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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)

#111

Post by jameslevy »

logicallee wrote: post #108
KozmoNau7 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had the same experience with The Shining. On my PC, it's a bit plodding and slow, but on the big screen, it's a completely visceral and intense experience like no other film I've seen.

Lawrence of Arabia is supposed to be an immersive, "culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant" epic historical drama film which won Best Cinematography. But I couldn't avoid constantly glancing at the time and my notifications, when I watched it on a smart watch screen that also displayed a bar across the top showing the time and my notifications.

Serious question: How is it possible to view Lawrence of Arabia on a smart watch?

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

#112

Post by davidgould »

rainloft wrote: post #89

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…

We forget in the age of constant exposure to video that big screen cinema is not the same thing and that some films use the large screen fully as part of the art.

One of my favorite old movies is "The Stunt Man". One of my most disappointing viewing experiences was re-watching "The Stunt Man" on a friends small screen. Most of the emotional and dramatic tension in the film is driven by the sense/fear that the Peter O'Toole character is omniscient, that no matter what the other characters try he will somehow be ahead of them. This works because the viewer also ends up believing this. But a lot of the work to sell this is done in the viewers peripheral vision and on a small screen it simply doesn't happen which leaves the film sadly deflated.

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

#113

Post by ahofmann »

socceroos wrote: post #109
logicallee wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lawrence of Arabia is supposed to be an immersive, "culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant" epic historical drama film which won Best Cinematography. But I couldn't avoid constantly glancing at the time and my notifications, when I watched it on a smart watch screen that also displayed a bar across the top showing the time and my notifications.

I had a similar experience when watching this through the terminal (img to ascii conversion) on my headless server. It was too easy to get distracted by syslog events that were overwriting stdout from the video.

This post made my day, thank you very much!

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

#114

Post by davidgould »

psyc wrote: post #102
cromwellian wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Can’t recommend this highly enough for its complex (for TV) treatment of strong AI.

I tried a few episodes and thought it was stupid. I'd love to be wrong, so please tell me it gets better. I'm willing to give it a second chance.

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

#115

Post by michaelgrafl »

cperciva wrote: post #88

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 m…

That's a great anecdote. Where do you have it from? I'd love to find more of this kind of stuff.

And wow, by the way. That's harsh.

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

#116

Post by dvtv75 »

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.

My understanding is that 2001 isn't so much an adaptation of the novel as it is a script that was written through extensive collaboration between both Kubrick and Clarke, eventually adapted into both screenplay and novel. I've got quite an interesting book that goes into some detail about it - "2001: filming the future"

I think it may have been in there that I read something to the effect of "Kubrick withheld his approval of the book because he didn't want to hurt the release of the film."

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

#117

Post by sparkzilla »

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…

The film, especially the original theatrical release that has the voiceover, echoes Film Noir and 1940s cop movies that you may not have seen, but many people in the 1980s would have had in memory.

The sequel follows the visual style of the original, but it doesn't have the film noir feel. It's tone is much harsher. In the original the characters are able to find some meaning in their lives, and even find love or redemption, but the sequel shows the future as much less forgiving.

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

#118

Post by toyg »

icantdrive55 wrote: post #85
thaumasiotes wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> I've never met anyone who didn't like 2001

In some circles, admitting that you find anything by Kubrick "boring" is considered uncool, so nobody will admit to it. It's like Blade Runner (also mentioned in Moorcock's essay, not coincidentally): their cultural and historical significance for genre development means that cinematographical critique will always be forced to take a back seat.

Personally, I'm a child of the late '70s and I just cannot watch 2001 without falling asleep. Sure, I admire the photography and the realism; the second half of the movie is occasionally exciting; but among Kubrick's work, it's definitely not one I'd rewatch. Part of the reason is even willfully acknowledged: Kubrick actually meant to show how space-travel was very boring, Moorcock mentions it. So there is no shame in admitting that the message was efficiently driven home.

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

#119

Post by toyg »

kqr wrote: post #96
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!

Yes, having read the book makes a huge difference. I tried watching the film first, but I failed and stopped watching a short way into it. Then at some point I read the book, which I really enjoyed. I thought I'd give the film a second chance and I'm glad I did because it was brilliant, having read the book. Strongly recommend treating them as two integral parts of one work of art -- consuming either one and not the…

Apocalypse Now does not require any additional reading, it's a perfectly self-contained masterpiece.

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

#120

Post by toyg »

coupdejarnac wrote: post #46
mieseratte wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Just FYI, it's deus ex machina. Deus is Latin for "god" and deux is French for "two" - very different things.
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