2001 will be playing at Lincoln Center as part of its upcoming widescreen series. I already linked this on the MovieNavigator thread, but thought this would be a pretty good spot too. Go to:
http://movienavigator.org/wideload.htm
Seems like the correct thread to post this, since this Q&A with Keir Dullea derives from a 2001 screening.
2004: Remembering 'Odyssey'
Dullea looks back at the role for which he will forever be known.
By Frank Rizzo
Courant Staff Writer
Published August 3, 2004
The Westport Country, Conn., Playhouse Film Series this week was to present a conversation with Keir Dullea after a screening of Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" at the Community Theater in Fairfield.
Following is a conversation with Dullea, 68, at the home in Fairfield that he shares with his wife, actress Mia Dillon:
Q: How did you get the part of Commander Dave Bowman in the film?
A: I was doing [Otto Preminger's] "Bunny Lake Is Missing" in London, and I got a call from my agent saying Kubrick wanted me for the film after seeing me in "David and Lisa," "The Thin Red Line" and outtakes of "Bunny Lake," which were sent to him. Over the years, I heard somewhere that Warren Beatty was up for my part, but when I recently looked at a casting list for the film, my name was the only one listed for my part. The names of actors such as George Hamilton, Murray Hamilton, Rod Taylor, Hugh O'Brien, James Coburn and Sterling Hayden were being tossed around [for the part of Frank Poole, played by Gary Lockwood]. For the role of the main ape, Albert Finney, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Robert Shaw and Richard Kiley were on that list. [William Sylvester got that role]. My part of the film was shot in England in the spring of 1966. We shot nearly four months. [The film wasn't released until 1968.]
Q: What was Kubrick looking for in his astronauts?
A: What he didn't want was the way scientists had been portrayed in movies -- you know, those goatee-wearing figures. Stanley projected they would not be military people.
Q: Your character and the other astronauts were a little cool.
A: Many people talked about how the humans in the film were more machine-like than the machines, but that was intentional. The only time my character showed any type of emotion was when HAL [super-computer HAL-9000] wouldn't let him back inside the ship, and I had to go inside the emergency hatch. And then there was the scene where you see me taking HAL's [intelligence machinery] apart, and it was not easy for my character to do that because it was like taking the persona of a human being apart, and I'm saying, "Yeah, HAL. It's OK," or "Sing 'Daisy' for me, HAL."
The voice of HAL came much later, though. Stanley was thinking of Martin Balsam as the voice of HAL, but then he decided he didn't want a slightly New York accent. Then he hired Nigel Davenport, an English actor. He came to the set for a few weeks, but then Stanley decided he didn't want an English accent either. Then he decided to worry about it in post-production, so we had an assistant reading HAL's lines for us. He sounded like Michael Caine, so that's how HAL sounded to us.
[Canadian actor Douglas Rain is the voice of HAL in the film.]
Q: There's so little dialogue in the film. Was it a big script?
A: It was, but mostly in description. It did, however, have more dialogue than what was used, and some we improvised -- like the scene in the pod when HAL was reading our lips; there was more in that scene -- but that scene just kept getting shorter and shorter.
Q: How much freedom did you have as actors?
A: Stanley was so well prepared. Every good director has cunning. Stanley gave us the sense we had all the freedom in the world, but he was guiding us all the time. I loved every minute working with him. He was always open to ideas.
Q: Did Kubrick talk to the actors about what the film meant?
A: He was open to any questions we wanted to ask, but what we understood was that our characters were in the dark about a lot of things. But we talked about interpretations. About the aliens spinning what we called our "mind tapes" in that last scene.
Q: Can you talk about your final scene, when the astronaut you play ends up in a strange room alone and ages in a series of shots? What did it signify?
A: I was playing a character who was unbelievably bewildered. However, I was being guided by "an alien presence." At least that was my interpretation -- and Stanley's. The room was not a physical room. This alien presence millions of years in advance of us created the room. It is like what human beings would do when we build cages for little animals, or in a zoo, put some brush, or a cave, to make them think it's the animal's habitat. But it's not. It's the same principle [in that scene]. But in this case, the alien presence doesn't have to physically create the room. They would do the equivalent of spinning a tape in your brain and looking for something that represents "habitat" coming across this Louis XVI room, or whatever it was - perhaps it was a room you may have once walked through, perhaps in a museum. The alien presence wasn't worried about exactly what it was, only that it represented "habitat" in my brain, so they put me there.
Q: And the extended scene when you were being transported to Jupiter?
The scene is an extended close-up of you while a strange light show takes place.
A: Well, I was just looking at the camera. There was some interesting lighting being done around me. But to keep me engaged, Stanley played music, Vaughan Williams' "Sinfonia Antarctica." There was a movement in that suite that was very mysterioso. It was really weird music, and it helped me a lot. I knew from the script that it would be very unusual. The situation was that I was in the hands of an alien presence, which was millions of years in advance of us, and I was seeing the wonder of it, and I brought my actor's sense of what that might be.
But he would say, look this way, or that way, or down - that was what is called the Kubrick look. It's in "A Clockwork Orange" a lot and "Full Metal Jacket." It's like your head is down, and you're looking straight out, like through your eyebrows.
Q: How was the film received?
A: The initial reviews were mixed. Some praised it; some panned it. And in some cases, critics re-reviewed the film [after it became an audience phenomenon].
Q: Seeing the film stoned became part of its appeal. Since you were described as "the face that launched a thousand trips," did you ever see the film high?
A: Yes. I think the light trips were something then.
I remember reading about a fan somewhere, maybe it was San Francisco, who, in the last five minutes of the film, some crazed stoned person ran from the back of the house, ran to the front of the stage screaming, "It's God! It's God!" He jumped up on the stage and ran right through the screen still screaming, "It's God!"
Q: There were no sci-fi conventions of the magnitude we have now, or Internet clubs, so all of the excitement surrounding the film was created solely by word of mouth.
A: Word got out fast, and part of the appeal was the different interpretations surrounding the film. It was not a neat Hollywood film that tied up all the loose ends. It was filled with question marks. In a way, it's more like a European film, like "L'Avventura."
I've always been hesitant to explain what I thought "2001" was about because I believe it's all in the eye of the beholder. What other films leave as many questions that could be answered in so many different ways? A Buddhist would be as intrigued as a Christian or an agnostic or an atheist.
It was the first movie of its kind, the granddaddy of a film with that kind of budget -- $11 million, a big budget then, but laughable now. After "2001," it was different: "Star Wars," and all the rest. But ours did not have one computer-generated effect. They were all done mechanically. What Kubrick did was sheer genius.
Q: Has the film changed your cosmic perception of the universe?
A: I don't think so. I do know how the magic was made, so I don't quite see it the same way others do.
Q: Were you forever identified with 2001 after the film opened?
A: Prior to "2001," I was first identified with [the film] "David and Lisa," and then "2001" replaced all of that. It's a double-edged sword.
I know there are other things I've done that I'm proud of, and people recognize that, too. But for the average Joe, no matter what I do, it will be "2001."But if you're only going to be identified by one product, you could do a lot worse.
I saw 2001 at the Arclight theater here in LA last week and it was really AMAZING. I always forget how creepy the music is.
Also, seing the space child on the huge screen looked really different, that baby really creeped me out.
The ultimate Kubrick collectible (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3840166200&category=60360&ssPageName=ADME:B:EF:US:1).
CHRIST!!!!
That's unbelievable... that should really not exist... that's just nuts...
I guess Kubs wanted to keep it for the lens.
"When you pass on, Mr. Kubrick, what would you like me to do with the HAL 9000?"
".. Ebay.."
"Haha, okay but seriously."
wow, and only $150,000!!!
i've had this question in mind, but keep forgetting to ask.........now's as good a'time as any:
how much restoration was done to 2001 for the last DVD release?
did the effects, etc really look as great as they do then, or have they been enhanced? did they take away lines and things like George Lucas did in Star Wars (i'm thinking of how the tie fighters would have a slightly lighter box around them and other things).
What? Did you just ask if Kubs Lucassed up 2001?
Blasphemy... Effin Fuckin' Blasphemy
I think what he was referring to were matte lines, and whether there were any that were digitally removed. And the answer is no. I have the un-cleaned up version from the first Kubrick box set, and there are no matte lines.
nothing was done except general making the print sharper and sound better.
for shame, blasphemy indeed.
blasphemy? give me a break.
gi gi gi give me a break (a tv theme song)
i'm just amazed at how realistic it looks and the only other special effects films i can think of dealing with space were Star Wars and i've seen first hand how the picture has been changed. i just wanted to make sure when they say that Kubrick's films have been restored/remastered, that it meant keeping the look of what was originally released in theaters, and not changed like Lucas has done with Star Wars.
are people still using the effects process that Kubrick used on the film? i vaguely remember reading how they did it. something about how they had to blow up the pictures really big......eh, i can't remember.
I just saw 2001: A Space Odyssey in Ann Arbor on the big screen, 70mm.
The light show was amazing... the movie itself takes on a whole new look when it's in a theater... the breathing, the sounds of the ship, HAL's voice...
One thing I didn't get: what part of 2001 is funny? I guess it's because more than half of the audience was on some sort of drug, but really... they were laughing at a few parts that I could see being somehow humorous ("David, I think you should take a stress pill." and when HAL is trying to reason with David). But come on... it almost detracted from the experience, but seeing 2001 in 70mm is hard to ruin.
Even though the film fucked up when he first steps into the white room and they had to fix it and get it running again...
Overall, a very mindblowing experience.
I always found a lot of Kubrick's work very funny, including quite a bit of 2001, and when I've had a chance to see them in the theatre with an audience it appears I wasn't alone. His humor is very dry and not verbal usually but visual. The sign outside of the toilet on the space station with the extremely long instructions was obviously intended to be a joke, everything HAL says as Dave is marching through the ship to disconnect him is hilarious, lots of little visual gags in the Blue Danube scenes, etc. etc.
While a lot of people consider Barry Lyndon to be boring and his least accomplished film, I think it's an absolute riot, the funniest he ever made, and possibly his best film.
Quote from: jigzaw
While a lot of people consider Barry Lyndon to be boring and his least accomplished film
You need to meet more people.
Yeah, when I saw this in the theater about a month ago, there were people laughing at those scenes and as I said "haven't you fucking SEEN this movie?!" my wife made a keen observation that there are people who also laugh when they watch Shakespeare comedies too. It's because they want to show off the fact that they understand where the funny parts are.
Seriously tho, I chuckled a couple times the first time I watched it, but it's not Raising Arizona.
I think the big thing that stood out to me is that it's not really sidesplitting humor. You see it, you recognize the comedic value, but to me, laughing at a Kubrick film (other than Lee Ermy in FMJ) is the equivalent of shouting "Did anyone else see that? INCREDIBLE!"
yeah but Barry Lyndon is hilarious.
Quote from: RegularKarateCHRIST!!!!
That's unbelievable... that should really not exist... that's just nuts...
I guess Kubs wanted to keep it for the lens.
the link died before i saw what the item was - what was it?
Quote from: cowboykurtisQuote from: RegularKarateCHRIST!!!!
That's unbelievable... that should really not exist... that's just nuts...
I guess Kubs wanted to keep it for the lens.
the link died before i saw what the item was - what was it?
IIRC, it was the HAL console.
This will be playing in Berkeley on October 22 at 3 PM at the Pacific Film Archive.
it's showing at the Landmark in Dallas tonight and tomorrow.
wish Dallas was closer... :yabbse-sad:
Kubrick: a marketing odyssey
It took some quick thinking by Mike Kaplan to reassure the 2001 director that his masterpiece was in safe hands. Here, he recounts the rocky start of a long friendship
Source: The Guardian
I was the resident longhair in the publicity department of MGM when I first met Stanley Kubrick, in April 1968. I had spent the previous four days canvassing the befuddled media, who were trying to grasp his new film, a non-verbal epic called 2001: A Space Odyssey, and MGM's executives were in fear about the prospects of their most expensive film to date and, consequently, their future.
Roger Carras, Kubrick's promotion executive, was taking me to meet the great man to explain to him why the film was near unanimously misunderstood. It was being presented as "an epic drama of adventure and exploration", and many were expecting a modern Flash Gordon. Instead, Kubrick had created a metaphysical drama encompassing evolution, reincarnation, the beauty of space, the terror of science, the mystery of mankind. The campaign had to be reconceived and repositioned - an impossible task unless Kubrick, who had complete control of his work, could be convinced this was vital to save his film from impending disaster and devastating reviews.
We were in the midst of the 1960s youth revolution. Friends in the underground press had already seen 2001 several times, exhilarated by his film-making, some nicely stoned. After my first confused reaction, compounded by false anticipation and intense company pressure, I walked out of the second screening elated, knowing 2001 was an experience challenging conventional movie audiences and traditional critical values.
And so Roger took me to the projection booth of Loew's Capitol Theatre in New York on the night of the movie's premiere. The Capitol's inner lobby was decorated with a fanciful garden created for MGM's previous roadshow attraction, The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm. As Roger and I crossed the fairytale bridge that led to the door of the projection booth, the incongruity of the atmosphere and my trepidation at finally talking to Stanley Kubrick was dizzying. My stomach was in knots.
He had just gone through the red-carpet frenzy - the last time he would attend one of his world premieres - and was checking the technical state of the Cinerama equipment. The "Dawn of Man" sequence had ended as we entered the large booth. He was standing casually next to one of the massive projectors, bow-tie undone, dinner jacket opened, his editors behind him.
"Stanley," Roger said buoyantly as we approached, "this is Mike Kaplan, whom I told you about." I reached out to shake his hand. Kubrick kept his in his pockets. The tension was palpable. I was the potential enemy in his den; my sincerity irrelevant. There would be no handshake. It was an existential confrontation.
His laser-like eyes locked mine: "Why doesn't Pauline Kael like my movie?" My mind raced. I had been nervous enough rehearsing what to say. He was famous for hustling chess games in his youth and had made a bold, surprising first move. Despite Roger's preparation about my passion for what should be done, this was his test of what I should know. Forget this upstart and his theories. Kael, the film critic of the New Yorker, was the most influential critic of the time.
Kael, however, wasn't a contact of mine. I had enough to keep up with the newspaper, broadcast media and wire services which were my purview. I read Pauline infrequently; found her analysis invigorating when I agreed with her and condescending when I didn't. I favoured her counterpart on the opposite side of the critical spectrum, Andrew Sarris, who had championed the auteur theory of film criticism in America and reviewed for the Village Voice, the New York alternative weekly. These were the days when critics held their opinions close to their chests and never saw a film more than once. From the brief message received by Joanna Ney, my close colleague and Kael's contact at MGM, and from the expression on the face of writer Dick Albarino, a friend who had accompanied Pauline to the first screening - and who was sworn to secrecy about her reaction - it was apparent she was going to be brutal. But no one knew specifics.
I felt the fate of the film was in the heavy air holding Kubrick's question. My answer had to meet his challenge. Perhaps a minute elapsed. Triggered by a survival instinct from some deep memory recess, I countered, "She thought The Bible was the best movie of the year." Our eyes didn't move but his body shifted slightly. It was my acknowledgment. We talked for the next two hours through to the end of the film and watched the mystified charity audience file out. Then we shook hands.
It was the beginning of an enduring friendship and my most commercially successful professional relationship. What cemented it was a marketing tactic that initiated the turning of 2001 into a cultural phenomenon. Besides Kael and Sarris, the major critical voices who could affect a film's success were the New York Times and the bright and bristling Judith Crist, the most widely known critic in the country, who reviewed for the New York Herald Tribune, the Today Show, the highest-rated morning television programme, and TV Guide, the country's largest circulation magazine. No critic ever had a larger audience.
Crist, a long-time supporter of Kubrick, was negative, reflecting the opinions of her newspaper colleagues who thought 2001 long, boring and impenetrable. The New York Times had named a new critic at the beginning of the year, Renata Adler, a novelist of note, whose film tastes were still unknown. (She would shortly compare the monolith to a Hershey chocolate bar.) Kael was on the attack and Sarris, whose views could signal an alternative force to marshal, would appear last. We were down three with one unknown. It was desperate.
Then, the unexpected. The Christian Science Monitor, the highly respected national newspaper based in Boston, published an elegantly designed full-page essay by John Allen, declaring the film a masterpiece with Kubrick reinventing the medium. This was the breakthrough, coming from a distinguished newspaper with substantial weight to balance the establishment consensus. Combined with a bubbling movement from the counterculture media, and the near-unprecedented second review by Newsday's Joseph Gelmis reversing his negative opinion within days of his first (only Newsweek's Joe Morgenstern had ever done this previously with his Bonnie and Clyde switch), the Monitor piece could refocus the film's future.
When the film came out, Stanley set up an office in the conference room on the 26th floor of the MGM building. Tearsheets of ads and reviews from every publication lined the walls. The Monitor essay had to be reprinted immediately, as an ad in the following Sunday's New York Times (Adler's weak review had just appeared) and for insurance sake, in the next issue of the Village Voice, in case Sarris was negative. Most importantly, it had to be read as an editorial; it could not look like an advertisement. The only commercial information would be a discreet line at the very end stating "2001: A Space Odyssey is showing at Loew's Capitol theatre."
Stanley got it immediately. Our plan was that I'd make the case and he'd play back-up if necessary. My boss bought the concept; there was nothing to lose. Business was well below average for a major release. And I was the film's designated point man, having Kubrick's trust. Advertising layouts were ordered immediately. But when the mock-ups arrived, I was shaken. Instead of an editorial look, the Monitor reprint was contained within the standard corporate information: MGM credits and the distinctive unfolding Cinerama logo fought the copy. It was too radical to remove the studio's corporate identity. The intended impact would be lost.
Stanley made his move. Privately, he went to the studio bosses to talk about the film's future openings, saw the mock-ups, and walked out with the layout we wanted - his calm logic prevailing. The advertising agency also delivered with placement. On Sunday, the piece appeared opposite the New York Times' main film page, making it look like a two-page editorial spread. There was nothing stating it was a paid ad. On Thursday, it ran opposite Sarris' lengthy negative review in the Village Voice. The campaign to turn the tide was engaged.
During the next four years, from the release of 2001, through its relaunch a year later with my "Ultimate Trip"/Starchild campaign, and the release of A Clockwork Orange (Stanley had asked me to leave MGM to work directly with him), we talked and strategised film distribution daily. We remained in close contact afterwards, watching Barry Lyndon with the American ratings chief in the large Shepperton screening room with his newly completed print; I visited the set of The Shining and later tried to persuade him to change the ad and slogan; I called him after seeing Full Metal Jacket to say I broke down at the visceral impact of the graveside scene, because my mother had died months before (he said, "There's nothing worse; it's like being hit in the head with a sledgehammer"). From then on periodically - I'd get a call and we'd speak for an hour or more as if it were yesterday.
Our last conversation was in 1994. I was at the Edinburgh festival, where Luck, Trust & Ketchup, my documentary about Robert Altman, was being shown. I had sent him a copy and was eager for his thoughts. He said it was "very good" then quickly moved to The Whales of August, which I had produced a few years before. "Who directed it?" he asked. (I knew he knew.) "Lindsay Anderson." "Oh, yes, I knew it was a good director. How did it do?"
It had been badly distributed, except for Japan, the only territory that followed my marketing campaign, where it played for a year and a half in Tokyo. He was intrigued and then described in detail how for Full Metal Jacket he had changed the way films were announced and released in Japan. Instituting new distribution methods fascinated Stanley as much as film-making, which he also called "an exercise in problem solving".
Next Friday, the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the British Film Institute will present a joint tribute to Kubrick at BFI Southbank, hosted by Malcolm McDowell. At the same time, in the same building, Never Apologise, Malcolm's tour de force celebration of Lindsay Anderson, which I directed, will be showing.
More than anything, I'd be eager for Stanley's thoughts, to hear his coy chuckles, and to have another long, creative dialogue on the art of making and marketing movies.