The Ultimate Trip

I wrote last month about the events of 4 April 1968, the day Martin Luther King was assassinated. Today I’m thinking of a happier event that occurred the previous day: Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey had its New York premiere at the Loew’s Capitol at Broadway and 51st Street. (Coincidentally, two years later I took a job at Steak and Brew, also at 51st and Broadway).

Sometime in the late spring of 1968 I was in New York visiting my Notre Dame buddy Charlie Walsh; I went with him and his girlfriend Kim to a showing of 2001 at, I assume, the Loew’s. I’ll never forget it; when it was over, when even the credits had finished rolling, at least a quarter of the audience sat there, in stunned silence or in quiet conversation. “What in the world have we just seen?” was the question in the air.

It would haunt me for 44 years. I still question what it means.

What I do not question is that it is a masterpiece, a movie milestone that has had tremendous impact not only on filmmaking but on popular culture as well. David Pogue, in his 14 October 2011 review of Siri, the iPhone 4S virtual assistant, reports this conversation:

You: “Do you know HAL 9000?”

Siri: “Everyone knows what happened to HAL. I’d rather not talk about it.”

Last night I experienced 2001: A Space Odyssey on the big screen for the first time in years, at Fairfield University’s Quick Center. It was, in a word, FABULOUS! If any of you have only seen the film on DVD or Blu-ray, or, worse, videotape, you have NOT seen the film at all. Its original run in 1968 was in 70mm Cinerama; most theatres have shown it in 35mm. It demands that, at the very least.

In 1980 a friend gave me 2001 on VHS tape, knowing that I loved it; for at least thirteen years, until Chariots of Fire was released, 2001 was my all-time favorite film. I thanked my friend but he could tell I wasn’t that excited. When pressed I admitted that I would never watch 2001 on a TV screen. His gift remained shrink-wrapped until I gave it away years later. Recently I bought the Blu-ray version because it is loaded with extras and because amazon was selling it for eleven bucks, but I’m still not sure I’ll ever watch it, even on our 42inch TV, far bigger than I had in 1980.

The film still stuns with its lack of dialogue (the first words are spoken 24 minutes in), its use of classical music to depict space ships and space stations (to this day I do NOT think of Viennese waltzers when I hear The Blue Danube), its psychedelic use of colors and graphics near the end, its gorgeous cinematography and its use of absolute silence. It is an astonishing, provocative, visually beautiful and powerfully intellectual film that was just as exciting to watch last night as it was in 1968.

I worship at the altar of Kubrick.