2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 epic science fiction film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick. The screenplay was written by Kubrick and science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke, and was inspired by Clarke’s 1951 short story “The Sentinel” and other short stories by Clarke. Clarke also developed a novelisation of the film, which was released after the film’s release, and in part written concurrently with the screenplay. The film stars Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester and Douglas Rain, and follows a voyage to Jupiter with the sentient supercomputer HAL after the discovery of an alien monolith.
The film is noted for its scientifically accurate depiction of space flight, pioneering special effects, and ambiguous imagery. Kubrick avoided conventional cinematic and narrative techniques; dialogue is used sparingly, and there are long sequences accompanied only by music. The soundtrack incorporates numerous works of classical music, by composers including Richard Strauss, Johann Strauss II, Aram Khachaturian, and György Ligeti.
The film received diverse critical responses, ranging from those who saw it as darkly apocalyptic to those who saw it as an optimistic reappraisal of the hopes of humanity. Critics noted its exploration of themes such as existentialism, human evolution, technology, artificial intelligence, and the possibility of extraterrestrial life. It was nominated for four Academy Awards, winning Kubrick the award for his direction of the visual effects. The film is now widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential films ever made. In 1991, it was deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. (Wikipedia)
The majority of filming took place at MGM Borehamwood, Elstree and Shepperton Studios in England.Stanley Kubrick was an extremely hands-on director.The film opens with a group of shrieking apes in the ‘Dawn of Man’ sequence.William Sylvester plays Dr. Heywood R Floyd in the second ‘act’ of the film.Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood star in the third ‘act’ as two astronauts on a voyage to Jupiter.The astronauts take a break on-set.Kubrick and Sylvester enjoy a cigarette break.Edwina Carroll, Penny Brahms and Heather Downham as stewardesses onboard the space station.Kubrick asked companies to provide designs for futuristic products to be used in the movie, such as this prototype car.The wooden construction that would form the film’s Moonbus vehicle.NASA engineers were consulted during the design process for the Discovery One spacecraft.Kubrick collaborated with science fiction writer Arthur C Clarke to create the screenplay, based on Clarke’s short story The Sentinel.Science fiction writer Arthur C Clarke on the film set.Kubrick and his team employed numerous photography techniques during filming, including “slit-scan”, which blurs and distorts the image.Despite hundreds of people working behind the scenes, only 27 crew members were credited at the end of the film.Constructing the rotating centrifuge for the Discovery spaceship cost $750,000.Gary Lockwood, a long-time fan of Kubrick’s work, started out his film career as a stuntman.The primary coloured space suits were used onboard the Discovery, along with a fourth green suit.Front projection, where pre-filmed footage is projected onto a reflective surface, was used for a lot of the outer space scenes.An EVA (extra-vehicular activity) pod, carried on board the Discovery One spacecraft.Dr Frank Poole (Gary Lockwood) leaves the spacecraft to replace a faulty unit, but is attacked by malfunctioning artificially intelligent computer HAL 9000 and sent hurtling into outer space.Dr Dave Bowman (Keir Dullea) has to enter HAL’s logic and memory center to disconnect its higher brain functions.The “star child”: Dullea’s character is transformed into this open-eyed fetus at the end of the film.
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