heretic but despite being a huge movie fan and a lover of SF, I've never got the love for this movie.
You’re not sounding heretical, you’re speaking for a lot of us.
Kubrick’s “2001” was a huge commercial success because it was hugely enigmatic. Millions loved trying to figure out the “profound” script, like what the monolith stood for; why Hal went dirty on us; and what the embryonic baby at the conclusion signified. Late 60s potheads will remember the movie’s expensive nincompoopery often became a party game: a fat take-home joint for the most creative analysis. Enjoyed for other reasons too: the staging was immense-looking (as opposed to being immense); things were comically, surpassingly spotless and tidy; there was a lulling cheekiness in using classical music to support the equally lulling ambiance; with the exception of the light show-head trip (with its nebulae and galaxies that could only be imagined before Hubble’s telescopic eye) and the poor replication of stars, the special effects and miniatures were intriguingly subdued and polished; and women got off in a big way on Gary Lockwood’s legs. Many of us criticized Kubrick for all this, for making a Super Panavision objet d’empty art, reaching its slumberous zenith in the French provincial bedroom with its largeness, paintings and lighted white floor. Kubrick and Arthur C. Clark joining imaginations to make a safe, spacey nothingness that in effect puts each other’s smarts — and ours — to sleep. But even the skeptics, after seeing the sequel “2010,” will thank them for not spelling things out. A one-man show written, produced, directed and photographed by Peter Hyams, its elucidation becomes a form of over-expressed tomfoolery. When God speaks, only Hyams is listening.
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Posted: |
Mar 23, 2014 - 7:16 PM
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By: |
Richard-W
(Member)
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Wrong. Stephen King doesn't know what he's talking about, and his stupid remark about THE SHINING is no analogy to 2001. King's own version of THE SHINING is nothing to brag about.
Ralph:
Mike_J:
I know I will be viewed as a heretic but
despite being a huge movie fan and a
lover of SF, I've never got the love for
this movie.
You’re not sounding heretical, you’re speaking for a lot of us.
Kubrick’s “2001” was a huge commercial success because it was hugely enigmatic. Millions loved trying to figure out the “profound” script, like what the monolith stood for; why Hal went dirty on us; and what the embryonic baby at the conclusion signified. Late 60s potheads will remember the movie’s expensive nincompoopery often became a party game: a fat take-home joint for the most creative analysis. Enjoyed for other reasons too: the staging was immense-looking (as opposed to being immense); things were comically, surpassingly spotless and tidy; there was a lulling cheekiness in using classical music to support the equally lulling ambiance; with the exception of the light show-head trip (with its nebulae and galaxies that could only be imagined before Hubble’s telescopic eye) and the poor replication of stars, the special effects and miniatures were intriguingly subdued and polished; and women got off in a big way on Gary Lockwood’s legs. Many of us criticized Kubrick for all this, for making a Super Panavision objet d’empty art, reaching its slumberous zenith in the French provincial bedroom with its largeness, paintings and lighted white floor. Kubrick and Arthur C. Clark joining imaginations to make a safe, spacey nothingness that in effect puts each other’s smarts — and ours — to sleep. But even the skeptics, after seeing the sequel “2010,” will thank them for not spelling things out. A one-man show written, produced, directed and photographed by Peter Hyams, its elucidation becomes a form of over-expressed tomfoolery. When God speaks, only Hyams is listening.
Horsepucky. You just like to hear your own doublespeak. There is no sense in anything you said. The film's box-office, its impact on the film industry, its pervasive influence throughout culture, to say nothing of its influence on science-fiction, is a matter of record. The record disproves your nonsense.
I saw 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY when it first opened at the Capitol Theater in NYC in 1968. I've posted about it before. It was a profoundly moving experience to these young eyes at the time, and it rewarded repeated viewing over the years. It was innovative. The was no other film remotely like it in the history of movies. It was something everybody wanted to try but no one knew how to do -- to tell a story in purely visual terms. It engaged audiences with its dramatic story as well with its ideas, but it was the visual storytelling that piqued people's curiosity and fired up their imaginations. 2001 did that before its influence began to be felt in other movies and on other filmmakers. It's influence on the industry and in culture is the measure of its creative and artistic success. Before the era of home video arrived to trivialize movie experiences, 2001 was a milestone. It still is.
Some people don't get it or just aren't receptive to it. It's their loss and no reflection on the film.
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Love it or hate it, I dread what will be written at the film's IMDb forum, after re-release, with today's viewing audience. The incompetence, incoherence, dumb-assery -- it's going to be painful. I think I won't read it.
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Some people don't get it or just aren't receptive to it. It's their loss and no reflection on the film.
Exactly.
There's nothing so very enigmatic about the meanings and metaphors in '2001': what's exceptional is in how Kubrick realised them.
I reach a sort of breaking point when people keep implying that because THEY don't get it, it can't be got. It's a fair old mix of dystopia, Jung, symbolism that crosses many areas, the scientific, the personal, the collective, and the futuristic.
Aspergers is not the future for film criticism. I hope.
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Posted: |
Mar 24, 2014 - 5:43 PM
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By: |
Ado
(Member)
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It's a great "science fiction" film. But I don't expect the average person to like it or get it. Today science fiction generally means intergalactic space battles.
Yeah, today we get a lot of sci-fi-action films, pretty much any Marvel picture is science/fantasy action, or any other comic book pretty much too. Adult type sci-fi opera pictures like 2001, or even 2010 are rare now. Even Star Trek, occasionally opera like, or at least about ideas, recently became sci-fi-actionized. The audience now wants it's entertainment spelled out, spoon fed, with glossy camera work, awe and wonder be damned. Early Star Trek looks much closer to 2001 now that the market is flooded with tread and retread comic book flash bang zoom.
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Posted: |
Mar 24, 2014 - 11:34 PM
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By: |
Thgil
(Member)
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Wrong. Stephen King doesn't know what he's talking about, and his stupid remark about THE SHINING is no analogy to 2001.
Wrong? You do realize opinions are subjective and not factual, right? There's no right or wrong about it. But you put it in bold so it must be true...
Some people don't get it or just aren't receptive to it. It's their loss and no reflection on the film.
Your inability to see opinions as valid, even when they don't align with yours, is your loss.
For me, the problem with 2001 was that "visual storytelling" of which you speak. I like to feel as if I'm experiencing the events along with the characters, not being kept at arm's length.
This is a huge case of two people seeing the same thing, understanding it, but not reacting to it in the same way. I can understand your experience upon first seeing it. A movie going event like that is once-in-a-lifetime, but it does not invalidate my perspective.
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