which is all I think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
2001 (1968), Stanley Kubrick. August 10th, 10pm. View count: I think this is the fourth viewing for me. Maybe the fifth.
Friday morning I was up at 5am, but I fucking stayed up through 2001. By the time it got to the analog psychedelia I'd been woken up by the rest of it, so even that pretty undeniably draggy section of the film DID NOT BEST ME.
This time around I was struck by the prevalence of perpendiculars in the visuals. Even things like the little shuttles were shown more often from a completely orthographic angle, not to mention the obvious things like the sun/earth poking over the top of the monoliths, the moon shuttle aligning itself to the space station, and the vertical or horizontal axes of the colored-lights sequence. I don't really have a lot of evidence that this was anything other than just a visual theme, but it was still pleasant (the only halfway decent match I can make is that perpendiculars are a sign of Humans Being on the Right Path, but I'm not terribly confident in that).
I was having some thematic/motivation trouble with HAL. Was HAL vying for SpaceBaby status with humanity, only to be beaten out by the filthy humans? Trying to get to Jupiter alone would seem to support this, but then he could have just panicked and been acting in a more immediately self-preservative way. (I have not read the books or seen 2010; maybe this is discussed, but I daresay that Kubrick's work should and does stand on its own.) I enjoy the idea that machine intelligence was the original target of the third monolith, but it was thwarted.
I suppose this brings up the usual question of what exactly the monoliths' role is, causative, predictive, or what. Are they a generic set of milestones placed beforehand, with no regard to who might discover them, or are they actively pushing the intelligences that encounter them? A combination seems to make the most sense; when an intelligence reaches a certain point, a monolith appears and ensures that they pass the milestone. Which could still support the HAL/human thing; they did seem to have a similar level of uplift-readiness.
I spent some time thinking about whether killing a rival is a requirement for levelling up, and it seems to me that it is. Given only the information in the movie, it's possible to conclude that a Butlerian Jihad sort of event is about to take place, after the communications blackout lifts (and presumably someone discovers the abandoned craft with HAL's brain all over the floor), where all the machine intelligences are destroyed and humans graduate to SpaceBabyhood. Killing machines can be learned observationally, as killing rival tribes with zebra bones can be learned.
Anyway, blah blah unwanted speculation. Obviously the production design is essentially second to none, with so much gorgeous it's all over you screen. The space suits are freaking excellent, the pods, the interior of every single space in the movie. It's all insanely well-thought-out and -realised. The color schemes are consistent and well-chosen. It's just a beautiful movie. Most people's complaints about it are pacing-related, and this is understandable, it's just not... optimal. This is a film that teaches you how to relate to it. Once you adjust to the scale of the time, you can apprehend it properly. Long shots always, always (er... with the exception of the damned landscapes at the end which just DO NOT go away) are beautifully composed, interesting things that never fail to leave you with things to examine. You are allowed to take the time to note the angles of objects in regards to one another, to study the background, to try to read the monitor screens. There is always something to absorb in more detail. Everything is so planned. I mean, it's Kubrick.
I noticed for the first time, this viewing, that in the shot with old David Bowman in the bed, pointing upward at the monolith, the lens is short enough that there is a tiny amount of distortion in the edges of the shot, which is at a low angle, for once. This makes the monolith appear to be bending/tilting slightly toward him. I enjoyed that.
Friday morning I was up at 5am, but I fucking stayed up through 2001. By the time it got to the analog psychedelia I'd been woken up by the rest of it, so even that pretty undeniably draggy section of the film DID NOT BEST ME.
This time around I was struck by the prevalence of perpendiculars in the visuals. Even things like the little shuttles were shown more often from a completely orthographic angle, not to mention the obvious things like the sun/earth poking over the top of the monoliths, the moon shuttle aligning itself to the space station, and the vertical or horizontal axes of the colored-lights sequence. I don't really have a lot of evidence that this was anything other than just a visual theme, but it was still pleasant (the only halfway decent match I can make is that perpendiculars are a sign of Humans Being on the Right Path, but I'm not terribly confident in that).
I was having some thematic/motivation trouble with HAL. Was HAL vying for SpaceBaby status with humanity, only to be beaten out by the filthy humans? Trying to get to Jupiter alone would seem to support this, but then he could have just panicked and been acting in a more immediately self-preservative way. (I have not read the books or seen 2010; maybe this is discussed, but I daresay that Kubrick's work should and does stand on its own.) I enjoy the idea that machine intelligence was the original target of the third monolith, but it was thwarted.
I suppose this brings up the usual question of what exactly the monoliths' role is, causative, predictive, or what. Are they a generic set of milestones placed beforehand, with no regard to who might discover them, or are they actively pushing the intelligences that encounter them? A combination seems to make the most sense; when an intelligence reaches a certain point, a monolith appears and ensures that they pass the milestone. Which could still support the HAL/human thing; they did seem to have a similar level of uplift-readiness.
I spent some time thinking about whether killing a rival is a requirement for levelling up, and it seems to me that it is. Given only the information in the movie, it's possible to conclude that a Butlerian Jihad sort of event is about to take place, after the communications blackout lifts (and presumably someone discovers the abandoned craft with HAL's brain all over the floor), where all the machine intelligences are destroyed and humans graduate to SpaceBabyhood. Killing machines can be learned observationally, as killing rival tribes with zebra bones can be learned.
Anyway, blah blah unwanted speculation. Obviously the production design is essentially second to none, with so much gorgeous it's all over you screen. The space suits are freaking excellent, the pods, the interior of every single space in the movie. It's all insanely well-thought-out and -realised. The color schemes are consistent and well-chosen. It's just a beautiful movie. Most people's complaints about it are pacing-related, and this is understandable, it's just not... optimal. This is a film that teaches you how to relate to it. Once you adjust to the scale of the time, you can apprehend it properly. Long shots always, always (er... with the exception of the damned landscapes at the end which just DO NOT go away) are beautifully composed, interesting things that never fail to leave you with things to examine. You are allowed to take the time to note the angles of objects in regards to one another, to study the background, to try to read the monitor screens. There is always something to absorb in more detail. Everything is so planned. I mean, it's Kubrick.
I noticed for the first time, this viewing, that in the shot with old David Bowman in the bed, pointing upward at the monolith, the lens is short enough that there is a tiny amount of distortion in the edges of the shot, which is at a low angle, for once. This makes the monolith appear to be bending/tilting slightly toward him. I enjoyed that.