re: 2001: A Space Odyssey turned 50 this week

quote:

---

My own personal interpretation of this work of art:

In the beginning, primitive man has no conception of tools. But, thanks to the intervention of the monolith, he is introduced to the concept of tools, and uses the most simple (a club) to defeat a stronger competitor. Jump cut to the future. Man has so thoroughly mastered the concept of tools that he is now effectively reduced to a tool of his own tools. HAL is the ultimate manmade tool. He has little to no need for humans in order to accomplish his purpose. It is not until Dave has faced and overcome his reliance on HAL that the final monolith appears, which transports him to a realm where he must face and overcome his reliance on his most basic tool of all: his own body.

---

quote:

---

Still Maybe the greatest quantum leap in science fiction films and movie effects.

---

quote:

---

Should’ve incorporated more of th book

---

quote:

---

I must also add a few words here about the creative process of writing 2001's script. The widely held belief is that Arthur C Clarke wrote the book and Kubrick then adapted the book into a film. However, the following quotes indicate a different story.

Kubrick was revising the novel (2001) with Clarke and simultaneously preparing his shooting script … At the end of August Clarke decided that the novel should end with Bowman standing beside an alien ship. Kubrick was not satisfied with this conclusion and the search went on. - p283 Stanley Kubrick by Vincent Lobrutto

Clarke attempted to convince Kubrick that the novel’s manuscript was ready for publication. Kubrick was still unwilling to declare the novel finalized … Clarke firmly stated that he was the writer and should have the clout to pronounce the novel complete. Clarke was frustrated that he had lost $15,000 in commissions while working on the lengthy revisions of the novel. - p298 Stanley Kubrick by Vincent Lobrutto

Clarke was in debt and tried to get a publishing contract signed with Delacorte Press, but Kubrick refused to sign, even after Delacorte had spent $10,000 on the project. Kubrick would immediately praise the new version, then within a few days point out flaws, errors and imperfections until the new prose crumbled into worthless fragments. - p299 Stanley Kubrick by Vincent Lobrutto

Kubrick / Clarke had a 60/40 deal on the book - p310 Stanley Kubrick by Vincent Lobrutto

It's a totally different kind of experience, of course, and there are a number of differences between the book and the movie. The novel, for example, attempts to explain things much more explicitly than the film does, which is inevitable in a verbal medium. The novel came about after we did a 130-page prose treatment of the film at the very outset. This initial treatment was subsequently changed in the screenplay, and the screenplay in turn was altered during the making of the film. But Arthur took all the existing material, plus an impression of some of the rushes, and wrote the novel. As a result, there's a difference between the novel and the film. – Kubrick interviewed by Joseph Gelmis 1969

I think that the divergences between the two works (2001 film and novel) are interesting. Actually, it was an unprecedented situation for someone to do an essentially original literary work based on glimpses and segments of a film he (Arthur C Clarke) had not yet seen in its entirety. – Kubrick interviewed by Joseph Gelmis 1969

Arthur C. Clarke, back in Ceylon, continued to wrangle with Kubrick about the novel, the final text of which the director still refused to approve. Each time Clarke felt sure the script and book were set, Kubrick would cable him for some more dialogue or a new scene, none of which, Clarke claimed, ever found their way into the film. … Kubrick almost certainly did delay the book in order to protect the film. The film took on its own life as it was being made, and Clarke became increasingly irrelevant. Kubrick could probably have shot 2001 from a treatment, since most of what Clarke wrote, in particular some windy voice-overs which explained the level of intelligence reached by the ape men, the geological state of the world at the dawn of man, the problems of life on the Discovery and much more, was discarded during the last days of editing, along with the explanation of HALs breakdown. - p227 / 228 Stanley Kubrick: A Biography by John Baxter

Kubrick wanted to make a sci-fi film before he even hooked up with Clarke. He based his original ideas for 2001 upon a handful of short stories written by clarke, in particular The Sentinel. Kubrick then hired Clarke to work on the film's story with him, but the book was written as the film was being made. Clarke was allowed to view rushes of what had been filmed and based many of the book's details upon what he believed Kubrick's footage was conveying. Kubrick had creative control over the book and so was at liberty to instruct Clarke on how the book should be written. Quite simply, Kubrick was the primary creative force and Clarke was a writer for hire.The story was always the same with Kubrick's collaborations with writers. He would "adapt" an already written novel for the screen in conjunction with the original writer, or in some cases he would simply buy the rights to the story then exclude the original writer, while he brought in a third writer to help him revise the story until it was virtually unreconisable from the original text. This was especially true of The Shining (read the second chapter of my analysis for details of how Kubrick massacred King's story so that he could infuse it with a variety of additional, visually encoded themes that were personal to Kubrick).

---