B
BartholomewB
Guest
Della
How refreshing to read your candid appraisal. Without a shadow of a doubt, 2001 A Space Odyssey is the dullest movie I ever sat through in a theater. My wife and I went to watch it on first release, nearly fifty years ago now. From time to time I said to her, or to myself, “This is Kubrick. He’s a good director. It must start getting better soon. Let’s give it another ten minutes.” But it never did get any better, unless you count the abstract bit at the end with the colored lights flashing past. That was marginally less dull than all the rest that had gone before.
2001 still turns up on cable from time to time and sometimes I watch bits of it again, out of curiosity. After all, we had friends at the time – and still have some of them – who find it one of the very best movies ever made. Inexplicable. Not long ago I timed the opening sequence, first a bunch of extras jumping around in gorilla suits, then a bored passenger arriving at a space station. It’s fifteen minutes, give or take, before the first line of dialog is spoken, and when it comes, it’s so crashingly trite it’s a joke. Something like this:
Man to receptionist: Good morning. I have an appointment with Dr. Klein at 10 o’clock.
Receptionist (picking up phone): Yes, sir. I’ll see if he’s in his office.
We’ve been kept waiting all this time to hear a character, any character, say something to any other character, and when at long last our patience is to be rewarded, this is what we get?
The movie is a sheer waste of time from start to finish. And yet there are other Kubrick movies I like a lot, such as Dr. Strangelove, Spartacus (at least in parts), A Clockwork Orange, and, above all, Barry Lyndon.
How refreshing to read your candid appraisal. Without a shadow of a doubt, 2001 A Space Odyssey is the dullest movie I ever sat through in a theater. My wife and I went to watch it on first release, nearly fifty years ago now. From time to time I said to her, or to myself, “This is Kubrick. He’s a good director. It must start getting better soon. Let’s give it another ten minutes.” But it never did get any better, unless you count the abstract bit at the end with the colored lights flashing past. That was marginally less dull than all the rest that had gone before.
2001 still turns up on cable from time to time and sometimes I watch bits of it again, out of curiosity. After all, we had friends at the time – and still have some of them – who find it one of the very best movies ever made. Inexplicable. Not long ago I timed the opening sequence, first a bunch of extras jumping around in gorilla suits, then a bored passenger arriving at a space station. It’s fifteen minutes, give or take, before the first line of dialog is spoken, and when it comes, it’s so crashingly trite it’s a joke. Something like this:
Man to receptionist: Good morning. I have an appointment with Dr. Klein at 10 o’clock.
Receptionist (picking up phone): Yes, sir. I’ll see if he’s in his office.
We’ve been kept waiting all this time to hear a character, any character, say something to any other character, and when at long last our patience is to be rewarded, this is what we get?
The movie is a sheer waste of time from start to finish. And yet there are other Kubrick movies I like a lot, such as Dr. Strangelove, Spartacus (at least in parts), A Clockwork Orange, and, above all, Barry Lyndon.
I thought it was just because it worked better cinematically that way, without Alex growing up and putting his transgressive youth in perspective. Anyway, I think the story works a lot better the way Burgess wanted it, which is immeasurably less grim than the way Kubrick ended up doing it, for whatever reason.