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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)

#81

Post by shkkmo »

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…

> But write the next chapter in "Dystopian AI" cinema.

I think Person of Interest is the most interesting exploration of Dystopian AI to hit popular culture in a while. I thought it was fascinating how they turned the gimmick of a standard episodic procedural crime solving TV show into the all encompassing theme of a serialized TV epic.

Person of Interest starts pretty slow, but his ability to progress the show without losing his audience is the reason why Jonathen Nolen was trusted to produce as ambitious a TV show as Westworld for his next project.

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

#82

Post by SiVal »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #68
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.

> I can't blame Kubrick for cutting all the voice-overs, which probably would have made the movie unbearable to watch. If you were going to cut material from 2001 that made it unbearable to watch, the film would be 5-10 minutes long.

I've always loved 2001 since I saw it as a kid on opening night. I was just a little guy, but I couldn't get enough space stuff, so my dad took me to 2001. He and I were both so excited about the experience it gave us of our future in space even though neither of us had any idea what the movie was actually about.

And that's a legitimate problem for many people. I have lots of friends (and family) who find it unbearable. Even today, my dad and I will watch it together, but everyone else will leave. "BOOORING!"

(I read the book as a kid so I could figure out what was going on and explain it to my dad. No one else wanted to know.)

I think it could have given me all the things I loved about it AND been less artsy about lack of explanation, but I wouldn't have wanted to spend less time enthralled by a slow, graceful docking maneuver or observing daily life on the centrifugal deck, or witnessing the full interaction between HAL and Dave. Lots of people get very bored by these and want to see more forward movement in the plot, more action, but I just sit there fascinated. (Less so today, but that's only because the content is now somewhat dated, and I'd rather watch an updated equivalent.)

I suspect the kind of movie that appeals to people like me may not get made again.

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

#83

Post by shkkmo »

cromwellian wrote: post #74
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…

Try thto Person of Interest TV series, from season 2 and especially 3, onwards it is all about super intelligence combined with super surveillance. https://youtu.be/SmUO0v7VYTo

I totally missed your comment when writing mine, I should have refreshed the window :)

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

#84

Post by itronitron »

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 tried to watch 2001 again about 8 years ago and had to put it on fast forward, at 10X speed, and even then I was still falling asleep through most of it

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

#85

Post by icantdrive55 »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #68
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.

> I can't blame Kubrick for cutting all the voice-overs, which probably would have made the movie unbearable to watch. If you were going to cut material from 2001 that made it unbearable to watch, the film would be 5-10 minutes long.

I've never met anyone who didn't like 2001, but I've lived a sheltered life.

Could I ask your age?

And maybe, what country you grew up in?

(I'm trying to understand different generations, other than mine(mine is boring). I would like to develop a data sheet noting differing lines/values/morality between different age groups. I'm using 4chan for people under 25, but the different nationalities seem to throw everything off?)

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

#86

Post by twoodfin »

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.

Kubrick doesn’t adapt novels so much as he adopts them as superstructure upon which his films supervene.

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

#87

Post by hetman »

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…

I recently watched the original Blade Runner with a bunch of friends; none of us had seen it before. Immensely watchable was certainly not the general opinion. A few of us decided it was worth watching only because it set the background for the new Blade Runner. We're probably missing some cultural element that meant it didn't elicit quite the same reaction as it did for you and I'm very curious what that might have been.

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

#88

Post by cperciva »

Arthur C Clarke wasn't the only person who was shocked at the premiere of 2001.

Stanley Kubrick commissioned the prominent film composer Alex North -- famous for the scoring of Spartacus -- to write the music for 2001. However, film music is only recorded and added at the final stage of editing; normally all of the video is laid down first so that the music director knows exactly how long each scene will be and the music can be recorded at the right tempo to match up.

During the video editing process, "temp music" is used -- typically classical music because it's widely available -- so that scenes have the right feeling when they're viewed by the director. For this purpose, Kubrick selected the opening fanfare from Also Sprach Zarathustra for the start of 2001, The Blue Danube for "floating through space" scenes, et cetera. However, after viewing the edited scenes with the "temporary" background music, Kubrick decided that he really liked it that way -- and so rather than using the score which North was composing and recording, he re-edited the video to match the tempo of the classical recordings he had used.

Legend has it that Kubrick didn't know how to break the news to North -- but however it happened, North turned up for the premiere expecting to hear the music he had spent six months composing and recording, and was devastated to hear the supposedly "temporary" music used instead.

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

#89

Post by rainloft »

I've watched 2001 twice in my life. Once on my laptop screen, and once in a theater. Wildly different experiences.

On a laptop, it was maddeningly slow. I couldn't bear that scene where the spaceship docks on the space station while the Blue Danube Waltz played. Excruciating. I wish there was more explanation, as my mind was wandering watching this dull film.

In a theater, I experienced a completely different film.On the big screen, I could imagine the scale of this achievement, of a man-made spaceship landing on a man-made space station, all this coordination, against the Blue Danube waltz, and it was all I could see in my field of vision. Not distracted by other things as I was on my laptop. I didn't need explanation. I just felt it. I finally felt that I had "gotten" the movie. It was an experience. Not just plot and explosions and super heroes, like most movies are today.

A powerful film is expressed in images! Film. It's called a motion picture. The more a film can be expressed in images, the more "pure" it is to its medium! And most of the film was silent.

I'm glad Clarke got the chance to make it a novel, and told it in the form most fitting for him.

Kubrick was a filmmaker and Clarke a writer. I think it is natural that they would disagree on the telling of this story. Different mediums call for different ways to tell the story.

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

#90

Post by macintux »

hetman wrote: post #87
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…

I recently watched the original Blade Runner with a bunch of friends; none of us had seen it before. Immensely watchable was certainly not the general opinion. A few of us decided it was worth watching only because it set the background for the new Blade Runner. We're probably missing some cultural element that meant it didn't elicit quite the same reaction as it did for you and I'm very curious what that might have…

There are at least two very different cuts of the original, so take that into account when different people have different reactions.
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