Movies - 2001: A Space Odyssey

Home > Listing Index > Movies > 2001: A Space Odyssey (film)

	Movies - 2001: A Space Odyssey

2001: A Space Odyssey is an influential 1968 science fiction film directed by Stanley Kubrick. The story is based in part on various short stories by co-screenwriter Arthur C. Clarke, most notably "The Sentinel" (1951). Kubrick collaborated with Clarke, and together they first concurrently produced the novel version that was released alongside the film (which eventually grew into the so-called Space Odyssey series of books), and then towards the end Kubrick simultaneously wrote the screenplay. For an elaboration of their collaborative work on this project, see The Lost Worlds of 2001, Arthur C. Clarke, Signet., 1972.

The film is notable for combining episodes contrasting high levels of scientific and technical realism with transcendental mysticism. As Arthur C. Clarke wrote in 1972, "Quite early in the game I went around saying, not very loudly, 'MGM doesn't know this yet, but they're paying for the first $10,000,000 religious movie.'" The film won the Academy Award for visual effects in 1968.

Production

2001: A Space Odyssey was shot in Super Panavision 70 with a 65mm film negative format. The release prints were made using the Technicolor dye transfer process.

Release

The US premiere was on April 2, 1968, at the Uptown Theater in Washington, DC. The original Roadshow release was in a 70mm projection format with a six-track stereo magnetic soundtrack. The projection aspect ratio was 2.21:1. The film was also released in the 35mm anamorphic format for general release beginning in the fall of 1968; these prints were available with either 4-track magnetic stereo or optical monaural soundtracks.

The original 70mm release was billed as a Cinerama production in theaters (such as the Indian Hills Theater in Omaha, Nebraska) which were equipped with special projection optics and a deeply curved screen. In non-Cinerama theaters the release was simply identified as a "70mm" production.

In 1980, it became the second movie to be released on VHS by MGM/CBS Home Video.

Cast

Synopsis

NOTE: Due to the fact that this film conveys almost all its ideas visually and ambiguously, it can be interpreted in many ways. The following synopsis is merely one interpretation.

In early conversations, director Stanley Kubrick and writer Arthur C. Clarke jokingly called their project How the Solar System Was Won, an allusion to the epic 1962 Cinerama film How the West Was Won, which presents a generation-spanning historical epic told in distinct episodes. Like How the West Was Won, 2001 is composed of distinct episodes. Three of the four major sections are introduced with the use of title cards: the lack of a title card between the first and second sections listed below has been seen by some to imply that Dr. Floyd's trip to the Moon and the discovery of TMA-1 merely continue the action of Moon Watcher's discovery of the monolith in the Dawn of Man sequences, without introducing a new phase in the development of humanity. The four sections are:

The Dawn of Man

:Roughly 4 million years ago early ape men, known as Australopithecus, become endowed with their first signs of problem-solving intelligence after encountering and touching a mysterious black monolith.

TMA-1 – (untitled on screen)

:Four million years later an identical monolith is discovered beneath the lunar surface, buried in ways confirmed to be both intentional and artificial.

Jupiter Mission, 18 Months Later

:The American spacecraft DISCOVERY 1 embarks on the first manned attempt to reach Jupiter, following a signal of unknown type and meaning sent by the lunar monolith to the planet its immediate vicinity.

Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite

:A transcending experience in another time and dimension, the outcome of which may possibly represent the final evolutionary destiny of all sentient (human?) life.

The Dawn of Man

Following the title sequence, the film fades up on a scene of prehistoric Africa, though it could be any planet: (Kubrick said of the second-unit location shots that the landscapes were chosen for their alien appearance: they don't look like "Bible rocks.") The sun is rising, and we read a superimposed title card which reads "THE DAWN OF MAN." A slow series of scenes follow, lifeless panoramas of geology, then scenes including a few plants which appear to be growing in poor soil. Late in the sequence, a scene includes a skeleton, apparently that of a hominid, letting us know that there is (or was) animal life in this world. There is no sound except for an ambient wind.

Following these still tableaux, we are introduced to the animal denizens of Kubrick's Africa. The hillsides are inhabited by a group of early hominids (called man-apes in the novel) who are seen hungrily competing for plants with a number of tapirs. The man-apes snarl and push the tapirs away from the scarce plant life. The only predator is a leopard, which we first see as it pounces from a high ledge upon one of the man-apes as the man-ape fights back ineffectually. The man-apes are gathered in a tribe, which competes with a rival tribe for a muddy watering hole: it is little more than a puddle. The "alpha" man-ape, "Moon-watcher," (Dan Richter) leads his companions in aggressive screams, posturing, movement, and gesticulation directed at the rival tribe, but no other action occurs.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for 2001: A Space Odyssey (film) ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article 2001: A Space Odyssey (film); it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Searches on eBay