2001 a Space Oddessey , 50 years ago this month

Don't shoot the messenger ...In response to the Stavros "I Piss on Life" post.

There is a statement Kubrick said to Arthur C. Clark: " “If you can describe it,” Clarke recalls Kubrick telling him, “I can film it.”......

That's all I need to know about any of Stanley Kubricks motivations. In his shoes I would say "Hey man, I was just doing my job". And a great one he did on that movie.
His movies were usually based on something that had already been written.
Some might not like his interpretations, but I definitely enjoyed his presentations.

2001: A Space Odyssey (film) - The screenplay was written by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, and was partially BASED ON Clarke's short story "The Sentinel".


Barry Lyndon is a 1975 British-American period drama film by Stanley Kubrick, BASED ON the 1844 novel The Luck of Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray

A Clockwork Orange is a 1971 dystopian crime film adapted, produced, and directed by Stanley Kubrick,
BASED ON Anthony Burgess's 1962 novel of the same name.

Full Metal Jacket' it is BASED ON a novel called "The Short Timers" written by Gustav Hasford, himself a former Marine and Vietnam veteran, Like Private Joker from both the book and film, Hasford was a military journalist, so the novel is somewhat autobiographical and based on Hasford's personal experiences ..

Lolita
Lolita is a 1962 British-American drama film directed by Stanley Kubrick. BASED ON a novel of the same title, Vladimir Nabokov


Dr Strangelove (iconic title error in the credits)= ["Base" on Red Alert]
Dr. Strangelove was BASED ON the book, Red Alert, by Peter George.
Note:
Compare it to Syney Lumets movie Fail Safe for another interpretation of basically the same source info...Fail Safe the book ,so closely resembled Red Alert that Kubrick and Peter George filed a copyright infringement lawsuit. Strangelove was more entertaining to me and it did help erase a lot of the pervasive fear and worrying .

The Killing is a 1956 film noir directed by Stanley Kubrick and produced by James B. Harris. It was written by Kubrick and Jim Thompson and BASED ON the novel Clean Break by Lionel White.


Paths of Glory is a 1957 American anti-war film[2] by Stanley Kubrick BASED ON the novel of the same name by Humphrey Cobb.

Eyes Wide Shut is a 1999 erotic drama film directed, produced, and co-written by Stanley Kubrick. BASED ON Arthur Schnitzler's 1926 novella Traumnovelle (Dream Story)

The Shining
The film is BASED ON Stephen King's 1977 novel of the same name

Spartacus is a 1960 American epic historical drama film directed by Stanley Kubrick. The screenplay by Dalton Trumbo was BASED ON the novel of the same title by Howard Fast
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He picked up the ball and ran with it. Though some may not feel he always scored , I think he played a pretty good game.


As far as the movie 2001 A Space Odyssey goes, I'm glad they made the movie.
It was a great inspiration and a better bookmark of those times of war, assassinations , intolerance and injustice.

I really love "2001", I think it's a masterpiece (expecially the "Blue Danube" scene), but do not like the other Kubrick movies.
As often happens, many people say everything from Kubrick is great. If you say you like something people do not understand you can say you are "expert".
It's the same with Frank Zappa's music.
The more it's senseless, the more you feel "brainy".
Kubrick did some really shitty movies, and nobody dare to recognize it.

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Originally Posted by morim

As often happens, many people say everything from Kubrick is great. If you say you like something people do not understand you can say you are "expert".
It's the same with Frank Zappa's music.

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This is a really great point. It especially applies to music. I don't want to name names but some bands that sound like absolute shit are routinely characterized as "talented" and anyone who sounds good is a sell-out, their popularity being proof.

I also found a few of Kubrick's movies overrated but really enjoyed at least a few of them. I loved Paths of Glory and Dr. Strangelove. I enjoyed the Killing, but can see why some would want to laud some of his less watchable movies simply to say they understand it.

I probably enjoyed 2001 a little bit less than most people in this thread, but probably just my short attention span...

I think over intellectualization zaps the enjoyment out of anything so that may be the main reason why o Stavros doesn’t seem to like 2001 anymore (not to discount his stated reasons ). He makes some interesting points and has ideas about the movie I hadn’t considered before, but I enjoy the movie I think because it does say something about the human race. I believe Stavros said something to the effect Kubrick doesn’t allow for man to transcend his current condition. Maybe I didn’t understand his point but I believe in certain respects mankind isn’t too much different than the other primates that have inhabited the earth and probably will forevermore be. ( But I think personally that’s where God comes in. I believe He will, (or our belief that He will ) will cause us to transcend ) but that’s another discussion. So whether Kubrick is saying that all is futile or not, he’s making us think about it. Planet of the Apes of course deals with the same theme as well imo.

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Originally Posted by Stavros

HAL was voiced by the Canadian actor Douglas Rain.

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You got me again, Sheldon, I mean Stavros, The dying breath of HAL was Kubrick's.

Saw the movie 77 and was very confused... then I found the book ... and was introduced to the genius of Aurthur C... Ah Aurthur C

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Originally Posted by setterman

I'm not sure how you come to your conclusions, and I am not going to comment on any of Kubrick's films other than 2001, but I cannot agree with your contention that 2001 shows that "there is no other life in the universe than our own". If that were the case, obviously the monolith itself is not alive, but who hid the second one on the moon, the "early-warning-system" version, and when man did activate it (by digging it up and exposing it to the stars), to whom or what did it send its ear-splitting warning? And even in our own solar system, what was the chlorophyll-based creature under the ice, if not life?

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No need to ascribe more to the black stone than is needed, it is a portal of change, marking the moment when 'mankind' shifts from eating raw to cooked food, from using tools for creativity rather than destruction; from a subsistence to a marked economy; from hand-made to machine-made products, from the human mind to the computer. But while each portal represents change, human nature remains the same, to the extent that if early man doesn't whack you over the head with a stick, later man, or the computer will take over and chuck you out into deepest space.

As for AC Clarke, he was a pedophile and not ashamed of it, insisting that he was educating young boys in the ways of sex and what is wrong with that? His mate, Rupert Murdoch insisted that his papers not print the facts about Clarke as long as he was alive.

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Originally Posted by dakota87

I think over intellectualization zaps the enjoyment out of anything so that may be the main reason why o Stavros doesn’t seem to like 2001 anymore (not to discount his stated reasons ). He makes some interesting points and has ideas about the movie I hadn’t considered before, but I enjoy the movie I think because it does say something about the human race. I believe Stavros said something to the effect Kubrick doesn’t allow for man to transcend his current condition. Maybe I didn’t understand his point but I believe in certain respects mankind isn’t too much different than the other primates that have inhabited the earth and probably will forevermore be. ( But I think personally that’s where God comes in. I believe He will, (or our belief that He will ) will cause us to transcend ) but that’s another discussion. So whether Kubrick is saying that all is futile or not, he’s making us think about it. Planet of the Apes of course deals with the same theme as well imo.

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The point may be clearer if you look at the positive achievements of human society, so that instead of focusing on war and violence, you have the phenomenal achievements of science with regard to medicine and engineering -just two example-, but which also present the example of humans helping each other rather than destroying or exploiting each other. If you wanted a religious perspective, there is no charity in Kubrick's films, no sense of community or communities working for each other, no sense of someone giving up something of themselves for another. There is a rare moment of human emotion in Barry Lyndon, but it takes place when the only thing Barry ever creates, his son, is dying after falling from horse, and after it Barry descends into the ignominy from which he came. It is a bleak ride all the way.

I like the film, even though I have no idea what the end is about - or maybe because of that. Why do we always need to be fed a clear message? Can't we just have 'art for art's sake'?

Yes of course you can, and admire 2001: A Space Odyssey for its technical brilliance. But the film does also have meaning, and the best films merge form and content, one informing the other, and this is as true of a classic 'art' film like Bergman's Persona (1966) as it is of, say, Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry (1971).

The clue is even in the title, 'Odyssey', a reference to the journey home from the Trojan Wars that took Odysseus ten years, delayed by obstacles he had to overcome to reach his destination (whereupon he slaughtered all the men courting his wife). Man makes an Odyssey through the universe only to be returned to Earth in the form in which he left it.

The use of the opening fanfare of the tone poem by Richard Strauss, Also Sprach Zarathustra -a reference to the book by Nietzsche which proposes man escape the prison-house of religion for a world he is free to make for himself, is typical of the sarcasm that Kubrick used in his films. The freedom Nietzsche extolled Kubrick presents as a sham, as Kubrick cannot free himself from the idea that human nature is fixed and cannot be changed. The use of Schubert's Piano Trio Op 100 in Barry Lyndon presents the delicate beauty of Schubert as a musical commentary on the superficial fabric of manners in aristocratic society, which Kubrick presents as a society of hypocrites covering up their own deficiencies, while the music is as perfect you can get, though much of the sarcasm in Barry Lyndon is also found in Thackeray's text. It is hard to think of a more sarcastic song to play at the end of life on earth than 'We'll Meet Again' as happens at the end of doom-laden Dr Strangelove.

Then, at the end of Paths of Glory, French soldiers are reduced to tears as a German POW sings them a song- 'The Faithful Hussar'- about a soldier separated from his beloved by war who returns home to find her mortally ill. French soldiers, most of whom would not know German and thus the words, crying over a song about their own fate as Col Dax, listening outside, is given the order to move them back to the front. The look on Dax's face sums it up. Whatever relief from pain their cafe break has given them is about to end and return them to misery they have briefly escaped. Finally, consider how, at the end of a night of violence in the Outloook Hotel in The Shining, the film ends with a friolous waltz, Midnight, the Stars and You with the camera homing in on a photo of a ball in the hotel dated 1921, with Jack prominent in the front -because however many years pass, nothing changes.