2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) 141 Minutes

Our final Pick before the Thanksgiving break, Nubs honored our 101st with this

seminal, and aptly titled, film.

Attendance for Nubs Selection has been down of late, but that all changed

Wednesday when the Back Yard was once again filled to the brim. Save recent

Birthday Girl Jaja, the entire Membership was assembled and joined by

Bourbon Cookie, Johnnie G., and Pat Towne bringing the total to nine.

Not only was Nubs’ Selection the first post 100th Pick, it was the first Official

Selection ever presented with an intermission (MOFO’s Unofficial Pick

‘The Sand Pebbles’ had an intermission as well). Though Nubs skipped the film’s overture, the Crew used the film’s entr’acte to mill about briefly before settling back down for Jupiter and Beyond.

This Pick marks an interesting milestone in Nubs recent Selection History. The last time Nubby chose a film made before the Year 2000 was his Indoor Presentation of ‘Being John Malkovich’ from 1999. His next four Picks (‘Children of Men,’ ‘Hustle & Flow,’ ‘Sexy Beast,’ and ‘The Incredibles’) were all made in the 21st Century. It is ironic then that his first Pick in almost six months that wasn’t made after the year 2000 is set in that time frame.

‘2001’ marks the second film at Movienight directed by the one and only Stanley Kubrick. It’s been nearly two years since Tooda broke his cherry with ‘Dr. Strangelove,’ and it was nice to have him back. Also debuting here was HAL 9000 (unforgettably voiced by Douglas Rain). HAL has been an important part of Movienight since the beginning as our trusty projector has gone by that name ever since our Website was born. Our own HAL even betrayed us on occasion, but Wednesday was the first time he ever projected his own image in our History. Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood also debut with this Pick.

Next week we are off for the Thanksgiving Holiday (though all our Membership is required to watch ‘Planes, Trains and Automobiles’ at 9 PM sharp wherever they are) and when we return, Netti will present his anticipated follow up to the controversial ‘Night of the Demon.’

“I'm afraid. I'm afraid, Dave. Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going. There is no question about it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I can feel it.”

Written by: Arthur C. Clarke & Stanley Kubrick

Directed by: Stanley Kubrick

BBD Comments:

It was an odd coincidence that last Thursday TiVo grabbed me Peter Hyams’ interesting (if totally unnecessary) sequel ‘2010.’ That film begins with the quote “My God, it’s full of stars...” The film suggests, and apparently Clarke’s novelization of ‘2001’ (contrary to popular myth, the film came first) supports that these are the last words Dave Bowman transmitted before his final encounter with the Monolith. In the Hyams film these words carry some weight and serve to drive the painfully Cold War heavy narrative of the lesser sequel. Of course the line is nowhere in Kubrick’s masterpiece. Whatever the imagination may conjure based on that simple line would inevitably fall short of the lyrical majesty Kubrick’s unparalleled climax achieves in this unmatched film. The enormous gulf between the telling of the line ‘My God, it’s full of stars...” versus the showing of ‘Jupiter and Beyond’ may well be the finest practical example of the storyteller’s adage: “show don’t tell.”

It’s said of many films that you get more out of them every time you see them, but for me that is no more true than it is in regards to ‘2001: A Space Odyssey.’ What came to the forefront for me on this viewing was the focus on tools in the film. One reading of the film could be that the Monolith spurred humanity’s development by teaching one group of apes how to use tools, and they beat the shit out of all the other apes. I’m certainly not the first to note the obvious juxtaposition of the first tool used by early man to the massive space ship/tool seen in the greatest jump cut this side of ‘Lawrence of Arabia.’ When we arrive to the year 1999 (which is where we first meet Heywood Floyd) we find that mankind has developed a great many more tools. The one that jumped out at me on this viewing was the tool of fear. To hide the discovery of the Monolith on the Moon (another moonless night on Dicks Street. Sigh.), Floyd and his colleagues spread the rumor of a horrible contagion to keep the population from learning of the find. During the Bush Administration we have become very familiar with the use of fear as a tool, and I was interested to find it here for the first time. Of course the very first tool used in the film is fear as well. Kubrick shows the suddenly obsolete ape’s terror quite explicitly as they watch their leader getting viciously bludgeoned. HAL, of course, is the ultimate tool in this film, and our species has advanced so far that not only do our tools believe themselves smarter than we, they suggest that the only way for the tool to be poorly used would be “attributable to human error.” In the end, the tool itself learns to experience fear, and we are brought full circle.

I’m not sure that those observations are of any great merit but they were kicking around my head as I watched this film on Wednesday. I include them here to illustrate that this film provokes a multitude of responses and associations every time it is viewed, it is a masterful demonstration of the power of ordered and specific execution. I used to say when I was in theater school that a good piece of theater is like a giant rock on the middle of the stage. If one went to a play, and the curtain came up on a giant rock and one watched it sit there for 45 minutes and then the curtain fell they could walk away feeling cheated, they could walk away mesmerized by the power of the statement, they could walk away puzzled and put out, but not one person could walk away not knowing that they had just seen a big rock on the stage. It was specific and undeniable. The meaning would be open for debate, the structure could not. I thought this then an admirable goal for an artist, and in Kubrick’s film the Monolith (and the very film itself) is that rock. What does it mean? What does it do? Where does it come from? All of these questions are open to many, many answers - but that there is a giant black rock sitting there doing nothing? That is not open to debate.

It is equally undeniable that Nubs delivered once again. Thank you, sir.

I hope everyone enjoys their holiday and I look forward to seeing you all the Wednesday after next.

Onwards.

Brandon Comments:

The Halloween month had ended without much of a bang. We were beaten soldiers on a tour of duty one month too long. I miss my home. I miss my wife. I miss the life I led before all this went down, before the big sleepy calm took over our white fabric screen.

But then Sgt. Zach “Nubs” Eisenberg strolled over to our weary troop, dropped his rifle and rations by the fire, and softly declared, “Fellas, have I got a Selection for you!”

To me, everything can be euphemized into war film dialogue. And since I had missed the previous week’s Selection of Tooda’s ‘Blade Runner,’ one of my favorite films of all time, and because the film prior to that was the awfully awful ‘Peeping Tom,’ I was more than ready for a great film…hence, the war film dialogue.

Sure, it’s a long one, and some scenes stretch on for a dozen minutes or more, but ‘2001’ is a triumph in filmmaking. To begin a film with the advent of man discovering tools and to end that same film with man creating tools that take him to other planets, other star systems, other life forms….brave, to say the least.

‘2001’ is less a drinker’s film and more a stoner’s film, in my opinion. The subtleties of Kubrick require a sharp mind and clear eyes, and that warm cup of coffee Nubs handed to me during the film’s intermission reminded me of that. From that point on, my beer sat idly by my foot like a sleeping puppy, and that cup of coffee traveled to my lips more times than cheap sarcasm. But what a hell of a ride. Wonderful choice, Nubs. Wonderful choice.

Netti Comments:

Having seen this film a number of times, I harmonized to Wiener's lamentations of needing a rousting when the film ends. Yet, as any effective piece of art is capable of doing, it yields new microtonal variations dependent on the viewer's ever-changing soundboard. Kubrick, a consummate technician, sought to provide those effective experiences and usually delivered. Much like the Strauss Waltz giving way to Ligeti (one of my favorite 20th cent. composers), this film's movements are well positioned to swing you from an ordered dance of the future to a sound mass texturalist resolution and an epic rebirth. The editing in the 'Beyond the Infinite' sequence is of particular interest because it is purposefully obtuse and alienating in its repetition and length; however, it generates a visceral feeling of arrival as the explorer pod is merely resting in a space age victorian bedroom. After all, where else would a journey past Jupiter into the infinite take you? Good pick, Nubs...

SELECTOR Comments:

Back in the year 2001 our Crew was just a gang of primitive monkeys hanging out every Wednesday night with nothing to do. Then one day we, I mean me, noticed a large black Monolith in Davis’s apartment. After touching it we realized someone could “borrow” a projector and have our Wednesday nights evolve. Just like that we combined our iTunes visuals with story and got Movienight. 101 picks later we have come full circle to trip out on this film’s psychedelic finale (which clearly influenced iTunes) and in doing so finally reunite with our embryonic state on the big screen of Movienight. All, of course, hosted by our own HAL 9000, which Tooda tried to fuck with in a most apropos point.

I said in my preamble, I had to choose this epic for the same reasons that made Tooda choose ‘Blade Runner.’ Aside from the obvious “01” reasoning, just like Davis’ Pick, ‘2001; A Space Odyssey’ is a Movienight dream realized. I was worried about the length and the tedious slow-burn but I didn’t want to be on my Movienight deathbed wondering what could have been. I thank the audience for overlooking my omission of the 8 min overture. It would have never worked in our format, but I loved that we took our first intermission. It truly felt like Movienight should be, an event. I figured Wiener would be the only person to have a problem with the choice and though I tried to use his new puppy as a deterrent we still had a record crowd settle in for a wonderfully psychedelic and monumental evening. Thanks to all for appeasing.

I could go into the brilliance of the direction, the acting by the Monkey Troupe, the special effects that have defined the entire sci-fi genre for Cinema, yet there are a million reviews and theses out there for that. I continually choose to use this comment page to speak to our experience in our unique setting. I earnestly appreciate sharing iTunes visuals, classical music, and HAL with all of you.

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