User:DoctorWho42/2001: A Space Odyssey–Some Selected Reviews

"2001: A Space Odyssey – Some Selected Reviews" is a collection of 2001: A Space Odyssey film reviews by American authors Lester del Rey, Samuel R. Delany, and Ed Emshwiller. It was published in the 1969 short story anthology Best SF: 1968 edited by Brian W. Aldiss and Harry Harrison.

Background

The reviews were included Best SF: 1968 or The Year's Best Science Fiction No. 2 as the editors (Brian W. Aldiss and Harry Harrison) considered the film 2001: A Space Odyssey as the biggest event in SF for 1968.

Content

Reviewed by Lester del Rey

Nobody slept at the 2001 press review in New York. The soundtrack was raucous and silly. Half the audience had left by intermission. Those who remained were there by curiosity or because they had reviews to complete. The visual was superb. The colour photography was excellent. The special effects were the best ever done. The acting was unusually good. Kubrick and Clarke were capable of giving us the superlative movie. Kubrick should've tackled Clarke's Earthlight to make a great science fiction movie. Instead, there is dullness and confusion. Everything drags. Every trick is stretched and repeated. Nothing is explained. Cutting might help. The story staggers in four episodes. Man's humanoid ancestors are given intelligence by an alien slab to become murderers. They dig up the same slab on the Moon. They go to Jupiter. There is a conflict between man and machine. It might have been good but there is lack of rationality. There is no motivation for the computer and the hero acts like a fool. There is empty, obvious symbolism. He grows old and dies in a strange room. The alien contact promised is a brief shot of the slab. See the movie for the effects before buying the book. The book may relieve the confusion. Kubrick's message: intelligence is evil. Men can be saved through aliens. This is the first in the New Wave-Thing movies as it has empty symbolism. It might be a box-office disaster and may set sci-fi back another ten years.

Reviewed by Samuel R. Delany

You are propelled through landscapes. There are crags, mesas, canyons, waves, and precipes. There is a feeling of horizontalism. In the penultimate sequence, it is vertical. The vertical is rich and violent while the horizontal is serene. The journey between takes a million years. Proto-humans discern the subjective from the objective. They invent tools, gain food, and defend themselves. In the end, a star child regards the earth. 2001 has twists, goes in odd directions, and ultimately circular. For two-thirds of the film, Kubrick concentrates on the journey. It is a nine month expedition of the space ship Discovery to Jupiter. Unbeknownst to its two conscious humans, Discovery is seeking an alien slab. The imagery is mechanised. Machines like the lunar transport dance. Mechanised hands bear a corpse. In the middle, Kubrick creates a gravity-less universe. There is no up nor down until a human stands in relation to another object. In the uncut version, there is a long and lyrical scene of Gary Lockwood running. It is meant to orient the viewer to the space. In the edited version, twenty minutes were cut by Kubrick. The scene is truncated and its grab looser. The bones of the movie remain intact. The end is a visualisation of rebirth. What kind of man is reborn? There are three consciousnesses on the journey. They are the dehumanised products of a bureaucratic culture. Keir Dullea undergoes transmogrification but what is the reason? It is up to the audience to decide. The argument is austere and staggering. The pacing is elegant and stately. It sets the viewer up for imagistic juxtaposition. The white on white in the Orbiting Hilton is daring. It is comparable to the unpainted apartment in Godard's Contempt. There are myriad little gems for the buff. There is visual excitement for the rest of us. It is presented with superb visual intelligence. They are exciting to look at then think about after.

Reviewed by Ed Emshwiller

Ed Ferman called to ask if he would write a short review of 2001. He has one reservation. Since making films, he's been hesitant to review another's movies. He liked the movie. He recommends it to those interested in cinema, expanding their experiences, and science fiction. If you go to the movies for the ritual of adventure, then beware. It has one effective dramatic sequence. The drama and its resolution is just an episode. You would have to enjoy the other aspects as well. The second sequence is a beautifully choreographed passage with a space ship. There is no "action." The pace is unhurried. It makes great kinesthetic use of space. The viewer is introduced to good science fiction sets and effects. The hardware was good as well. He was concerned everything would be too smooth. A lot of care and concern went into the detail of the film. He complains about the lack of detail on the people. The film is stylized. The human touches seem studied and unreal. He had spent the past six months making an impressionistic film on the Apollo Project. He encountered bureaucrats and spacemen. They were more textured than their 2001 counterparts. Ordinarily, he finds no films without fault. He found the final sequence especially interesting. In the early stages, Kubrick had asked if he would help with the detail. He read the script. His task would've been to construct an alien world. He did not become involved but was curious how he would've handled it. Kubrick did so beautifully with economy and great visceral impact. His use of semi-abstraction and image modification seemed borrowed from the avant-garde experimentalists. He finds it encouraging the range of cinematic vocabulary used in film and television. There are more films to choose from and more moviegoers. The cutting-edge has to keep pushing back to remain fresh. He likes Kubrick's choice of Clarke's "The Sentinel". It is a good movie despite no bug-eyed monsters. He liked the sense of scale and journey. He liked when Kubrick implied rather than explain. The styles varied to give a variety of character and mood. He was unhappy with the dialogue. It was strongest in the non-verbal. Sound was good and at times very effective. He liked the open-ended ambiguity. Sam Moskowitz would call it a "sense of wonder." It was a fine experience.

Reception

In 1969, Cosmos: A Science-Fantasy Review's Geoffrey Giles noted "vying with them for your attention are a selection of reviews of 2001: A Space Odyssey." Analog Science Fiction / Science Fact's P. Schuyler Miller opined "perhaps four reviews of the Kubrick-Clarke "2001" tend to water down the total effect." In 1970, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction's Joanna Russ said Best SF: 1968 "does a great service to readers by reprinting four reviews of 2001: Lester del Rey's, Samuel Delany's, Ed Emshwiller's, and Leon Stover's."

External links

• 2001: A Space Odyssey (Movie review) title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• 2001: A Space Odyssey by Lester del Rey title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• 2001: A Space Odyssey by Samuel R. Delany title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• 2001: A Space Odyssey by Ed Emshwiller title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database

Category:Essays about film Category:1968 essays