2001 odessay

Published: 30 Mar Published: 24 Mar Inside the odyssey: taking a closer look at Stanley Kubrick's Published: 16 Jan Stanley Kubrick: The Exhibition review — catnip for mid-century modern fans 3 out of 5 stars. Published: 28 Apr

11 Things You Didn’t Know About ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’

But is one of the most puzzling films ever made, too. What, for instance, is a shiny rectangular monolith doing in prehistoric Africa? Why does an astronaut hurtle through a psychedelic lightshow to another universe, before turning into a cosmic foetus?

And considering that the opening section is set millions of years in the past, and the two central sections are set 18 months apart, how much of it actually takes place in ? But the director edited out anything which might have made it too easy to comprehend. Seen from a distance, the two films could hardly appear more different. But look at the similarities: the Cold War secrecy between the US and Russia, the boardrooms packed with middle-aged men in suits, the supposedly infallible machine which is intent on slaughtering the people who built it.

In this opening sequence, our hairy ancestors played by mime artists in costumes eat nothing but roots and berries until they happen upon a towering black slab which was once compared to a tombstone but which now brings to mind an oversized iPhone. Here, at least, we can see what Kubrick is getting at: by his reckoning, human progress has all been about developing bigger and better ways to murder each other.

In this part of the film, we meet Heywood Floyd William Sylvester , a scientist on his way to the Moon, where another alien monolith has been unearthed. But Floyd is no conventional sci-fi boffin: neither a crazed nerd in a lab coat nor a dashing intergalactic hero.

Could this artificially intelligent pilot spell trouble for his crewmates? Unfortunately, HAL decides to shut them down first. And in the film, the ironies pile up even higher. A HAL computer makes a mistake. A mission controller confirms that is a mistake — because his own identical HAL computer on Earth says so. Not that is simply a Dr Strangelove sequel. Kubrick was dreaming of other worlds, but he kept coming back down to Earth.

Play it Again. Share using Email. By Nicholas Barber 4th April Kubrick may have set out to make a science-fiction film, but A Space Odyssey, which turns 50 this week, is closer to home than we think, writes Nicholas Barber.

Great apes In this opening sequence, our hairy ancestors played by mime artists in costumes eat nothing but roots and berries until they happen upon a towering black slab which was once compared to a tombstone but which now brings to mind an oversized iPhone. Around the BBC.

A Space Odyssey is a epic science fiction film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick. The screenplay was written by Kubrick and Arthur C. Directed by Stanley Kubrick. With Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester, Daniel Richter. After discovering a mysterious artifact buried beneath the Lunar.

Out There. By Dennis Overbye. In the spring of the filmmaker Stanley Kubrick was very worried.

The central design challenge for was creating a set and props that could outpace s technology. While they filmed, NASA was trying to put a man on the moon.

But is one of the most puzzling films ever made, too. What, for instance, is a shiny rectangular monolith doing in prehistoric Africa? Why does an astronaut hurtle through a psychedelic lightshow to another universe, before turning into a cosmic foetus?

“2001: A Space Odyssey”: What It Means, and How It Was Made

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2001: A Space Odyssey

This is the work of an artist so sublimely confident that he doesn't include a single shot simply to keep our attention. He reduces each scene to its essence, and leaves it on screen long enough for us to contemplate it, to inhabit it in our imaginations. No little part of his effect comes from the music. Although Kubrick originally commissioned an original score from Alex North , he used classical recordings as a temporary track while editing the film, and they worked so well that he kept them. This was a crucial decision. The classical music chosen by Kubrick exists outside the action. It uplifts. It wants to be sublime; it brings a seriousness and transcendence to the visuals.

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The screenplay was written by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke , and was inspired by Clarke's short story " The Sentinel " and other short stories by Clarke. A novelisation of the film released after the film's premiere was in part written concurrently with the screenplay. The film, which follows a voyage to Jupiter with the sentient computer HAL after the discovery of a featureless alien monolith affecting human evolution, deals with themes of existentialism , human evolution , technology, artificial intelligence , and the possibility of extraterrestrial life. The film is noted for its scientifically accurate depiction of space flight, pioneering special effects, and ambiguous imagery. Sound and dialogue are used sparingly and often in place of traditional cinematic and narrative techniques. The film received diverse critical responses ranging from those who saw it as darkly apocalyptic in tone to those who saw it as an optimistic reappraisal of the hopes of humanity. The film garnered a cult following and became the highest-grossing North American film of It was nominated for four Academy Awards and Kubrick won for his direction of the visual effects. In , it was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. In the prehistoric African veldt , a tribe of hominids are driven away from their water hole by a rival tribe. Later, they awaken to find a featureless alien monolith has appeared before them. Seemingly influenced by the monolith, they discover how to use a bone as a weapon and return to drive their rivals away. Millions of years later, Dr.

There was hardly any dialogue. Or much of a strong central character, for that matter—unless you count a certain willful computer. And many influential critics hated it. But none of those challenges kept A Space Odyssey from ultimately becoming one of the most revered films of the 20th century. Made before the days of digital sci-fi effects, was nothing if not a labor of love. For the moonscape scene, for example, Kubrick had 90 tons of sand dyed gray. As the film lurched into existence—without a set plot line, much less a finished script—its behind-the-scenes reality often proved as outlandish as its futuristic fiction.