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“Close to tears, he left at the intermission”: how Kubrick upset Clarke (2017)

newstatesman.com

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Re: “Close to tears, he left at the intermission”: how Kubrick upset Clarke (2017)

#41

Post by mortenjorck »

andrewflnr wrote: post #4

I can't blame Kubrick for cutting all the voice-overs, which probably would have made the movie unbearable to watch. At the same time, it's maddening in its ambiguity. Seeing it as a product of this enormous gulf between creative approaches explains a lot.

It would be fascinating to watch the Clarke cut. The spartan ambiguity of Kubrick's cut almost certainly makes it the better film, but to see A Space Odyssey from such a different creative perspective would nonetheless be a revelation.

I wonder if prints of it still exist in a vault somewhere.

Re: “Close to tears, he left at the intermission”: how Kubrick upset Clarke (2017)

#42

Post by raldi »

tomcatfish wrote: post #7

This article CONSTANTLY refreshes on mobile, even after several minutes, making it next-to-impossible to read

It also scrolls back to the top instantly if you try to search the text, like for the word "tears" so you can quickly look up the antidote to the clickbait headline. It also blocks copy-paste, so you can't share the relevant paragraph and save the rest of HN ten minutes of reading.

Re: “Close to tears, he left at the intermission”: how Kubrick upset Clarke (2017)

#43

Post by PhasmaFelis »

surbas wrote: post #28
DEFCON28 wrote: post #23

I didn't quite get why Kubrick kicked Moorcock off the set. Anyone care to explain?

Kubrick didn’t want it to come out, on the set, that he had asked other authors to collaborate with him.

Kubrick probably had no idea who he was, from the sound of it. Moorcock says "I prepared to meet the man who had contacted me a year or so earlier," implying that they had never met face-to-face but only spoken on the phone or through Kubrick's people.

Re: “Close to tears, he left at the intermission”: how Kubrick upset Clarke (2017)

#44

Post by coldtea »

tempagain567i wrote: post #12

I literally had to scroll all the way to the very bottom in order to get to the point. If journalists want us to pay them then they must abandon this cancerous writing style of endless fluff and nonsense.

It was actually a celebrated science fiction author, and friend of Arthur C. Clark, who wrote the article, not a journalist.

Re: “Close to tears, he left at the intermission”: how Kubrick upset Clarke (2017)

#45

Post by coldtea »

jccooper wrote: post #31
dudul wrote: post #11

Kubrick was fairly known for heavily adapting the novels he used for inspiration. There are huge differences between the novel "Lolita" and Kubrick's adaptation. Same with "Shining" or "Clockwork Orange". TBH, I'm really happy we didn't get a version with voice-overs and all. Hard to imagine a concept of "documentary" would have been better than what we ended up with.

Stephen King is publicly critical of Kubrick's treatment of "The Shining", mostly about its unchanging and one-dimensional characters. While I expect "2001" would not have been improved by a lot of explanatory voiceovers, I think "The Shining" would be seriously improved by Jack not being obviously crazy right from the first.

>Stephen King is publicly critical of Kubrick's treatment of "The Shining", mostly about its unchanging and one-dimensional characters.

It's not like King is some king of nuance in characters himself...

Re: “Close to tears, he left at the intermission”: how Kubrick upset Clarke (2017)

#46

Post by coupdejarnac »

mieseratte wrote: post #36
coupdejarnac wrote: post #33

Having read 2001, A Clockwork Orange, and Lolita, I'd say Kubrick's end products justified his changes. Imagine A Clockwork Orange having a happy ending... Well, that's how the book ends.

As a former disaffected youth I've very much come to appreciate the original ending of A Clockwork Orange as I've gotten older. While I am a bit of a fan of Kubrick, I think he did the story a great disservice by ending it as he did.

I can appreciate that, but to me it feels like a deux ex machina given how the events unfolded up until the end. I think it demonstrates a cultural difference between Americans and British- by taking the route of personal growth, the book goes against the dour, nihilistic ending British would expect. I don't remember any buildup to Alex's epiphany, so I found it unsatisfying.

Re: “Close to tears, he left at the intermission”: how Kubrick upset Clarke (2017)

#47

Post by code_duck »

knolan wrote: post #13
tomcatfish wrote: post #7

This article CONSTANTLY refreshes on mobile, even after several minutes, making it next-to-impossible to read

I used reader mode on iOS safari and it was fine.

I used safari in normal mode and didn’t notice any refreshing.

Re: “Close to tears, he left at the intermission”: how Kubrick upset Clarke (2017)

#48

Post by dang »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #29
dang wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personal attacks will get you banned here. Please don't post like this, regardless of how much another comment annoys you. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Personal attacks? What personal attacks? I'm on record (although it would require a pretty exhaustive Google News search to find it) as saying pretty much the same thing as the OP, right after I watched 2001 for the first time. In that case, other people on rec.movies were patient enough to give me some good advice, which was to set the Clarke book aside for the moment, give the film another try in a better viewing e…

I read your comment as saying that another user's personal growth level falls short of your own and "most of us". Putting someone else down like that isn't ok here, regardless of what they think about a movie.

Re: “Close to tears, he left at the intermission”: how Kubrick upset Clarke (2017)

#49

Post by dudul »

jccooper wrote: post #31
dudul wrote: post #11

Kubrick was fairly known for heavily adapting the novels he used for inspiration. There are huge differences between the novel "Lolita" and Kubrick's adaptation. Same with "Shining" or "Clockwork Orange". TBH, I'm really happy we didn't get a version with voice-overs and all. Hard to imagine a concept of "documentary" would have been better than what we ended up with.

Stephen King is publicly critical of Kubrick's treatment of "The Shining", mostly about its unchanging and one-dimensional characters. While I expect "2001" would not have been improved by a lot of explanatory voiceovers, I think "The Shining" would be seriously improved by Jack not being obviously crazy right from the first.

Most authors complained about it yes. Burgess accused Kubrick of not having understood a single word of "Clockwork Orange". Nabokov was the most gracious when he said that while Lolita was a very good movie, he didn't recognize his original work at all :)

I think it's a very difficult exercise to adapt a novel. Should you literally put on the screen what is written in the book ? What's the point ? You're not creating much. On the other hand, if you deviate from the original work, fans start attacking you for "betraying" the spirit of the book.

Re: “Close to tears, he left at the intermission”: how Kubrick upset Clarke (2017)

#50

Post by hypertexthero »

jccooper wrote: post #31
dudul wrote: post #11

Kubrick was fairly known for heavily adapting the novels he used for inspiration. There are huge differences between the novel "Lolita" and Kubrick's adaptation. Same with "Shining" or "Clockwork Orange". TBH, I'm really happy we didn't get a version with voice-overs and all. Hard to imagine a concept of "documentary" would have been better than what we ended up with.

Stephen King is publicly critical of Kubrick's treatment of "The Shining", mostly about its unchanging and one-dimensional characters. While I expect "2001" would not have been improved by a lot of explanatory voiceovers, I think "The Shining" would be seriously improved by Jack not being obviously crazy right from the first.

The Shining is a rare case of a film being far better than a the book it is based on precisely because of Kubrick’s reinterpretation of the story.

I find [this argument][1] that one of its central themes is a suppressed history of violence and bloodshed convincing.

A film masterpiece.

[1]: http://www.collativelearning.com/the%20shining%20-%20chap%20...

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