Death of A.C. Clarke

[shakeybrainsurgeon]

Musics of Richard Strauss and Johann Strauss and György Ligeti for 2001: A Space Odessey are unforgettable!

Interesting cinema note: Kubrick had commissioned a score for the movie...the music of Strauss et al was simply background music he put in, as directors often do, for the purposes of mood etc while editing, viewing rough cuts and so on. However, he liked that music better than the written score and simply kept the "mood" music. I believe one of the composers, whoever wrote the "Atmospheres" theme used when Bowman is going through the LSD-like light show at the movie's end, sued Kubrick for altering the piece. Kubrick hadn't really gotten much in the way of consent to change the music (he didn't need it for the works of Strauss because that was public domain). I believe he had to settle out of court.

Note the amazing congruity of the Also Spoke Zarathustra theme to the movie. The theme, like the movie, is in three parts: ape, man, superman. Strauss wrote the theme as an ode to the book (Nietschze's, not Clarke's). The theme begins each section with the world question (why are we here. or what does it all mean?) in three notes, G-C-G, followed by an answer, then a drum beat signalling the evolutionary passage of time. The question is first asked of apes, who have no clue...then to men, who have a glimmer of a clue...then to superman, who has the glorious answer and then laughs at his predecessors (listen to the laughing French horns at the end..."as ape is to man, so man is to superman, a laughingstock")

2001 is a Darwinian movie. When Discovery is en route to Jupiter, drawn there by the same power that placed the monolithic sentinel on the moon, that "power" detects something unexpected: TWO forms of intelligence. Which one to make into superman? Simple; pit them against each other and take the victor. Darwin would be proud. Bowman uses a key to bludgeon HAL to death as ruthlessly as the ape wielded his tapir bone.

They don't make movies with that sort of intellectual depth any longer. Now we get "Transformers" and "I am Legend". Save for GATTACA and Bladerunner, cinematic sci fi had been largely brain dead since 2001.

 

[Rick Inman]

Bowman uses a key to bludgeon HAL to death as ruthlessly as the ape wielded his tapir bone.

Dude! You just ruined the movie!

 

[shakeybrainsurgeon]

Dude! You just ruined the movie!

 

[shakeybrainsurgeon]

Dude! You just ruined the movie!

The movie is like The Last Supper of Da Vinci, no amount of analysis (or over analysis) can ever dim its glory

 

[Walter]

Ya gotta read the book to understand the movie.

 

[shakeybrainsurgeon]

Ya gotta read the book to understand the movie.

The movie wasn't based on the book, or vice versa. The book was written at the same time as the screenplay and Clarke notes that the book was essentially his, while the screenplay (attributed both to Kubrick and Clarke) was more Kubrick. Thus, the belief that the book entirely explains what Kubrick intended in the film is not entirely accurate.

Consider, for example, that in The Sentinel, the object on the moon is simply an elaborate alarm clock intended to alert an alien civilization that humans had progressed to the point of being able to travel and explore their own moon. In the movie, it is the omnipresent monolith with some much deeper significance. I suspect that had Clarke worked with a more conventional film maker, the movie would have been just another stock space film. Clarke was a visionary, to be sure, but the movie's mystical and philosophical qualities are all Kubrick's.

I barely remember the book, but I recall that it seemed somewhat pedestrian, disappointing and too "concrete" compared to the movie, but I may be wrong. I read it 30 years ago.

 

[mislav]

Sad news. He was a great man. Didn't know he was a diver too.

 

[Tomeck]

 

[Walter]

The movie wasn't based on the book, or vice versa. The book was written at the same time as the screenplay and Clarke notes that the book was essentially his, while the screenplay (attributed both to Kubrick and Clarke) was more Kubrick. Thus, the belief that the book entirely explains what Kubrick intended in the film is not entirely accurate.

Consider, for example, that in The Sentinel, the object on the moon is simply an elaborate alarm clock intended to alert an alien civilization that humans had progressed to the point of being able to travel and explore their own moon. In the movie, it is the omnipresent monolith with some much deeper significance. I suspect that had Clarke worked with a more conventional film maker, the movie would have been just another stock space film. Clarke was a visionary, to be sure, but the movie's mystical and philosophical qualities are all Kubrick's.

I barely remember the book, but I recall that it seemed somewhat pedestrian, disappointing and too "concrete" compared to the movie, but I may be wrong. I read it 30 years ago.

Not remembering the book, you don't understand the movie. The story is the same, but with the book you actually understand what in the hell is going on.

 

[Tomeck]

I also read 2061 and 3001 which don't exist in movies. 3001 is more interessant.