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

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

#51

Post by mynameishere »

dudul wrote: post #49
jccooper wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The Godfather was pretty close to the novel, with much dialog line-for-line identical. The main difference was the subtraction of a few egregiously daft subplots.

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

#52

Post by pryce »

DEFCON28 wrote: post #23

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

I think it's pretty clear that Moorcock is showing how ambiguity is an important or even necessary part of the human experience. He himself doesn't know for certain whether he was kicked off due to

A) Kubrick not knowing for certain who he was, or

B) Kubrick knowing exactly who he was but aiming to prevent Kubrick's earlier proposals to collaborate with Moorcock from coming into public view.

I notice that two different commenters here have reached two totally different yet sensible conclusions, based on exactly the same evidence. To me, Moorcock seems to be staking his flag into the ground over the inalterable need for truth to be filtered and interpreted by the human psyche - and that if even direct and worldly concerns like this have no straightforward single answer, the idea that our species might encounter spiritual or transcendental truths without ambiguity over what they actually mean is pretty tenuous.

But I could be mistaken.

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

#53

Post by mcguire »

interfixus wrote: post #14
firasd wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was very let down when I watched it some years ago--I was like, 'where's the climax?' But I've watched a few more arty ambiguous movies lately ('Under the Skin', 'The Neon Demon', 'Mother!') and recently liked 'Annihilation' despite its slow pacing and ambiguity, so I've been thinking maybe I'll like '2001' better this time if I check it out again... Something I've noticed about '2001' in the meanwhile is that its…

I see I'm getting hammered for my negativity, but I certainly meant it when I said in awe about the first part. It's magnificent, never mind the lunar gravity problem, which I've never seen well done on film. It's only a couple of months since I last tried - and gave up on - watching 2001 to the end. Probably my own shortcoming entirely - I see nothing but pretentious late sixties posing from the stargate and onwards…

I don't know. Looking at the mental landscape of a transhuman, pretentious late-sixties posing is probably the best you can hope for.

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

#54

Post by indescions_2018 »

Have revisited 2001 recently. Particularly the scene just before Intermission. Where HAL is reading the lips of the astronauts in the pod. It just really holds up. Apart from the genius editing and sound design. It feels even more a cautionary moment for modern minds on AI. As it must have been to American audiences during the height of the Vietnam War era.

Ridley Scott's original Alien and Blade Runner remain immensely watchable 30+ years on. Perhaps even more so. Which makes it high time not to just complete Clark's monoliith films. But write the next chapter in "Dystopian AI" cinema. One in which a super-intelligence doesn't merely write off the necessity of humanity. But actively yet surreptitiously nudges us to produce more powerful versions of itself ;)

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

#55

Post by dudul »

mynameishere wrote: post #51
dudul wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The Godfather was pretty close to the novel, with much dialog line-for-line identical. The main difference was the subtraction of a few egregiously daft subplots.

Hum, there was also a lot of differences with the importance of the character of Johnny Fontane who is way more present in the novel.

In this instance, the "opposite" actually happened. Coppola is supposed to have said, when finishing the last page of the novel, "I'm supposed to make a masterpiece of this turd ?"

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

#56

Post by coldacid »

indescions_2018 wrote: post #54

Have revisited 2001 recently. Particularly the scene just before Intermission. Where HAL is reading the lips of the astronauts in the pod. It just really holds up. Apart from the genius editing and sound design. It feels even more a cautionary moment for modern minds on AI. As it must have been to American audiences during the height of the Vietnam War era. Ridley Scott's original Alien and Blade Runner remain immens…

If you're into anime, you might enjoy watching Beatless. It's a wonderful and scary view into what an AI dominated future may hold for us.

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

#57

Post by ferorus »

This is funny. I read the book before I watched the film and didn't know that the movie was released before the book was published. I was amazed of how well the movie put images to what I had read in the book, and having read it, I didn't find it difficult to understand the movie, I just thought it was one of the best adaptations of a book I'd ever seen!

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

#58

Post by nyolfen »

hypertexthero wrote: post #50
jccooper wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

rob ager's videos are fantastic, his youtube channel is worth peeping if you (or anyone who enjoyed your link) want to see similar analysis:

https://www.youtube.com/user/robag88

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

#59

Post by SilasX »

ferorus wrote: post #57

This is funny. I read the book before I watched the film and didn't know that the movie was released before the book was published. I was amazed of how well the movie put images to what I had read in the book, and having read it, I didn't find it difficult to understand the movie, I just thought it was one of the best adaptations of a book I'd ever seen!

But the Star baby wouldn’t make sense without the book.
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