Cinema
2001: A Space Odyssey
Stanley Kubrick · 1968
Synopsis
In prehistoric times, hominids driven from a waterhole discover a black monolith one morning, then learn to use bones as weapons; a bone thrown into the air turns into a satellite. In 1999, Dr Heywood Floyd travels to the lunar base at Clavius for a discovery kept secret: a monolith buried for four million years near the crater Tycho which, once uncovered, emits a powerful signal towards Jupiter. Eighteen months later, the spaceship Discovery One is on its way to that planet, with its crew and its on-board computer.
Context
Arthur C. Clarke's book was written in parallel with the screenplay, and the destination of the journey differs in it from that of the film. Most of the models were destroyed afterwards. The production lasted four years and required a thirty-tonne centrifuge built by an aerospace company. At the New York premiere, more than two hundred spectators left the auditorium, and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer considered withdrawing the film before the turnout of young people dissuaded it.
Who it is for
A film of two hours nineteen minutes in its final version, with long sequences without dialogue, whose last movement Kubrick long avoided explaining, for fear of imposing a single reading.
Prizes and reception
Academy Award for Visual Effects, Kubrick's only Oscar, inscribed in 1991 on the National Film Registry, and first place in 2022 in the filmmakers' poll of the magazine Sight and Sound.
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