2001: A Space Odyssey (re-release)

Stanley Kubrick denied any predictive power for "2001: A Space Odyssey," the classic science fiction opus he directed, produced and co-wrote with Arthur C. Clarke. "It's not a forecast, it's a fable," as he told author Alexander Walker, and certainly the past 33 years have not gone quite where "2001" suggests they might have. Nevertheless, it was inevitable that, with or without routine interstellar travel, computers that know English grammar, and Pan American Airlines, we would see a reissue of "2001" this year.

As is customary for these reissues, the technicians have spruced up the print and pumped up the soundtrack. But the real draw for this reissue for Washington-area moviegoers is that "2001" will be shown at a theater that's a throwback to the middle of the last century: the Cineplex Odeon Uptown, with its plush seats, enormous screen, and bone-rattling sound system. Whether you come to the film as a "2001" veteran or a fresh-faced rookie, watching the reissue at the Uptown will show you exactly why so many viewers in 1968 thought "2001" was an instant classic, in a way that watching the film in your home theater never could.

"2001" blazes with uncommon creativity, intelligence, and visual imagination, and that is why lesser lights than Kubrick have relentlessly parodied it or ripped it off over the past forty years. The opening sequence detailing "The Dawn of Man," the main central section involving two astronauts contending with a recalcitrant, malignant supercomputer called HAL-9000 while en route to Jupiter, and the Freudian dream finale from which emerges what seems like a superman - these have become the stuff of snarky Apple ads and "Simpsons" parodies. Kubrick's graceful, stately spaceward camerawork, rotating and revolving and gliding effortlessly into place, has been borrowed by every science fiction movie made since "2001" was released. Johann Strauss' "An der schönen, blauen Donau" and "Dawn" from Richard Strauss' "Also sprach Zarathustra" have become familiar since their starring roles in "2001," even if their titles have not. (I have always wondered why Kubrick did not select Josef Strauss' "Spherenklänge" ("Music of the Spheres") if he was going to put waltzes in space, but them's the breaks.)

Frankly, all that permeation of our popular culture means that "2001" doesn't work as well as one would like when it is watched on a TV. The TV, bless its cathode-ray heart, sets everything on the same scale, from masterworks like "2001" to awful crapola like "According to Jim." The glories of "2001" come in large part from the sheer sensory experience, the overwhelming, mesmerizing nature of so much of the picture. Kubrick himself said that he had "tried to create a visual experience, one that bypasses verbalized pigeonholing and directly penetrates the subconscious with an emotional and philosophical content." And it's hard for "2001" to penetrate the subconscious when it's coming at you in a modest-sized box that often features pale imitations of the film's greatness.

So ride to the west side exit of the Cleveland Park Metro and look for the building immediately to the south that says "UPTOWN" on it in huge letters. The film looks great; the special effects hold up surprisingly well after 33 years, partly because they do not attempt too much and partly because much labor was expended on what they do attempt. The sound is spine-tingling; the heavy, claustrophobic yet celestial chords of Gyorgy Ligeti's music have never rung out as bold and strange as they do here. And the seats are so comfortable that you'll have no trouble settling in and losing yourself in this film like it's 1968 all over again. In fact, "2001" is so mind-blowing in this setting that you might well have trouble getting up after the credits roll.

Ha ha! Pan Am Airlines! Who did Kubrick think he was fooling? Lindemann

UNRELATED MARGINALIA TO MAKE UP FOR THE FACT THAT THE ABOVE REVIEW HAS NO IMPORTANCE WHATSOEVER FOR MANY OF YOU

I found these two takes on the same thing interesting. The first is from Jacques Barzun's "From Dawn to Decadence," an 800-page cultural history of the last 500 years (1.6 pages per year):

Whoever wants to feel at once the majesty of 17C[entury] kingship and the magnificence of Baroque should seek out the room in the Louvre that displays the cycle of paintings by Rubens celebrating the life of Maria de' Medici and her marriage to Henry IV of France. At first sight these panels may repel the modern viewer accustomed to gazing at a few objects at a time—or none; whereas Rubens depicts a multitude: royalty, hangers-on, sailors, soldiers, ships, angels, cherubs, animals, weapons, clouds, waves, and stars, all in luscious colors and crowded relations. The scene in each panel seems as improbable as a modern poster advertising holiday travel, but close attention shows everything justified, well ordered, and significant. So it is with monarchical pomp and the Baroque. Their common characteristic is profusion dignifying a central purpose.

The second is from an essay titled "Among the Euro-Weenies" in P.J. O'Rourke's seminal volume Holidays in Hell:

[The Louvre is boring.] Do not, however, miss the Peter-Paul Rubens Unabashed Sell-Out and Philistine Sycophant Room on floor two. In 1622 Queen Marie de Medici commissioned Rubens to paint about two dozen Greyhound bus-sized canvases celebrating every moment of her worthless life. The series runs from Queen Marie's birth, attended by all the hosts of heaven, to her marriage to the King of France where they invited every figure in ancient mythology including Io the cow. These paintings take win, place and show in the international hilarious fat girl derby.

 

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