cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/1145119
I know most of us have seen it, but if you haven’t (or it’s been a very long time), this is your assignment this weekend. Watching this film with the reverence that it deserves will leave a lasting impression on you.
I love this movie, but I feel like it is more of an art project than a compelling story. But it is worth watching for the cinematography alone.
Here’s some notable highlights.
2001: A Space Odyssey screencaps
I wish this image could be larger… Here it is on imgur so you can expand it. https://i.imgur.com/DddifXR.jpg
I’m not sure I agree it doesn’t tell a compelling story. For me it did, but just on a very large scale about humanity as such rather than about the adventures of Dr. Bowman or HAL or anything else that might be on a more conventional scale.
That said, I’m also looking for compelling narratives in David Lynch movies, so I might not be an authority on this.
I suspect there is a lot one could glean from the story on a personal level, but after having finished it I didn’t feel like I have learned anything new about the world, society or myself. It’s highly possible that I missed the point or moral of the story they were going for. It was definitely an experience to remember though.
I guess it’s very much open for interpretation.
For me it was a story about humanity, told from the somewhat optimistic perspective of the 1960s space age. The monkey learning to use a tool is the starting point of humanity. We then jump to a 2001 where the space age never ended. Human kind is finally leaving earth, and in the process we are abandoning what we were and reinventing ourselves as something else. Just like the monkey did when it became us by using tools.
Bowman on his dying bed represents the end of human kind itself as we know it. The space fetus is the galactic rebirth of human kind - the movie begins as it ends, with a metaphorical birth.
It becomes the story of how the space age will redefine humanity in the same way tools redefined apes. The space Odyssey is the journey that started with the monkey learning to use a tool, and ending with human kind leaving earth.
But that’s my interpretation. It’s possible I was a bit too enthusiastic after leaving the theatre.
I think seeing this movie in theaters in the 60s would have a drastically different impression on me. Being in my 30s I obviously wasn’t alive when this movie was released. I have seen so many other wonderously imaginative works of science fiction leading up to having seen this one a few years ago. It is difficult for me to imagine this movie, which still holds up today, as being one of my first introductions into the genre in a time where such visuals and concepts were not really a thing yet.
the book makes some of the themes a bit more obvious. the film adaptation left a lot to be desired (though, like you, I’m in my thirties and never saw it in theater.)
I’m a little ashamed to admit I just watched it for the first time and I absolutely loved it. The cinematography is on another level. As someone who loves both sci-fi and artsy movies this scratched a very particular itch for me.
No shame! I have several holes that I need to fill in my pantheon. We get to them when we can.
I remember trying to watch it in my late teens and having zero patience; I think I turned it off before the dawn of man sequence ended! So glad I’ve grown into a wider taste in art and film.
The teens are a tough time for artistic smoldering epics! There are so many movies that I cherish now that I would almost certainly have turned my nose up to. If I think too hard about it, there are probably some pretty cringe movies that I adored in high school too. That might be a fun post.
If you haven’t, checked out the OG The Day The Earth Stood Still. It’s more drama than action, it’s theme is still incredibly relevant. Just, uh, try not to giggle at the rubber robots. and stay away from the remake with keanu reaves… (sacrilege that.)
I watched it as a young teenager and hated it. Couldn’t understand what was going on, thought it was too slow and long to be interesting.
Cut to now and Interstellar is one of my favorite movies; I wanted some reading material with the same vibe, so I picked up the book of 2001 and I’m loving it so far.
Time for a rewatch as an adult I think.
What’s so important about it? I didn’t hate it but it felt like two hours of Kubrick masturbating in the editing box. The story was boring and there was very little throught provoking going on.
It was made in 1968 and changed the way people think about science fiction on screen forever. One of the most ambitious projects ever undertaken, it inspired countless others to try to reach similar heights in cinematography and visual effects. Before 2001, the Science Fiction motion picture genre was entirely dominated by giant ants and awful prop movies were people would just run around screaming from shoddily constructed robot suits. 2001 A Space Odyssey proved how much more the Sci-fi genre could be. A film more than 50 years old that still has effects and photography that are amazing today, and pioneered techniques that filmmakers still use.
As for as the story, if you are someone who needs to have constant action and thrills, it’s not going to work for you. As a smoldering epic full of existential dread at the hands of human progress and the unknown, there are very few films to reach its heights. If you are interested in analysis, there is a LOT out there. I could have you find some.
Definitely in the podium. 👍
I can’t get into it, like the premise but it’s too slow. Feels like it is the movie that has aged worse from Kubrick catalog. Hal’s murder is amazing though. Recomend Ex Machina very much for someone who is interested in some of these themes.
I watched it on shrooms when I was a teenager. From what I remember, it was pretty good as an art piece (atmospheric, cool visuals and audio).
Book is better for the plot/storytelling. IIRC the film was supposed to be a companion piece for the book.
Fwiw I am also not a fan of the movie, but was surprised to find I really enjoyed the book. Might be worth a try.
I love how this movie gave way to a short but solid dick-measuring contest between Kubrick and Andrei Tarkovsky. Which, in turn, produced the next best sci-fi movie of the period, “Solaris”
Oh yeah. Solaris is another incredible film. Although I suspect if people find 2001 difficult, Solaris would be much more difficult. That 10 minute car sequence is extremely polarizing, even in my group of cinema geek friends.
Solaris IS difficult, but it gets much easier for those that read Stanislav Lem’s “Solaris” book first. Tarkovsky being, firstly, a photographer, his cinematographic take was to complement the book with astonishing atmosphere and photographic frames while leaving the story and action in the second and third places. It’s harder to digest for the people that look more for action, but I can’t blame them: this is not supposed to be for everyone
You know I never read the book. I should put that on my list. I feel like Solaris is a movies that you just let wash over you.
Honestly…while there’s a few iconic moments- like the guy running the wheel; I felt that it did a very poor job of communicating what the book does.
though, also, I might be a little biased to the greatest SciFi film to date being the 1950’s version of The Day The Earth Stood Still. sure, it’s not got the action. it doesn’t have apes beating apes. But it does have thought provoking content that is still poignantly relevant to today’s world. (it’s a criticism of Mutually Assured Destruction,)
I think a lot of people don’t realize that the book and movie aren’t REALLY the same story. They were written in parallel together and Kubrick has never been one to make faithful recreations of source material anyway.
I do love The Day the Earth Stood Still also. A lot of people will right it off because it seems a little hokey due to it’s age.
2001: A Space Odyssey was the first “grown-up” book I remember reading and avidly enjoying it in highschool!
It’s too slow. I like action, chemistry or comedy with my plot and character development. It fastidiously avoids all three in it’s slow-burn goal. I’ve never managed to finish the film.
tbf I don’t really like film all that much in general. It’s okay.
I’m kinda on your side in this. I’ve tried watching it multiple times and never got into it, I think the imagery is provocative but with the glut of projects it inspired that exist nowadays, I feel like I saw it too late, and it’s lack of common features while also being long makes it kinda a non-starter for me.
Don’t think I’ll ever finish it but I understand why people love it.
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It’s a lot more high concept than that.
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I don’t know where you got that read, but I’ve never heard anyone say anything even close to that before and I’ve read about and been involved in analysis and discussion over this film for years. Everyone is, of course, entitled to their own interpretation of any art work, but this is one of the simplest and least intuitive I have ever heard.
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