• A supreme visual and aural achievement—when combined with the utmost formal exactitude— it leaves us with one of the best three films of all-time
  • If you still need more evidence of Kubrick’s genius— how about his post-production decisions on the soundtrack and casting for HAL. He changed it from a more Spartacus– like- adventure-like Alex North score to Strauss—brilliant. (North is great by the way- he did Spartacus as I mentioned- but also A Streetcar Named Desire, Cleopatra, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf?—it just doesn’t fit here)– Kubrick had Martin Balsam doing the voice of HAL and replaced him with the incalculably valuable Douglas Rain
  • The film is one of the greatest examples of formal perfection. Kubrick was fanatical. Things line up correctly in the opening (even before the “Dawn of Man” sequence)- the earth, moon, and sun—later the monolith joins in the wild Jupiter sequence to close. Theme and variation as this is alignment is repeated.
  • Another key aspect of the formal elements is the reoccurring shot of the red light for HAL—it’s mind-blowing that Kubrick was able to craft such a great character here
  • The dismantling of HAL- the reds and blacks- make up one of the 10 most beautiful sequences in cinema history. In fact, when talking about the most beautiful film ever made—many of them feature nature and exterior photography (whether it’s Lawrence of Arabia or the works of Terrence Malick)- 2001 is a candidate, perhaps the leading one, for the “most beautiful” award and it’s mostly man-made- it stands alone here as most of those are travelogue-like exterior heavy films
  • Johann Strauss’s “Blue Danube”—poetry and grace- acoustic brilliance— such a pairing of the music and the detailed miniatures making of the visual (presented in 70mm photography by an ex-photographer)
  • The austerity and coldness in the human interactions is purposeful from Kubrick
  • There is a lineage here of the tracking shot from Paths of Glory to this to The Shining. It’s a mark of a supreme auteur- I’d love to see that supercut
  • There are three Keir Dullea characters at the end- trilogy that comes up again and again. Three is the number for the film
  • Sun/earth/moon alignment set up from the get-go before dawn of man
  • Gorgeous 70mm landscapes shown with elliptical editing in dawn of man
  • “Requiem for Soprano, Mezzo-Soprano, 2 Mixed Choirs and Orchestra” György Ligeti—pairs with the monolith in a long crescendo. Haunting. Shot of the three aligned again- a wormhole to evolution is the monolith, advancement, destruction
  • The famous graphic match edit- the bone to floating spacecraft- maybe the most famous cut in film history
  • Again poetry and beauty- elliptical shots of space travel
  • The set décor- red chairs- utterly dazzling mise-en-scene and photography in 70mm
  • The two calls to home- one by William Sylvester’s Dr. Floyd to daughter and one from Dr. Poole to his family are so cold. Empty. Cold human interaction
  • Primary colors in the suits- yellow, blue, red
  • Moon set piece is astonishingly detailed- so is the singular shot of the dome opening on the moon from the inside- Wow
  • Walking down to the monolith excavation- again- alignment and the “requiem” music
  • The film is broken into three sections– Kubrick combines the Dr. Heywood Floyd sequence and the dawn of man and then goes with 2. Jupiter 18 months later as the second portion and the 3. Jupiter infinite and beyond as the third section. I think there are actually 4 parts (you have to break up the moon and the dawn of man sequence) but Kubrick seems fixated on the trilogy and keeping it with three sections even if the first two are divided (and the intermission- which is placed well) isn’t between the three
  • To open the “Jupiter: 18 months later” section we have the gorgeous tracking shot of Frank Poole jogging. It mirrors Kirk Douglas in the trenches or Danny later on the bike in The Shining
  • It’s odd- I’ve watched hundreds if not thousands of films from this era and have never seen these characters in anything else (Keir Dullea is in the 2010 sequel). I take that more of a sign of Kubrick’s brilliance than the weakness of the acting here.
  • An all-timer of a shot is the shot of Dullea in red suit walking through to replace the unit with white paneling- it’s no surprise they used it for the IMAX re-release poster
  • The trademark reflecting of the panels onto the face
  • A ridiculously detailed mise-en-scene. Kubrick is so formally sound- deliberate in the telling. Rigorous
  • The ominous red light- again and again
  • For a film that isn’t known for its screenplay/dialogue and certainly that isn’t Kubrick’s focus- there are a number of wonderful stand-alone lines like HAL’s “this conversation can no longer serve any purpose” and the ominous “human error”
  • The death of HAL—- what else can you say about it—a masterstroke of lighting and photography and a thematically haunting scene with the voice fading and dying to “Daisy”
  • HAL as IBM moving the letters one
  • The third section is “Jupiter: infinite and beyond”- again- alignment and order in the monolith (which now joins the moon/earth/sun. The worm-hole freeze-frames show distortion on Dullea’s face- so avant-garde
  • The lighting under the floor in the future world finale—it’s gorgeous lighting as mise-en-scene (like Welles, Pakula, Fincher and Soderbergh but it’s the floor instead of ceiling)
  • We have three Dullea’s or David’s—the man in the suit, the man eating and the man dying and
  • The last alignment includes the star child as the last evolutionary move
  • A masterpiece of course