![]() ![]() Still, few of them realized how important a film they were making. They were, in fact, inventing an entirely new visual vocabulary. And he makes clear that Kubrick and his legion of artists (calling them “technicians” seems somehow inadequate) weren’t simply coming up with cool effects. But while Benson provides enough detail to satisfy the most obsessive film geek, he never loses sight of the human story: the egos, short tempers, and personality conflicts that sometimes threatened to derail, if not completely scuttle, the project. There’s no shortage of literature on the minutiae of “2001”’s special effects, the creation of its sets and models, and the technicalities of camera lenses and film stocks. It’s here that Benson’s book really shines. Yet it was one thing to ponder lofty conceptions and deep insights about humanity and the universe, and quite another to manifest them in physical reality, with all the limitations of 1960s film technology and studio production budgets. Clarke (who despite his fame had never had a book adapted for the screen), the author and director hit it off famously: two unique geniuses coming together to discuss life, the universe, and everything to stargaze from Kubrick’s Manhattan penthouse and to begin to create the story of “2001.” Their creative relationship - ultimately symbiotic if sometimes tumultuous, even litigious, thanks to Kubrick’s repeated delays in clearing final publication of Clarke’s novelization (and his payment) - dominates the making of “2001” and Benson’s book. Now he sought to do the same with the even more profound question of humanity’s place in the universe. Strangelove,” creating a satiric portrait of nuclear madness so uncannily accurate that it made Pentagon strategists fear he had insider knowledge. “Once he’d decided on a theme, he subjected it to years of interrogation, reading everything and exploring all aspects before finally jump-starting the cumbersome filmmaking machinery.” He’d done it with “Dr. “Kubrick treated every film as a grand investigation,” writes Benson. Getting started wasn’t too difficult determined to make “the proverbial ‘really good’ science fiction movie” and fascinated by the possibilities of extraterrestrial life, Kubrick immersed himself in research, as was his habit. In the ensuing years, “2001” became the benchmark, the gold standard of science fiction film, profoundly influencing generations of filmmakers such as Steven Spielberg, Ridley Scott, and Christopher Nolan, some of whose works in the genre would approach but never quite equal Kubrick’s achievement.īut even before anyone outside of Kubrick’s tight circle saw a single frame, Benson writes, “2001” had a bumpy ride from inspiration to fruition. ![]() The ascension wasn’t exactly smooth - certainly not in the immediate aftermath of “2001”’s premiere and general release, when most influential film critics seemed to go out of their way to dismiss it as “a major disappointment,” “a thoroughly uninteresting failure,” and even as “trash masquerading as art.” It was the public that made Kubrick’s opus a bigger hit than MGM’s previous blockbuster, “Doctor Zhivago.” Critical reaction eventually softened (and in some cases reversed) after Kubrick recut and trimmed the film. Along with, it seemed, his career.īut Christiane would awaken Kubrick to a radio report of huge lines waiting to get into “2001” and extravagant praise for a “fantastic film.” Kubrick’s not-so-long dark night of the soul was over, and as Benson’s subtitle affirms, “2001” had begun its rise to its now legendary status as a masterpiece that forever changed the art of film. After attending a post-premiere reception that felt more like a wake, the devastated director retreated with his wife, Christiane, to a rented Long Island mansion, where he continued to agonize into the night before finally falling into an exhausted sleep, his supreme self-confidence in his vision and ability apparently gone. Clarke, and the Making of a Masterpiece,” Kubrick may not have overheard that particular remark, but he had apparently reached much the same conclusion. Clarke overheard a comment from an executive from MGM, the studio whose $12 million Kubrick had just spent: “Well, that’s the end of Stanley Kubrick.”Īs Michael Benson describes in “Space Odyssey: Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. ![]() People who had been merely squirming in their seats began walking out by the end of the screening, well over 200 had departed. And snide comments like “Let’s move it along,” as the star, Keir Dullea, jogged interminably around the centrifuge of the spaceship Discovery. Not long into the first half of the nearly three-hour-long film, the boos began. Clarke, and the Making of a Masterpiece,” by Michael Benson (Simon & Schuster, 497 pages). BOOK REVIEW - “Space Odyssey: Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. ![]()
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