by Allan Fish
(UK/USA 1968 144m) DVD1/2
Daisy, Daisy…
p Victor Lyndon d Stanley Kubrick w Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C.Clarke story “The Sentinel” by Arthur C.Clarke ph Geoffrey Unsworth, John Alcott ed Ray Lovejoy m Richard Strauss, Johann Strauss II, Aram Khachaturian art Tony Masters, Harry Lange, Ernie Archer, John Hoesli spc Douglas Trumbull (and Stanley Kubrick, Wally Veevers, Con Pederson, Tom Howard, Colin J.Cantwell, Bryan Loftus, Frederick Martin, Bruce Logan, David Osborne, Jack Mack Malick)
Keir Dullea (Dave Bowman), Gary Lockwood (Frank Poole), William Sylvester (Heywood Floyd), Leonard Rossiter (Symslov), Margaret Tyzack (Elena), Robert Beatty (Halvorsen), Daniel Richter (Moonwatcher), Douglas Rain (voice of HAL),
This is the story, for what good it will do you; a prologue on the pre-man apes is linked with a story on a doomed mission to Jupiter, with both linked tenuously by a strange, enigmatic Rothkoesque abstract monolith, the meaning of which remains obscure. Indeed the whole film is indecipherable, but so full of eye-popping visuals, canny use of classical music, the greatest jump cut in cinema history and wonderfully pretentious double meanings as for it not to matter. John Lennon, an avid film fan, said that it ought to be played 24 hours a day in a temple and, though I wouldn’t go that far (imagine being the projectionist, you’d go mental!), I can sort of see where he was coming from, as it is an almost religious experience.
This is arguably Kubrick’s most famous film, a masterpiece of dehumanisation, but what it is really about I don’t think even Kubrick can answer satisfactorily. The main thrust seems to be man’s quest for the immortal answers, “why are we here?” and the like. Undoubtedly man is seen as a lifeless thing whose destiny is in the hands of its own creation, the machine, in this case good old HAL, without whom the astronauts are without a clue (indeed HAL himself is an injoke of a name, with Kubrick digging at the then rising power of IBM by naming HAL after the three preceding letters of the alphabet). Only when Bowman confronts HAL and shows human traits in his sorrow at having to effectively terminate HAL does he break off his shackles and show that he may be worthy to glimpse the infinite. Herein he enters the infamous stargate rollercoaster ride and emerges in a white timeless chamber where he is observed by the Gods, as it were, who though they cannot be seen can almost be heard laughing. His life passes by in a flash and he looks into a monolith which has appeared from nowhere. It is seen to represent rebirth, with the dying man on the bed transformed into a baby in the womb which, when seen viewing over the fragile earth, seems to be its guardian. Has man seen his origins and entered a higher plain for the new millennium, or has he glimpsed his own demise and an extra-terrestrial rebirth with the computers as the humans. After all, the murder of the frozen astronauts by HAL (“LIFE FUNCTIONS TERMINATED“) is less human than HAL’s death throes (“My mind’s going. I can feel it, Dave.”), with the song “Daisy” having the same ordinary power as Alex’s later rendition of “Singin’ in the Rain” in A Clockwork Orange. (The parallels continue as several shots in Clockwork echo 2001 and the apes at the watering hall were echoed by the droogs at the Casino). HAL truly does represent humanity with his assertions that the 9000 series are incapable of error, which perfectly sums up man’s complacency in his traditions and belief in his superiority. Man is a fragile creature but doesn’t want to admit it.
Nice review.
a film commentator I like as discussed this film at length I think you guys may enjoy his stuff and thoughts on this film a great deal.
http://www.collativelearning.com/2001%20analysis%20new.html
his thought that the monolith is actual a letterbox film frame is an interesting one.
i’ll reserve my comments on kubrick till the conversation gets going.
Very interesting review Allan……and while I agree with you on most of it, I will take you to task on the meaningof the film. Unlike most, who view the film as an interesting hodge-podge of visual ideas, the meaning of the film is actually spelled out very obviously. Of course, multiple and repeat viewings are necessary to get it. What Kubrick and Clarke are trying to say is what science has been saying for decades: that man indeed has had help evolving through the extra-terrestrial means. The monolith is symbolic of the rung on the evolutionary ladder. Notice how quickly the apes know to kill for their food almost immediately after touching the black deity. This can also be seen in Dave’s transformation to the star child immediately following with the monolith as he reaches Jupiter. Like the spinning of the space station, the twirling of the bone, this is symbolic of humanity’s placement in the ever-turning circle of life. Like every living form in the universe, we gain knowledge with every turn of the cycle.
As far as Hal is concerned, he is no villain. Matter of fact repeat viewings reveal that he knew all along where he and Dave would end up. Was he touched by the same enlightening force that Dave would meet at the end? It is obvious to me anyway that that is what Kubrick and Clarke are saying.
P.S. Sorry for the typing and grammar mistakes on the last commentary. I dictated that one to Sam from my car as i waited on a client near central park. Poor Sam was practically ripped from his bed when i called to get him on the computer. But, considering my love for this film ( no. 1 on my sixties list) i couldn’t resist to get my words in lightning fast.. Good job Allan. Have to admit that i look forward to your reviews religiously every morning as i have tea in the office before my day begins. Thanks, Dennis
Wow Jamie, that is really a definitive study there!!!! Thanks so much for posting that link here. This film certainly deserves such a thorough examination, and it’s treasure chest of enriching discourse for all fervant (or even casual fans of the film). I look forward Jamie to anything else you may add on this thread and thanks again.
Dennis: Ha! Yes I was starry-eyed when you called, but all things considered, it didn’t turn out so bad. Your own personal love for this film is legendary, and I appreciate the kind of incomparable passion you bring to the table on it. Thanks so much!
Thanks Sam. I’ve only worshipped this film and the director ever since i saw it over twenty years ago. And to say more i’d like to add that although Unsworth is listed as cinematographer on this film, Stanley really photographed it. As the youngest and most prolific photographer ever to work for LOOK magazine he lived and breathed photography. If he hadn’t become the greatest director in America he would have been the worlds greatest cinematographer. Nobody shot films better than Stanley.Period..
A fine write-up, but I still find this film a rather naggingly hollow experience: essentially a lot of visual poetry loosely orbiting a black hole of a concept. I do agree with Dennis on Clarke’s essential premise:
“What Kubrick and Clarke are trying to say is what science has been saying for decades: that man indeed has had help evolving through the extra-terrestrial means.”
I’m not so sure that science has been saying this for decades, since the hypothesis of another intelligent race existing is somewhat fanciful from what I’ve read and understood of the evidence, but the notion here is still a highly piquant one. Sadly, “2001” is not even original or the most cogent articulation of this sci-fi thesis: that distinction belongs to Nigel Kneale’s “Quatermass and the Pit,” serialized on the BBC in the late 50s and later turned into a Hammer Horror flick in 1967 (a year before Kubrick’s psychedelic wank-fest was released). Though most are likely to view that series as “camp” today, while Kubrick’s prestige and influence (he was friends with Spielberg, after all) lands him in the dubious category of “art,” I suggest it’s worth analyzing the two side by side (I thought about writing a post at the Powerstrip entitled “10 Reasons why Quatermass and the Pit is better than 2001” but haven’t had the time as of late).
Anyway, “2001” isn’t a complete failure — I once numbered it among my favorite films — but I honestly can’t quite grasp the effusive praise it receives. Furthermore a handful of individuals seem to be convinced that this film stretched the boundaries of the art form by foregoing a narrative arc in favor of purely visual storytelling (something that avant-garde silent filmmakers were doing out of necessity decades earlier, but no matter). My complaint is that for a movie with such heavy anthropological aspirations, it’s a rather cold and vacant visceral experience, and what good ideas do exist in the film (such as the basic moral that bestowing intelligence on beings unready for the responsibility, be they proto-humans or sentinel automatons, is typically an unwise practice) are obfuscated by totally incomprehensible passages — especially the lengthy descent into Jupiter, which looks in retrospect like a poorly executed Joshua Light Show from a subpar Big Brother and the Holding Company concert. It’s fitting that the film ends with a celestial infant coruscating in a planet-like womb, because Kubrick’s flashy ambitions essentially deign to their audience like a supercilious aunt dangling some shiny keys before a perambulator-ridden toddler. He’s almost taunting us to try and “understand” what occurs in his recondite “masterpiece”. Well, ok Stanley, whatever you say. And by the way, for someone such as myself who prefers a good idea to a good story (which seems to be the essential approach to this film, which is conceptual rather than narrative) to feel this way, there must be something amiss…
Boy, I’m in a rotten mood. I think I injured myself cleaning the carpets yesterday…anyway, carry on…death threats are welcome!
Ah yes, Jon, a brave soul.
I reserved my judgments on ol’ Stanley until his other detractors came out from their holes. It seems my thoughts on Kubrick (and this particular film) are closer to Jon’s views then anyone else’s. Sure it’s a great film, and is a masterpiece, but of the hundred or so masterpieces of sixties cinema I don’t rate it that highly. It seems to me his films (and his work as a director) are more important as cultural talking points, i.e. the baggage that surrounds him is more important at this point then appreciating his films (This of course acknowledges his importance and influence to our culture). I recently got into what became a heated discussion into who was the ‘better’ conceptual director David Cronenberg or Stanley Kubrick. As I argued for Cronenberg you would have sworn I had three eyes the looks I was getting. Now admittedly everyone I was in discussion with had seen less then 5 Cronenberg features. So this brings me to my point I believe Kubrick has become the Beatles of cinema, meaning he’s the most easy to like and cite as one’s favorite director. Which is of course strange as many of his films are challenging ones indeed.
It seems interesting to me that all the Kubricks I like are before ‘Clockwork Orange’ (yes ‘2001’ included), his black and white films always seemed a little more emotional, less clinical then his other features. So really all my thoughts on him and his films are a matter of personal taste, in art I prefer Rauschenberg to Pollack I guess.
To me it’s like the age old question of Beatles or Stones? Any music fan knows the real question is the Kinks or the Who. So Jon as you prepare your ’10 Reasons why Quatermass and the Pit is better than 2001′ I begin work on my thesis entitled ’25 English Rock Bands better then the Beatles, or the Rolling Stones not named Led Zepplin’. (or in mainstream film circles, the question is ‘Kubrick or Spielberg?’ When everyone knows the answer is Godard, or Bresson, or Melville, or Lynch, or Mizoguchi, or Malick, or…. Cronenberg, or….. to fully flush out my analogy)
Excellent riff, Jamie, and if only I had a nickel for every guy who counted Kubrick at the apogee of his pantheon who hadn’t even SEEN a Bresson (or a Dreyer, or…whatever).
I’d revise a few of your statements, though. The Beatles vs Stones question, while painfully reductive, is actually somewhat more astute than Kubrick/Spielberg in that those two groups represent fairly distinct sub-genres (ie, popular art rock vs. popular cock rock). I actually think a more accurate gauge would be a three way between Beatles/Stones/Dylan, not the least because all influenced one another in clear ways but because that third arm gives you the whole “popular folk rock/singer-songwriter Bard” thing. I do like your Kinks vs Who alternative, however, and my heart belongs squarely with Ray Davies & Co, if only for the unparalleled string of brilliant albums between “Face to Face” and “Muswell Hillbillies” alone.
On the hand, Spielberg and Kubrick are really one and the same, they just don’t know it. Both started out crafting very astute and clever genre exercises based on popular novels (ie “The Killing” is to “Duel” as “Lolita” is to “Jaws”) and then got tangled in the brier patch of their own swollen crowd-obsessions. Are “2001” or “Clockwork Orange” really any more artful or “conceptual” than “Raiders of the Lost Ark” or “ET”? The only difference is that Kubrick uses technically accomplished FX and patronizing storylines to “challenge” his audiences with non-philosophy whereas Spielberg fattens us with tooth-decaying candy insidiously masquerading as wholesome comfort food (I know it’s probably eye-rollingly facile to denounce Spielberg as commercial at this point since there’s nothing inherently wrong with producing blockbusters, but…). And both directors got off slight wins with anomalous adaptations (“Barry Lyndon” and “Empire of the Sun”).
Finally, I don’t know if I consider Cronenberg a “conceptual” director per se, but give me “Dead Ringers” or “Videodrome” — or, god help me, even “Crash” — over “2001” any day of the week.
Kubrick belongs in the pantheon, guys, not above Bresson or Dreyer but along with them…
As for Cronenberg, not remotely in the same league, though Crash – God help you – is his best film by far.
though Crash – God help you – is his best film by far.
Pleasantly surprised to hear you say that, though I prefer “Dead Ringers” for the gynecological sadism. Why does “Crash” get defecated on so readily? After reading some reviews I’ve wondered if the critic in question saw the same film I did…
Yes yes, lots to cover here.
It does seem interesting to compare Kubrick with Speilberg, as you say they do seem a lot more similar then one would think. I always think of Kubrick in the same light as say a Ken Russell. Lots of pomp and intellectualism rolled into mostly similar ideas and both highly visual. The difference with Russell to me of course, is that he looks like he’s having a blast doing it, and laughing at least twice as much as he’s thinking. Kubrick’s snootiness is the quality that made him turn down doing TOMMY (a project Russell gladly accepted and made…. well ‘something’ out of). This is why Kubrick’s monolith is used as a rest stop on the Who’s album immediately following TOMMY of course. Could you imagine Kubrick having a television set blast an actress with baked beans?
Mentioning the Who brings me to the next discussion, of course. I agree with your further breaking down of the Beatles/Stones/Dylan question and it reminds my of the PULP FICTION out take that reduces our analogy even further– the question of course being that you are either a Beatles person of an Elvis person. Meaning of course that if you choose Elvis you are probably a Dylan person, and obviously if you pick the Beatles then you are a Kinks or a Who person. It reduces the question more to it’s essentials– everyone likes there pop music presented in only one of two ways. I have trouble with this as say I’m a Joy Division person, it seems silly to say “Beatles’ but that’s what this stripping down leads to. I’d love your thoughts on this further stripping down, also where is someone like Trent Reznor in all this? He seems to be both Elvis AND the Beatles.
But that wasn’t really the reason I posited the analogy I was mearly stating that the often times popular picks are never the best. A point, it appears, that was not lost on you.
Really it’s the view of artist as a sniper or as a fighter pilot dropping bombs. Should an artist distill his message so accutely that many are offended or alienated, or should he make grand sweeping themes to collectively gobble up many? ‘2001’s vagueness in its high concepts I believe gives many people cover to celebrate it’s brilliance, when what it is saying may either be banal, or nonexistent. It appears you and I prefer the sniper in the clock tower (or book depisitory).
Viewing films like this is essential in my opinion as it leaves little room for blockbusters (something I really don’t care for to begin with), and gives the MY DINNER WITH ANDRE’s of the world space to flourish.
In closing kudos for your ‘Face to Face’ to ‘Muswell Hillbillies’ that was the Kinks golden era, and still to me, the high water mark for pop music. It seems silly to talk about the Beatles when most people have never listened to ‘Arthur’ all the way through.
Cronenberg, to me, is a conceptual filmmaker not in the extremely experimental vein, but in the subject matter he tackles. To me his 90’s period of NAKED LUNCH and M. BUTTERFLY show this quite well, and to a lesser extent CRASH, which you mentioned. Obviously his body horror films (when done well like VIDEODROME) are somewhat conceptual in tone. I also see him as a somewhat similar filmmaker to Kubrick, in a post-Kubricks world. They are similar in their use of FX to tell a story, but when both ascended into there more mature period (and downplayed FX) I greatly prefer Cronenberg. After all, from SPIDER on, I believe Cronenberg’s gifts have been way more fruitful then Kubrick from BARRY LYDON on.
Allen, yes I agree if a pantheon exists, Kubrick is most certainly in there. I would just say that Cronenberg jumps in before the door closes as well.
Jon and Jamie, this is a spectacular thread, which I just finished reading. I am not sure how to respond her, but all th epoints here taking is The Who, the Kinks, the merging of Kubrick/Spielberg, Cronenberg’s CRASH (my favorite of his is also DEAD RINGERS Jon) Cronenberg as a ‘conceptual director’ as per Jamie, and Jon:
“whereas Spielberg fattens us with tooth-decaying candy insidiously masquerading as wholesome comfort food”…..
Jon, you take no prisoners!!! LOL!!!
“After all, from SPIDER on, I believe Cronenberg’s gifts have been way more fruitful then Kubrick from BARRY LYDON on.”
Jamie , I agree, but Kubrick wound down after BARRY LYNDON. His three masterpieces, (2001, CLOCKWORK and SHINING were already made)
You guys have really taken this discussion to the outer reaches. Kudos.
Sam, remember The Shining was made after Barry Lyndon, making a bollocks of your penultimate statement.
If Cronenberg is in the pantheon, it’s no pantheon, it’s a party and everyone’s invited. Only Crash has claims to greatness, of his others only Spider (his most criminally neglected film) and Eastern Promises may rate highly in the future.
OK, I made a mistake with th echronological oder there. I still hold to my statement of what his three greatest films are.
Sam, ‘The Shining’ was made after ‘Barry Lyndon’. I think…..
Interesting discussion…
I’ve always considered Kubrick to be one of the best directors of his era. Up there with the best from any other. I just don’t expect warmth from his films, which seems to be a criticism linked to his name. That he’s cold (for warmth, I’ll go for a Capra or a Ford). To me, it really doesn’t matter. So long as I’m involved. ‘Paths of Glory’, ‘Dr. Strangelove’ and ‘2001’ involve me, and its not just a matter of the aesthetics but of the narrative. His coldness allows a fiendishly appropriate detachment.
The only problem that I have with Kubrick is when his supporters put him on a cultish pedastel above all others and acclaim him a genuis. Silly, really.
Spending years and years on a obsessed prefectionism, gave me films that didn’t disappoint though not all were shattering classics. ‘Barry Lyndon’ was one that needed warmth. And where others were making intuitively – masterpiece after masterpiece (Ford, Wyler, Welles, Wilder, Coppola, Eastward, Lubitsch, Opuls, DeSica, ect, ect.) Kubrick was in the mould of Lean and Chaplin, lost in prefectionist hell. He later regretted making so few films.
As for ‘2001’ – I like that Kubrick never tried to explain the meaning of the film, its had cinestes twirling their brain cells for decades.
Though, if a person wants to understand it – they’ll have to drop some of their auterist directorial readings and go to his key collaborater – Arthur C. Clarke, whose numerous novels and short stories explored the same themes for decades (it is after all based on Clarke’s short story ‘The Sentinal’).
My reading: The Alien artifact, the black monolith boosts the evolutionary progress of the apes, so that said apes can now use clubs as tools. Which leads to a jump-cut of 10,000 years to show that the bone used as a primitive clubbing technological tool has now progressed into the tools of sophisticated spaceship.
The second segment with HAL’s breakdown means that even these tools can’t progress to the next level as mankind moves to the next starried evolutionary step. Hal and technology is left behind.
The last section is the death and rebirth of Bowman (Clarke has a strong element of religious mysticism in his work, example from short stories ‘The Nine Billion Names of God’ and ‘The Star’). Even now, with a huge baby next to the Earth, man is but a child of the universe.
I for one applaud the over-reaching grasp of Kubrick and his collaborators.
Bobby J.
I was beginning to really miss your contributions, but today here you come back with a vengeance with this superlative analysis of the film’s three parts. I really do love Kubrick, but you do make an excellent point there about some of his supporters lauding him as a genius at the expense of other greats.
Bresson was another one caught in ‘perfectionist’s hell’ Bobby. He lived to be 99 years old, but often waited at some intervals 7 or 8 years between films.
Kaleem’s link above is tremendous people!!!!!!!
Check it out!!!!
Many excellent points, Jamie…allow me, if you all would, to continue riffing on this sleepy Friday.
Could you imagine Kubrick having a television set blast an actress with baked beans?
I think regardless of the director, “Tommy” would have been a noteworthy failure — Ken Russell, however, ensured it would not become a FORGOTTEN failure. Compare it to the later “Quadrophenia” adaptation, which is far more cohesive as a narrative but lacks the sheer daring and campy cameos of the earlier rock opera.
I agree with your further breaking down of the Beatles/Stones/Dylan question and it reminds my of the PULP FICTION out take that reduces our analogy even further– the question of course being that you are either a Beatles person of an Elvis person.
I have never really found that PF outtake particularly astute. Tarantino’s rubric is a loaded either/or essentially asking us to choose between the ethos of the 50s and that of the 60s — a rather inane proposition, if you ask me (what to make of Springsteen, then, who palpably embodies both?). That having been said, Elvis is clearly more of the Stones (and as you point out, Dylan) than the Beatles — the same cult of personality as Zimmy, and the same phallic pride and “negro affectations” (to quote Joni Mitchell) as the Stones.
The largest issue with this sort of Venn diagramming is that it misses the whole point of pop music, which is to steal from other, less consciously artificial sources and convert them into something catchy. The Beatles happened to be very good at stealing and appropriating and getting paid for it. What then of Van Dyke Parks, who seems to need his own cultural-swiping genre (“spacey steel drum, minstrel and showtune”)? Or of the contumaciously protean anti-pop pop of outfits like The Mothers of Invention or NRBQ, who turn JAZZ into pop? Really the whole Beatles/Dylan/Stones/Elvis litmus is only adequate for discovering what side of the 60s cultural detritus one happens to be on — and even then it’s a narrow path that dead-ends around Yasgur’s Farm. Tests like these were designed to level the playing field so that individuals who know nothing of music can still heatedly debate it. The jazz equivalent would be the endless Miles Davis vs. John Coltrane discussion, which absolutely turns my stomach — they were collaborators, not competitors, and possessed wildly distinct goals if similar addictions. A far more worthwhile deliberation might be Keith Jarrett vs. Paul Bley, or Joe Farrell vs. Joe Henderson, but precious few know who they are.
And by the way, let’s not forget our buddy Al Kooper, who is Beatles, Stones, Elvis, and Dylan all rolled into one..
Really it’s the view of artist as a sniper or as a fighter pilot dropping bombs.
Or as Manny Farber put it, White Elephant vs Termite Art. This seems a rather fine description of “2001” and “My Dinner With Andre” respectively (the latter is one of my absolute favorites, btw…I requested the upcoming Criterion release @ Slant so we’ll see what happens).
In closing kudos for your ‘Face to Face’ to ‘Muswell Hillbillies’ that was the Kinks golden era, and still to me, the high water mark for pop music. It seems silly to talk about the Beatles when most people have never listened to ‘Arthur’ all the way through.
Indeed, and was there ever a “pop album” as perfect, or perfectly befuddling, as “Village Green Preservation Society”? The Small Faces may have unintentionally birthed the concept album, and the Beatles and the Who may have popularized it, but Ray Davies indisputably perfected it (I was also obsessed with the unfairly maligned “Preservation Acts i and ii” era of the Kinks while in Junior High, but more on that later).
After all, from SPIDER on, I believe Cronenberg’s gifts have been way more fruitful then Kubrick from BARRY LYDON on.
Fair enough. I think, however, that even Cronenberg’s “transitional period” — “Dead Ringers,” “Crash,” etc — is more interesting than Kubrick’s (which contains two of the three “masterpieces” Sam notes).
If Cronenberg is in the pantheon, it’s no pantheon, it’s a party and everyone’s invited. Only Crash has claims to greatness, of his others only Spider (his most criminally neglected film) and Eastern Promises may rate highly in the future.
Whatever you say, Allan…but my opinion must not mean much to you now anyway, since I took Korda to task… 😉
and jumping in with bobby j, whose reading is indeed worth a read or two…
I just don’t expect warmth from his films, which seems to be a criticism linked to his name.
Yes and no in my case, Bobby. “The Shining” certainly doesn’t need any warmth, nor does a film like “The Killing,” which benefits from a bit of chill. “2001” and “A Clockwork Orange,” however, are rendered rather obtuse by their sterility, which confuses the decidedly “humanist” subject matter — if that makes sense. Kubrick attempted to make films with cosmic weight — an admirable objective — but it’s hard to make films about the nature of mankind, even as a species or as a collection of fleshily manifested ethics, when you don’t seem to have any personal emotion invested in your characters. If “Clockwork” is “about” free will, it’s a confused and oddly mechanical parable — which is why most critics focus on the image/sound juxtaposition and what we’re supposed to take away from the depiction of violence. Trying to understand what Alex is supposed to represent as far as social commentary goes is a fool’s errand, and I believe even Kubrick himself admitted this. So in the case of both films we’re left with a lot of provocative but ultimately meaningless stimuli. Which wouldn’t be so bad — I like films without a point as much as the next cinebuff — but I can’t stand films who THINK they’re about more than they really are. “2001” wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for its pomposity.
But I’m not against sterility in and of itself. Another perfectionist, Terence Malick, doesn’t strike me as a particularly “warm” director, but I absolutely adore him. In fact, I think his most distancing film, “Days of Heaven,” is quite easily his masterpiece, and one of the towering aesthetic achievements of the 1970s.
And btw, Kaleem’s essay is very fine, and brings to mind a brain-tickling quote from Peter Greenaway: “I don’t think we’ve seen any cinema yet. I think we’ve seen 100 years of illustrated text.”
*whew*
God Jon, you are brilliant.
Today, WitD has benefitted like never before.
Not brilliant, Sam, just bored, and too full of Advil, Celexa and Malbec to care if anyone disagrees with me for once (though the opposing side has given me quite a bit of food for thought, surely, and all my rebuttals are of course put forth with the utmost respect for all viewpoints here…unlike some critics I’m not at all convinced that my opinions are the only ones worth having — they just happen to be the best I can do).
Well, well, well. And to think I wasn’t going to participate in this thread.
First of all, Kubrick. 2001. To appreciate both, you need a sweet tooth for the epic. I have it. Perhaps it’s the Catholic upbringing. Perhaps it’s those days in the chilly waters of New England in cool summer evenings, while waves crashed over me and I stared out across the stormy seas to the horizon where the Atlantic Ocean touched the infinite. Or perhaps it’s just something ornate, a romantic, operatic sensibility which is natured rather than nurtured. Who knows…but it’s there, and so Kubrick’s vision touches a chord.
I see what people are saying when they describe the film as “cold” but a certain type of coldness, or rather a bold and vast grandeur, is inherently emotional – it just engages “higher” emotions – a meeting of the cerebral and the feeling – than the nitty-gritty.
But I get that, too. In fact all of these dichotemies that people are debating are to me evidence of the very richness of cinema, and all art, and I would hate to come down on either side. Don’t get me wrong – I prefer some artists to other artists, feel more at home with certain visions more. But there is not a nice clean dividing line between who falls where. When I eulogized Updike, I wrote that some artists seem to “belong” to us…well, in various ways, the Beatles, Stones, the Who, and the Kinks all belong to me so I’m stymied as to why I should side with one over the other. Sure, there’s something of a hierarchy but it’s haphazard.
The Beatles, given my extensive exploration of their history and mythology and their central role in introducing me to the wonders of popular music in the late twentieth century (as an album art, not just a few scattered singles here and there), could justifiably be called my favorite band of all time. But I hardly listen to them anymore, and I play the Stones – particularly the early gritty R&B Stones and the dark hard rockers of the late 60s and early 70s – incessently. The Who are at a slight disadvantage taken as recording artists but I think they’re the greatest live band of all time and their live performances, whether recorded aurally or (especially) visually, more than make up for any deficit in my appreciation of their albums and singles vs. the Beatles and the Stones.
(And while we’re on the subject of the Who, let me mention Russell and Tommy since they came up in another post – I watched Tommy along with a group of people who were not well-acquainted with the band and it turned many of them off from wanting to explore the Who further. It’s a very overblown, tired, exhausting film – quite indicative of the petering out of rock’s vital core…the magic was gone. I think the only other Russell film I’ve seen was Altered States, but it had a similar effect on me…appeared all surface, completely missed conveying any of the potential mysticism of the material, and ended up being a dud. How one can be turned off by Kubrick yet turned on by Russell’s empty fireworks is beyond me, but I respect you guys’ opinion all the same and as the French side, vive la difference! Which brings me back to my point…)
As for the Kinks, I’m not even sure how to classify them in relation to the other groups. Their appeal is somewhat different, though they still (and this is the great, eternal appeal of the 60s) can be considered within the same broad context as their peers. The point is how can I say I’m a Beatles, Stones, Who, or Kinks person when that forces me to choose between my #1, #2, #3, and #4 bands, presumably with a whole cache of like-minded musicians riding the coattails of, say #1, at the expense of #2, #3, and #4 who, as their positions indicated, are at the very pinnacle of my appreciations.
This is not to say these dichotemies don’t make sense. The Beatles/Stones divide is quite logical, and can be summarized by the divergence of two strands within early rock ‘n’ roll – pop and rock. Pop is a bit more cerebral, a more elevated delight, which more easily plays off of high art associations, which can – at its most sublime – make you feel as if you are walking on clouds, or – at its most epic (and here please disregard any vestiges of pop’s “disposable” status that cling to my use of the word) – standing atop a mountain as the mists part, or in that raging sea I mentioned earlier.
Rock wallows in the dirt, the muck, the gloriously earthy. The Beatles did rock and the Stones did pop too and that diversity is part of their appeal. But by and large, I find I’m usually in the mood for one or the other, that the Beatles appeal to my imagination and the Stones to my restless energy. The point is, both strands are contained within me and, I suspect, a lot of other people too. So while the dichotemy makes sense, the coming down on one or the other doesn’t quite register with me.
It’s like that great scene in My Dinner With Andre, since we’re discussing that movie too: Wallace Shawn, after listening patiently, interestingly, and somewhat incredulously to Andre’s wild stories for the better part of an hour, explodes with disbelief: isn’t it enough to wake up in the morning, and have your book and your cup of coffee and sit with the newspaper and feel the cozies, the snuggest warmth in all the world? Well, yes, sometimes it is. And sometimes you need to rush off to the Czech wilderness to cavort with naked strangers and experience mystical wonders in the unpredictable dawn. The fact that the movie containing these two wildly divergent notions of experience itself stands at one pole in cinema, of a talking cinema, a contained cinema, a completely human cinema, while 2001 stands at another, only adds to the impression of Russian dolls within Russian dolls within Russian dolls, and to my appreciation of the immense richness of the movies.
Also re: Cronenberg. I haven’t seen enough of his films to make a final judgement, but I don’t quite see the big deal with him; he seems kind of marginal in terms of “the canon”. And I thought History of Violence was, along with Mystic River (for vaguely similar reasons, though perhaps by quite different audiences) one of the most overrated films of the decade.
And I think Spielberg can stand with the giants. But perhaps that’s an argument for another day.
I meant to write “perhaps it’s something innate” but “ornate” will do nicely too…
Great contribution MM that surely puts my own ramblings to shame.
To appreciate both, you need a sweet tooth for the epic.
That might be part of the problem, as I seem to rather obstinately prefer chamber films, but I don’t know that I’d classify “2001” as an epic per se in the traditional literary sense of the term (though I’m positive you’ll have an elaborate and jaw-droppingly intellectual defense for this position). I also can give or take the operatic — in both music AND film — although it would be foolish to disregard an entire style, particularly one that rich, in one fell swoop.
But there is not a nice clean dividing line between who falls where.
Perhaps you misunderstood (or I am misreading), but both Jamie and I were essentially positing this same truism. I think that games requiring anyone to choose one artist over another — especially ones who developed out of such congruent conditions and influences as the Beatles and the Stones — are basically fodder for those who don’t know much about music.
And by the way, I don’t listen to ANY of the bands mentioned in this thread much anymore (I tend to overplay artists for a few months and then abandon them for greener pastures) although I still must give credit where credit is due, and hierarchies have nothing to do with present playlists.
appeared all surface, completely missed conveying any of the potential mysticism of the material, and ended up being a dud.
Wait. Are you referring to “Altered States” with this verbiage or “2001”? 😉
This is not to say these dichotemies don’t make sense. The Beatles/Stones divide is quite logical
Indeed, which is another point I make, although you expand my definitions of “popular art rock” and “popular cock rock” with engrossingly tactile binary pairs. An interesting observation here is that you and I share many opinions vis a vis musical tastes, but I articulate mine far more curmudgeonly, and from a more socio-historical point of view than a personal one. Whether pop music is about theft or about the ethereal remains to be seen, I suspect.
It’s like that great scene in My Dinner With Andre…
I think film is rather like literature, rather than music or other visual arts, in the sense that it succeeds most effectively when it encapsulates a dialectic of some kind. This is often manifested quite concretely as a narrative arc: after all, what is protagonist + antagonist/conflict = solution but a fictive morph of thesis + antithesis = synthesis? The irony is that we’ve been civilly sparring here for the better part of a day about critical dichotomies and whether or not we need to halt at the net and plunge to a resting place on one side of the opinionated court when the art we’re dissecting consistently shows that we can have it both ways, if we want. Granted, this doesn’t work for ALL the debates — I think we can all recognize Kubrick’s achievements, but ultimately one has to determine whether he or she likes him…or resolve to simply be indifferent. But in the case of genre or style or however you want to put it, I think it’s better understood as a proclivity rather than a reductive, definitively alienating decision. In other words, I may like Termites more than White Elephants on the whole, but I’ll be damned if the latter aren’t fantastically entertaining, and with their own merits.
Plus, those inward-populating russian dolls are even more voluminous than we think. Sometimes you need to have your book and your cup of coffee and sit with the newspaper and feel the cozies, sometimes you need to rush off to the Czech wilderness to cavort with naked strangers, sometimes you need to float buoyantly in the candy-colored kaleidoscope of an evolutionary mosaic while “The Blue Danube” harmoniously plays, sometimes you need to flee a wheat field conflagration whipping at your heels, sometimes you need to draw obstetric blood with a oblong steel hook. This ain’t no dichotomy, it’s a polyhedron with infinite edges.
And I think Spielberg can stand with the giants. But perhaps that’s an argument for another day.
I’m grinding my sabre as we speak, though I doubt it will do much good against your superior arsenal.
Apologies if my thoughts following seem scattered.
So much of this pantheon talk makes me quite curious. If such a thing does exist, then who is on it, and how many of those people wish they weren’t? Seems to me many of the ‘enfants terribles’ of post modern cinema that I would most certainly place the highest of high esteem on would think all this canonizing and sorting to be an extreme waste of ones time. Of this group I’d think Godard, Ferreri, Jarman, Lynch, Allen (stay with me), Pasolini, and the aforementioned Greenaway would fit (I’m sure anyone here can name at least ten more). It seems extra strange when the leaders of the New Wave that hated the old guard become the old guard themselves.
I guess somewhere a part of me believes LES CARABINIERS should never become bedfellows with SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. And who has the time to separate them and put them where they belong?
As high esteem as many of these men place certain film makers and their films (Godard is a famous defender of Fuller and Ray for example) I just can’t see any of these men losing sleep about legacies and after-maths. In fact two of them–Godard and Allen– have gone as far as to say what can become of there work after they die. As a hint it isn’t putting it into any pantheon. So then we are back to where we started; trying to sort out our taste and argue who’s great and who isn’t. As Paul Simon would say ‘ones mans ceiling is another mans floor’; my great films are other peoples trash, but in my waste bin you can find individual films, not film careers. To continue the rock and roll analogies it’s like the great one hit wonders, the Nightcrawlers sit in no ones Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (an absurd concept in itself; I suppose Jon Lydon’s response to getting in as a Sex Pistol years ago would serve as an adequate reply here from me as well) but for three minutes and five seconds they are the greatest band I’ve ever heard–and this happens any time I play “Little Black Egg”.
In the end it just reminds me so much of the ANNIE HALL quote, “The… the other important joke, for me, is one that’s usually attributed to Groucho Marx; but, I think it appears originally in Freud’s “Wit and Its Relation to the Unconscious,” and it goes like this – I’m paraphrasing – um, “I would never want to belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member.”
All these great radical filmmakers spent so much energy breaking from the established rules of the past to only be lumped back together with them because they had the terrible misfortune of being brilliant at what they do. As such, I’m fine with Cronenberg never being part of the ‘pantheon’ because it seems to me that Godard painted it blue and wrapped yellow dynamite sticks around it and blew it to smithereens decades ago anyway. The whole debate seems so populist as well, which is something great art should strive to break free from. Compound that with the fickleness of todays populist film criticism where greatness is often associated with DVD availability. I mean is CLOCKWORK ORANGE really that superior of a film compared to IF….? I assume the fact that one just received mainstream DVD availability in the US a short time again is more readily the reason it’s seen in a silver medal status compared to Kubricks (admittedly great) film, that has seen at least three DVD editions in the US alone. What then becomes pantheon status to films languishing in VHS purgatory? Something like the aforementioned MY DINNER WITH ANDRE (which I am ecstatic that my old VHS copy can be finally replaced by a criterion DVD– Jon I’d love a link to this Slant)?
All questions I’m not qualified, prepared, or interested in answering.
I’m going to take a pass on these intriguing-looking posts now. I’m leaving town early tomorrow, have to go to bed soon, and can’t get drawn into this discussion. I will respond next week when I return; hopefully it will not be too late for you guys to jump back in to.
But briefly, I did notice this quote from Jamie: “I guess somewhere a part of me believes LES CARABINIERS should never become bedfellows with SAVING PRIVATE RYAN.” This is where you and I part ways, friend-o!
And I don’t think Godard defaced and blew up the pantheon so much as painted it bright colors and exploded fireworks over it – in other words, he and his New Wave cohorts (reformers and revisionists all, but relativists not at all) made the pantheon and the canon far more expansive and exciting, but they did not destroy it and did not want to (if anything, they strengthened the idea of value judgements and a semi-objective hierarchy of artists and works in the cinema – Godard, by the way, is – by postmodern standards, and perhaps others as well – the ultimate classicist and conservative, and doubtlessly one of the last modernists, which is why I love him so).
Personally, I’m not interested in a universe without a center – but damnit, I’m being pulled away from the tasks at hand – I can feel the pull – stop, stop – open the pod bay doors, Hal, and let me back in!
I hope my last bit wasn’t misunderstood; my bit about LES CARABINIERS and SAVING PRIVATE RYAN was more of a dig on Spielberg, as I love Godard exponentially more. What I was getting as the if a pantheon exists films inevitability sit amongst each other that after viewing would probably detest one another.
Jamie: No problem, I did get that analogy myself, and your entire submission there was simply stunning. I think Movie Man just didn’t feel the same way. I have felt the klove you have for Godard in prior posts as well.
What I was getting as the if a pantheon exists films inevitability sit amongst each other that after viewing would probably detest one another.”
Jamie – I agree. The difference is that I love that fact, and I think it strengthens the pantheon. By the way, Godard and Spielberg are probably my two favorite filmmakers.
I’m back, so I will try to go a bit deeper but since this thread is buried now, I am going to move my response to this conversation to the most recent thread. Since discussions seem to wander here (a fact which I love, don’t get me wrong), it shouldn’t matter too much.
[…] author, please visit his movie blog at The Dancing Image. For more info: Scope! at the Music Hall, 2001 review and discussion (Wonders in the Dark), 2001: A Space Odyssey (IMDb), Stanley Kubrick […]
thanks for sharing 2001: A Space Odyssey (no 13)
Try Leonard Wheat’s 2000 book,Kubrick’s 2001; A Triple Allegory,showing how all events and characters are from the Odyssey and Nieitzsche’s Thus spoke Zarathustra.