...Abstract Within the pages of a book, authors are able to create great visual images of locations and landscapes by using elaborate and descriptive words. Sometimes these images are transferred into an actual visual by the subsequent creation of films based upon these great works. “2001: A Space Odyssey” by Stanley Kubrick is an example of such as it is based upon the literary short story, “The Sentinel” by Arthur C. Clarke. Kubrick has done an astounding job at developing the original short story by combining music with visual images way before it’s time. The film allows its viewers to see the original short story told by Clarke, creatively expanded and elaborated upon in comparison with great detail. Table of Contents Introduction The Sentinel (Arthur C. Clarke), 1951 • Descriptive Elements • Theme – First contact 2001: A Space Odyssey by Stanley Kubrick, 1968 • Style, Visual and Music Elements • Theme – Evolution Conclusion References The Sentinel and 2001: A Space Odyssey Introduction “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968) has been called, “The most spectacular vision of the future,” and “Eerily accurate and wild with suspense” (Nashawaty, 2011). It is an epic science fiction film based on the short story, “The Sentinel” (1951), written by Arthur C Clarke. Comparing the literary work from Clarke, to the fully elaborated film by Kubrick, it can be said that there is very little similarities. Kubrick has managed to develop Clark’s ideas into an epic movie that must...
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...In 1968, science fiction scribe Arthur C. Clarke and movie director Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey came to the silver screen. The movie wasn't a space opera like Flash Gordon or Captain Video, a series in which Clarke had served as a writer and consultant. Rather, 2001 was Kubrick and Clarke's unique vision that was unlike any other movie of its genre. Less than a decade after the film's release, Jacob Kurtzberg, better known as Jack Kirby, added his unique style to the motion picture and its universe in the comic book pages upon his return to Marvel Comics, the publisher for whom he had co-created such iconic characters as the Fantastic Four and the Incredible Hulk. This article will explore The King of Comics version of 2001: A Space Odyssey and how he brought it from celluloid to panel. THE ODYSSEY'S HISTORY After making the 1964 film Doctor Stranglove, director Stanley Kubrick became fascinated with the possibility of extraterrestrial life....
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...Kubrick’s “Jupiter Room” in 2001: A Space Odyssey, reflects films ability to reconstruct the narrative form of time. The audience follows as David Bowman surrealistically jumps from one moment of his life to the next, and eventually to his death. Kubrick does not rely on conventional methods of film technique to construct this scene. He instead manipulates sound, montage, and a paradoxical version of the shot/reverse shot to convey the progression through Bowman’s timeline. The audience enters this scene and experiences an awakening: Bowman has witnessed the birth and death of the universe by going through a black hole. A close-up of Bowman’s eye, blinking, as if woken up from a nightmare is the opening shot. The color of his eyes have changed to normal blue, and he gapes, with a mixture of confusion and terror, at the sterile, white room. The camera then turns to a point-of-view shot of Bowman looking through the pod’s window. The interior of the pod is a series of rectangular lights leading to a perspective vanishing point that mimics the arrangement of the black hole. Next is a close-up of Bowman’s face, almost seizure-like, with the reflection of...
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...Book Report Starting from the Africa’s savannas with the man-apes, Moon Watcher and his troop lived in a cave. Once a monolith felt close to the cave, but they ignored it. Yet it was manipulating their minds, giving them knowledge to survive. A million years later, American astronauts discovered a monolith on the moon. The object emitted a signal to Saturn. A mission to this object was made. When they reached the object, 4 from 5 crew members had died. When the survivor got into the monolith he found something very lurid. B. Clearly, Arthur C. Clarke was a person a correct way of thinking. This can be seen in the book 2001: A Space Odyssey. Moon Watcher, the man-ape, he showed to be very savage. The death of his troop members was something...
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...After I watched the first episode that day, I was fascinated by wonders of the universe as well as the mysteries that lie within it. I became fascinated with the host of the series, Neil deGrasse Tyson, through the amount of knowledge that he portrayed in the series and his perspective on the world around us. I research Neil degrasse Tyson’s profession and I became introduced to the world of Astrophysics, the branch of space science that applies the laws of physics and chemistry to explain the birth, life and death of stars, planets, galaxies, nebulae and other objects in the universe. To me, Astrophysics became the best way to discover the true nature of the world, a concept that I would previously answer with...
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...whatever life was in the barren waste so they could survive. Time passed and evolution took place, boosting mankind into the nuclear space era. The joint U.S.-U.S.S.R. space station spots a magnetic disturbance on the moon; they send a team of researchers to investigate it. When they arrive they find a black monolith like the one from millions of years ago. They study from afar as the sun rises over the crest of the moon, as the sunlight hits upon the monolith. As the monolith baths in sunlight a piercing tone is sent through the deepest part of the galaxy. David Bowman and Frank Poole are the conscious astronauts guiding the “Discovery” mission to Jupiter; HAL (Artificial intelligence) was maintain the ship and checking components. They’re days aboard the “Discovery” were immaculately planned as to minimize failures. The ship neared Jupiter. Here, it released probes to gather...
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...What makes the Room sequence an unconventional ending for 2001: A Space Odyssey? The sequence starts with a point of view shot of David. It shows a corner of the room. In the room, an ambience sound is like from the universe. The next shot is an extreme close-up of David. Some colorful reflections of light fall on his face. David’s head shakes. His face is reddish with a tense expression. This shot has a warm tone. By contrast, the following shot has a cooler tone. It is a view of the bedroom with the dock station in it. This wide shot shows the mise-en-scene. The room design is classic European style. Then there are two more shots of different angles of the same scene. The next shot repeats the extreme close-up of David, which appears earlier. The David’s breath gets heavier. Then, it is cut to the shot that is shown at the very beginning of the Room sequence, but this time David himself stands beside the bathroom in red spacesuit. The red color is in a sharp contrast with the room color. Following that, the film is cut to medium shot of David, and then cut to close-up of David’s wrinkled face. Next is a wide shot that shows David crosses the room along a diagonal line. In the following shot, David walks in the bathroom, which does not show the continuity of the spacing. In other words, the editing does not follow the continuity of the character’s movement. Then, the camera pans from left to right in the bathroom. The camera angle is high, as if David looks down, to show...
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...(Capek 1921) and the HAL 9000 computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey (Clarke 1968) to modern day films like The terminator and The Matrix. On one hand you have works of the fiction depicting the human fear of a robot uprising, which could be ignored as just a natural fear of change. On the other you have world renowned scientists warning us of the ominous dangers of a scientific creation that might end the human race without the proper precautions to prevent it. In January 2015 Physicist Steven Hawking, CEO of tesla Elon musk, Steve Wozniak and Peter Norvig Google's Deep Minds director of research, among other scientist and pioneers in the field of artificial intelligence, signed and open letter titled “Research Priorities for Robust and Beneficial Artificial Intelligence: an Open Letter”. In this letter...
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...2001: A Space Odyssey Analysis The purpose of this report is threefold. I will begin by briefly discussing my interpretation of the film, 2001: a Space Odyssey, with a particular focus on the piece of alien technology, the black monolith. I will then discuss the plausibility of the Jupiter landing/living scenes, including the accuracy of how it was portrayed and whether living on Jupiter for a sustained period of time is realistic. Finally, I will wrap up by delving deeper into the black monolith. I will discuss the plausibility of the technology and the initial reaction to the technology from life on Earth. The ending of this film is entirely open to interpretation, ranging from an explanation for Darwinian evolution to strictly religious thoughts of God or gods. Personally, I saw the black monolith as some sort of super-advanced alien technology that served multiple purposes. The first purpose, which was seen in the “Dawn of Man” section of the movie, was to assist in the advancement of an intelligent race. The monolith first appeared to the primates, before some of the early Homo species had arose. Shortly after contact with the monolith, one group of primates began to use a bone as a weapon. With the newly found weapons, one group was able to defend the water hole from another group. This suggests that the monolith had somehow inspired, whether through some sort of telepathic thought transmission or simply through touching it, the apes to begin using tools. The monolith...
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...The eerie red dot for an eye of HAL 9000, the smartest computer ever created, looks out across the pod bay of Discovery One. Through the silence, Dave Bowman’s voice bursts through succinctly: “Open the pod bay doors, please, HAL.” We realize that his voice comes from inside the command pod, waiting out in the vacuum of space outside Discovery One. When no reply comes, he repeats his command, but again hears silence. “Hello HAL, do you read me?” Still no reply. He doesn’t have his helmet, and if he can’t enter the spaceship, he’ll be stranded in space. He’s screwed. Frantically switching to different voice channels, he repeats over and over, “HAL, do you read me? Hello HAL? HAL? Do you read me?” “Affirmative, Dave.” I don’t understand this movie. I don’t think anyone does. Director Stanley Kubrick and writer Arthur C. Clarke don’t. In fact, there is no one right or wrong answer to the questions posed in the film. Near the end of the film, it is seen in its most powerful as the visual aspects of 2001: A Space Odyssey quietly urge the...
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...town, at first, they are not acknowledged as Ryder’s son and wife, which implies that an important part of Ryder’s past life unraveled in this anonymous town. Sophie addresses formally as Mr. Ryder at first meeting and later Sophie pursue an emotional re-approachment with him as if once Ryder and Sophie had been in a unsettled marriage. She wants to have together “a great feast”, “we have got to put the past behind us. We have got to start doing things together again” (Unconsoled, 225). But, the narrative finally deals nothing of his real background. Still Ryder’s unconscious recognition of the starrings in the film Space Odyssey as American icons indicates a particular memory take up on American films. The ambiguity of the novel rotates around Ryder and it indicates that if Ryder is American or not is not actually important but any sort of Americanness itself is symbolic of greater political forces which shape and determine the uniformity of the world culture and such homogenization is achievable not just because of economic potency of a few nations but by the powerless societies that permit themselves to be engulf by homogenization. The talk between Ryder and Pederson during the film accentuates the yearning of an unknown town to be ratified by a cosmopolitan model...
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...atmospheric intensity of the ballade if the music playing was ascend, which was a reversed version of a Romanian Liturgy. However, there must be a key element that distinguishes Kubrick from his contemporaries. Perhaps a secret formula? In my opinion a pattern of his style can be observed throughout his movies which is essentially staging to both convey an ambiguous narrative through visuals and add an overall visual aesthetic and beauty. This can also be identified as mise-en-scene. We can see that Kubrick was so keen on the on staging of the film that his movies took many shots until the perfect and satisfactory result was achieved by Kubrick. As one of the special photographic effects designer Douglas Trumbull in the movie ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ indicates in his essay: “One of the most serious problem that plagued us throughout the production was simply keeping track of all the ideas, shots, and changes and constantly re-evaluating and updating designs, storyboards and script itself.” (158) Kubrick was so tedious and perfectionist in the production of his movies that his cast was often frustrated. The shooting of ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ for example took four hundred days, which is an all-time high in the film history. This shows Kubrick’s dedication to the staging and performance of the...
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...Title: 2001 A Space Odyssey film analysis Introduction: Begins a dawn in prehistoric Africa, about four million years ago a powerful force entered near Jupiter. The force later on somehow ended up in the prehistoric area. The monolith, was the force that was deliberately planted by an extraterrestrial but why? Body: I. What was learned about the movie before starting my complete analysis 1. Begins a dawn in prehistoric Africa 2. The dawn of man 3. Jupiter’s mission 4. Beyond the infinite II. My own personal analysis in regards to the list of questions from handout (1-14) 1. How and why is the film described as a work of art? 2. What colors are present and what are the color schemes? 3. What mood is set? 4. What is the possible symbolism?...
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...The year is 1968. The Vietnam War is in full swing, Martin Luther King, Jr. is assassinated, and American Cinema is approaching a new renaissance. At the height of the space race between the US and the USSR, a film is released that is so different and thought-provoking, yet spectacular and beautiful, that people either walk out of the theatre the first time or go back to see it again. 2001: A Space Odyssey is a film about discovery and what may come of the world, but above all it is a visually striking and experimental film that only Stanley Kubrick could pull off. Many considered 2001: A Space Odyssey to be slow paced and boring, and some even went as far as calling it annoying. It was a film that saw 241 walkouts at its premiere, Rock Hudson...
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...A director’s job is a crucial one: to tell a story that will captivate an audience while conveying a message. If a movie is directed effectively, the audience will receive a message while being simultaneously entertained. There are many techniques used by directors for this goal to be accomplished, one of the most important techniques being editing. Through editing techniques, a director can present information in many different ways, controlling when and how the audience receives the information. In one of the most iconic films in history, 2001: A space Odyssey, director Stanley Kubrick uses editing as a tool to complete a task and convey a message, much like the Apes do with bones at the beginning of his film. Many religious themes can be...
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