2001: A Space Odyssey
Oct. 12th, 2010 11:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
x_losAvast, here be some notes for an informal presentation I be givin' later today on 2001 and "how you 'read' the film in our context - what are your thoughts about the way Kubrick takes up the idea of 'epic' and the 'epic hero' (evolution, journey of discovery, exploration, relationship of modernity with antiquity; the idea of history; fate.... whatever the film invites YOU to think about."
* "About the best we've been able to come up with is a space
Odyssey--comparable in some ways to the Homeric Odyssey," said Mr
Kubrick. "It occurred to us that for the Greeks the vast stretches of
sea had the same sort of mystery and remoteness that space has for our
generation, and the far flung islands Homer's wonderful characters
visited were no less remote to them than the planets our spacemen will
be soon be landing on are to us. Journey also shares with the Odyssey
a concern for wandering, exploration and adventure." Mr. Clarke
agreed...space is an endless source of knowledge, which may transform
our civilization in the same sense that the voyages of the Renaissance
transformed the Dark ages.
("Beyond the Stars," Jeremy Bernstein, The New Yorker Magazine (1965)
reprinted in "The Making of Kubrick's 2001," ed. Jeremy Agel (1970) p.
25)"
-Is Clarke grasping the historicity of this? Weirdly old-school view of the Renaissance.
* Given that the film was written contemporaneously with the novel, and based on Clark's earlier short stories, it's at least as important to talk about his vision here as Kubrick's.
* Kubrick's best work is adapting relatively current novels--Shining/King, Clockwork Orange/Burgess, 2001/Clark, Lolita/Nabakov (Full Metal Jacket/Hasford, Spartacus/Fast, Eyes Wide Shut/Schnitzler, Dr. strangelove/George). "Kubrick often had an antagonistic relationship with the writers with whom he collaborated. Arthur C. Clarke was upset that Kubrick's actions caused the delay of the publication of his novel "2001: A Space Odyssey" so that it appeared the book was a novelization of the film rather that the film an adaptation of the book as the pair had agreed. Anthony Burgess was appalled that he was called on to defend "A Clockwork Orange" when Kubrick refused to as the film contradicted the message of his novel. Stephen King was so upset by Kubrick's variations from his novel that he commissioned a new film version of 'The Shining'. "
* Taymore largely directs things with a rich tradition of adaptation--Kubrick seems to work best /in the context of translation theory/. (No one talks about Killer's Kiss or Fear and Desire.) He seems to find his voice through others.
* Is there something of the nature of talmudic commentary in this? Kubrick is, after all, a Jewish director looking at some very goy texts.
* In Clockwork, the visual language he creates stands in for Burgess' dense nest of creole and neo-logistic language.
* You want to think of the grand old futurists like Clarke and Roddenberry as pure liberal, benign thinkers, but the sinister music underpinning Kubrick's depiction of the aliens belies the sinister quality to these encounters (he uses music like this in the Shining as well). The unexamined Western assumptions and prerogatives that underlie this supposedly egalitarian vision of the future. Is this in some ways a colonization narrative? The aliens give an Enlightenment no one asked them for--information which cannot be unknown. The evolved ape uses the knowledge to kill the hogs his tribe had lived in peace with, and then to kill the leader of a rival tribe. Ishmael Quinn wouldn't be pleased. In the book the Star Child destroys and absorbs the energy of nuclear weapons on Earth. This is pretty controlling and undemocratic--a glorious fascism of the technologically advanced. And who's to privilege this degree of moral control over whatever choices the humans were making before? People live, perhaps, who wouldn't have, but it all begs the question of why the aliens are doing this. Is this a Missionary activity? Creating long term future trading partners--not necessarily in an economic sense, perhaps, but in a technological/cultural sense? Not all power imbalances are about economic resources. If Roddenbery's Prime Directive is questionable, this is too.
* The lack of women/their support roles here, excepting the three female doctors named (minor characters), from the enemy camp, is distracting.
* Structurally this is a lot like the Odyssey--big, seemingly disjointed chunks--a bildungsroman and then the Quest and a Journey With Incidents and finally the return home.
* Perhaps the only straight forward parallels are there in the structure, and in the Intelligence of our final hero, who becomes Star Child--his long wander away from his wife and child. The unfathomable caprice of the alien gods. Maybe the transmission signal is a siren, listened to.
* "About the best we've been able to come up with is a space
Odyssey--comparable in some ways to the Homeric Odyssey," said Mr
Kubrick. "It occurred to us that for the Greeks the vast stretches of
sea had the same sort of mystery and remoteness that space has for our
generation, and the far flung islands Homer's wonderful characters
visited were no less remote to them than the planets our spacemen will
be soon be landing on are to us. Journey also shares with the Odyssey
a concern for wandering, exploration and adventure." Mr. Clarke
agreed...space is an endless source of knowledge, which may transform
our civilization in the same sense that the voyages of the Renaissance
transformed the Dark ages.
("Beyond the Stars," Jeremy Bernstein, The New Yorker Magazine (1965)
reprinted in "The Making of Kubrick's 2001," ed. Jeremy Agel (1970) p.
25)"
-Is Clarke grasping the historicity of this? Weirdly old-school view of the Renaissance.
* Given that the film was written contemporaneously with the novel, and based on Clark's earlier short stories, it's at least as important to talk about his vision here as Kubrick's.
* Kubrick's best work is adapting relatively current novels--Shining/King, Clockwork Orange/Burgess, 2001/Clark, Lolita/Nabakov (Full Metal Jacket/Hasford, Spartacus/Fast, Eyes Wide Shut/Schnitzler, Dr. strangelove/George). "Kubrick often had an antagonistic relationship with the writers with whom he collaborated. Arthur C. Clarke was upset that Kubrick's actions caused the delay of the publication of his novel "2001: A Space Odyssey" so that it appeared the book was a novelization of the film rather that the film an adaptation of the book as the pair had agreed. Anthony Burgess was appalled that he was called on to defend "A Clockwork Orange" when Kubrick refused to as the film contradicted the message of his novel. Stephen King was so upset by Kubrick's variations from his novel that he commissioned a new film version of 'The Shining'. "
* Taymore largely directs things with a rich tradition of adaptation--Kubrick seems to work best /in the context of translation theory/. (No one talks about Killer's Kiss or Fear and Desire.) He seems to find his voice through others.
* Is there something of the nature of talmudic commentary in this? Kubrick is, after all, a Jewish director looking at some very goy texts.
* In Clockwork, the visual language he creates stands in for Burgess' dense nest of creole and neo-logistic language.
* You want to think of the grand old futurists like Clarke and Roddenberry as pure liberal, benign thinkers, but the sinister music underpinning Kubrick's depiction of the aliens belies the sinister quality to these encounters (he uses music like this in the Shining as well). The unexamined Western assumptions and prerogatives that underlie this supposedly egalitarian vision of the future. Is this in some ways a colonization narrative? The aliens give an Enlightenment no one asked them for--information which cannot be unknown. The evolved ape uses the knowledge to kill the hogs his tribe had lived in peace with, and then to kill the leader of a rival tribe. Ishmael Quinn wouldn't be pleased. In the book the Star Child destroys and absorbs the energy of nuclear weapons on Earth. This is pretty controlling and undemocratic--a glorious fascism of the technologically advanced. And who's to privilege this degree of moral control over whatever choices the humans were making before? People live, perhaps, who wouldn't have, but it all begs the question of why the aliens are doing this. Is this a Missionary activity? Creating long term future trading partners--not necessarily in an economic sense, perhaps, but in a technological/cultural sense? Not all power imbalances are about economic resources. If Roddenbery's Prime Directive is questionable, this is too.
* The lack of women/their support roles here, excepting the three female doctors named (minor characters), from the enemy camp, is distracting.
* Structurally this is a lot like the Odyssey--big, seemingly disjointed chunks--a bildungsroman and then the Quest and a Journey With Incidents and finally the return home.
* Perhaps the only straight forward parallels are there in the structure, and in the Intelligence of our final hero, who becomes Star Child--his long wander away from his wife and child. The unfathomable caprice of the alien gods. Maybe the transmission signal is a siren, listened to.
