How 2001: A House Odyssey Was “the Toughest Movie Kubrick Ever Made”

Stan­ley Kubrick­’s 2001: A House Odyssey has been praised in all guy­ner of phrases because it got here out greater than part a cen­tu­ry in the past. An ear­ly adver­tis­ing cam­paign, faucet­ping into the enthu­si­asm of the con­tem­po­rary coun­ter­cul­ture, referred to as it “the ulti­mate travel”; within the equiv­a­lent­ly fashionable par­lance of the twen­ty-twen­ties, one may say that it “is going laborious,” in that it takes no few daring, even unprece­dent­ed aes­thet­ic and dra­mat­ic turns. The brand new video essay from Simply One Extra Factor even describes 2001 as “the laborious­est movie Kubrick ever made” — which, giv­en Kubrick­’s uncom­professional­mis­ing ambi­tions as a movie­mak­er, is cer­tain­ly say­ing some­factor.

In some of the many inter­view clips that con­sti­tute the video’s 23 min­utes, Steven Spiel­berg recollects his con­ver­sa­tions with Kubrick within the remaining years of the mas­ter’s lifestyles. “I need to make a film that adjustments the shape,” Kubrick would ceaselessly say to Spiel­berg. Arguably, he’d already carried out so with 2001, which con­tin­ues to release its first-time view­ers into an expe­ri­ence in contrast to any they’ve had with a film prior to. In contrast to the extra sub­stance-inclined mem­bers of his gen­er­a­tion, Spiel­berg went into the the­ater “blank as a whis­tle,” however “got here out of there altered” nev­er­the­much less. It did­n’t require medication to appre­ci­ate finally; “that movie used to be the drug.”

This isn’t to mention that 2001 is natural­ly and even pri­mar­i­ly an summary paintings of cin­e­ma. In col­lab­o­ra­tion with Arthur C. Clarke, Kubrick put quite a lot of tech­ni­cal concept into the movie’s imaginative and prescient of the long run, with its well-appoint­ed area sta­tions, its arti­fi­cial­ly intel­li­gent com­put­ers, its video calls, and its tablet-like cell gadgets. Paintings­ing within the years prior to the moon land­ing, says Stan­ley Kubrick: The Com­plete Movies creator Paul Dun­can, they “needed to com­plete­ly visu­al­ize, and make actual, issues that had nev­er passed off.” Such used to be the actual­ism in their spec­u­los angeles­tive paintings (as much as and includ­ing imag­in­ing how Earth would glance from area) that, as Roger Ebert notes, the actual Apol­lo 11 astro­nauts may describe their expe­ri­ence sim­ply: “It used to be like 2001.”

Con­ceived within the warmth of the House Race, the movie envi­sions a really perfect deal that did­n’t come to cross through the epony­mous yr — and certainly, has but to mate­ri­al­ize nonetheless these days. “We haven’t relatively were given­ten to arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence as por­trayed,” says superstar Keir Dul­lea in a Fiftieth-anniver­sary inter­view. “Nearly, however no longer relatively.” Nonetheless, even since then, the tech­nol­o­gy has come a ways sufficient alongside that few people can pon­der the cur­hire state of AI with­out quickly­er or lat­er pay attention­ing the omi­nous­ly well mannered voice of HAL some­the place at the back of our minds. The saga of astro­nauts cur­hire­ly strand­ed at the Inter­na­tion­al House Sta­tion does con­trast harsh­ly with 2001’s visions of sta­ble and well-func­tion­ing lifestyles in out­er area — however as a sto­ry, it will effectively have appealed to Kubrick in his Dr. Strangelove mode.

Relat­ed con­tent:

1966 Movie Explores the Mak­ing of Kubrick’s 2001: A House Odyssey (and Our Prime-Tech Long term)

How Stan­ley Kubrick Made 2001: A House Odyssey: A Sev­en-Section Video Essay

Dis­cov­er the Lifestyles & Paintings of Stan­ley Kubrick in a Sweep­ing 3-Hour Video Essay

“Kubrick/Tarkovsky”: A Video Essay Explores the Visu­al Sim­i­lar­i­ties Between the Two “Cin­e­mat­ic Giants”

How Stan­ley Kubrick Was Stan­ley Kubrick: A Brief Document­u­males­tary Nar­rat­ed through the Movie­mak­er

Did Stan­ley Kubrick Invent the iPad in 2001: A House Odyssey?

Based totally in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and huge­casts on towns, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His initiatives come with the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Towns and the ebook The State­much less Town: a Stroll via Twenty first-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­ebook.