Decalogue: One. It was a routine viewing at a friend’s house; I tried to get into it, then slept until the credits were rolling. I have not had the will or opportunity to take on the series since. Three Colors: White was much better.
I slept through part of My Bloody Valentine 3D and most of Coraline during a 24-hour movie marathon at a friend’s house.
I went to a screening of Godard’s Made in USA in Philadelphia. I could not tell whether I had fallen asleep, because it was so like a dream.
Martin Scorsese has a lot of projects which are not certain to happen. Silence, Sinatra, the Dean Martin biopic.
I want to see Napoleon, even if it meant Kubrick would never make A Clockwork Orange or Barry Lyndon.
David Lean was about to start shooting an adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s Nostromo when he died.
Bernardo Bertolucci, David Lynch, Terrence Malick, Woody Allen, David Cronenberg and Pedro Almodóvar have all attempted to direct D. M. Thomas’s The White Hotel, with stars such as Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman, Kate Winslet, Ralph Fiennes and Anne Hathaway attached.
Paul and George in Easy Rider, with John as the hitchhiker and Ringo as George Hansen.
Weekend at Bernie’s III: when their friend Paul dies in an inadvertent car crash, John, George, and Ringo attempt to convince people that he is still alive with hilarious consequences!
As you can tell, I love 2001: A Space Odyssey. Kubrick was not a little director, hobbled by the need to explain to the audience what is happening through narrative and dialogue. He was a great director, one who understood that film is a medium for images and sound. Kubrick is one of the greatest directors who have ever lived, and in my opinion, 2001 is his finest work; maybe the finest by anybody.
It is not like other films. It is not like other science fiction films. The moments of dramatic tension between protagonists (Moonwatcher, Bowman) and antagonists (the opposing australopiths, HAL) are brief and not the core of the work. The spare dialogue conveys much less of the narrative than the images do, and the narrative itself is astounding; it spans the entire history of modern man.
2001: A Space Odyssey works on every level. Visual, auditory, narrative, philosophical. Its themes of man’s evolution, man’s relationship to his creator, and man’s relationship to his creations are as thought-provoking now as they were when the film was made. How is the film informed by Nietzsche’s concept of the Übermensch, and incidentally, is this related to the choice of Also Sprach Zarathustra for the soundtrack? Can a machine ever truly attain consciousness, or can it only be programmed to emulate it? What does it truly mean to be human? Can there be tools without weapons?
Likewise, the visual effects remain impressive, especially when you appreciate the work that was done to achieve them. There was no CGI in 01968. I still wonder how some of the effects were done; the people walking around upside down in the windows, for example.
I don’t even think Kubrick’s vision of the future is dated. The future may not have come exactly as he saw it, but Kubrick at least presents a plausible alternative future. And in some ways, the future did come as Kubrick saw it. Those monitors aren’t CRTs. I’ve placed video calls myself. A deleted scene has Floyd shopping online. Kubrick’s depiction of the surface of the Moon is dead on. Ebert even claims that astronauts coming back from space said that it was like 2001, though I don’t know whether that’s true.
2001 is a feast for the eyes, the ears, the intellect, and the imagination. Watch it again when you can devote your undivided attention to it. If there are no characters on-screen, don’t sit there waiting for something to happen; just appreciate the beauty of what you are looking at. You are capable of figuring out the plot, such as there is, of this film without anyone telling you what it is.
Hm, let’s look at the AFI 100. Say, everything on the 1998 or 2007 lists made after 1967.
R (30 ratings)
The Godfather
Raging Bull
Schindler’s List
Chinatown
Apocalypse Now
The Godfather Part II
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Bonnie and Clyde
Midnight Cowboy
Taxi Driver
The Deer Hunter
MASH
Nashville
Network
Unforgiven
A Clockwork Orange
Saving Private Ryan
The Shawshank Redemption
The Silence of the Lambs
The Wild Bunch
Easy Rider
Platoon
Sophie’s Choice
Goodfellas
The French Connection
Pulp Fiction
The Last Picture Show
Do the Right Thing
Blade Runner
Fargo
PG-13 (5 ratings)
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Forrest Gump
Titanic
The Sixth Sense
Dances with Wolves
PG (15 ratings)
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
The Graduate
E.T. The Extra Terrestrial
Annie Hall
Jaws
Rocky
American Graffiti
Cabaret
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Tootsie (Appealed from R)
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
All the President’s Men (Appealed from R)
Amadeus
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Patton
G (2 ratings)
2001: A Space Odyssey
Toy Story
The R-rated list is obviously the best in terms of quality and quantity, but one could say, at least, that since the end of the Production Code, almost half of the films that have had a lasting impact on American culture have had a rating of PG-13 or lower. Considering that about half of the films on the list were made under (or before) the Production Code, it would seem that the films of the classic studio era are felt to stand up to films made with artistic freedom.
Looking over the Sight and Sound critics’ and directors’ polls, The Godfather and Raging Bull look like the only movies that are rated R, or would be rated R.
I’d like to see the Beatles in Goodfellas. “Funny how?”
Or Star Wars. Paul as Luke Skywalker, George as Obi-Wan, John as Han Solo, and Ringo as C3-PO. Yoko Ono as Princess Leia.
Or how about this: John hasn’t written a hit in months. To get away from distractions, he takes a job as winter caretaker at the Overlook Hotel. The whole group goes with him, happy to have the whole building to play in for five months…
“When I heard about this story, even before meeting and studying with Dr. Suber, I was getting my M.A. at NYU Film School and we were trying to come up with a group film project for a Practicum class. Hence was born Citizen Kael, a 16mm. spoof movie loosely based on Kane that told the story of how Pauline Kael had duped a naive and trusting professor. For instance, Kael’s dying word is “Suber” and a check burns in a fireplace at the end.”
Please tell me that the print has survived and will be scanned for YouTube shortly.
In 1926, Chaplin directed a film called A Woman of Paris, but decided that it was not commercially viable. The negative was destroyed in 1933 for tax purposes, and Chaplin’s widow burned the last remaining print in 1991.
Mexican revolutionary general Pancho Villa got a $25,000 advance and 50% of net revenue to let Mutual film his real battles for the 1914 film The Life of General Villa, starring Villa as himself. He had to attack in broad daylight so they could shoot on location, and if they didn’t get the shots they wanted, his men had to reenact the battle later.
The advent of home video has been disastrous. Repertory screenings have become almost nonexistent to those of us who do not live in a major metropolis, where niche audiences are large audiences.
Individual expression is essential to cinema, but it is founded on profit and loss just like any other industry. Cameras, film, (or digital cinematography cameras), sound equipment for double system shooting, lighting equipment, sets or locations, music production or licensing, optical printing, and lab costs, as well as a cast and crew, are hugely expensive, and if no one is willing to bear those expenses, then all of those resources are better used for something else.
If greed has killed cinema, how would you propose to revive it? Should we outlaw greed? Should we, through taxes, take money away from things its possessors want to buy and spend it on things that we want to buy?
Don’t you find that to be immoral? More so than selling those people a film they really want to see, out of “greed?”
I don’t see why people are uncomfortable with things being done for money, or valued in terms of money. Anything you can get a stranger to do for you is about money, and it is all you will get for the most damaging experiences of your life. If you want to keep cinema alive, make so much money that you can blow a fortune on all the artsy-fartsy “films” you want, purely out of a sense of philanthropy.
But I think there is a deeper question here: why don’t audiences want to see the films that we all agree are the best?
Cognitive research shows that our viewing skills improve over time as we view a wider and more challenging range of films. People used to seeing Transformers movies might not have developed an appreciation of art films. That doesn’t mean that they can’t, and it is not their fault. Programmers and distributors make assumptions about the intelligence of viewers, and write off The White Ribbon as too challenging for most people. We can’t honestly say that consumers choose Avatar over The White Ribbon, because most consumers never have that choice. Unless they are shown in the same theatre, we can never say which is truly the more commercial movie.
The fact is that great films get week-long runs west of the San Andreas Fault and east of the Hudson River while terrible movies play for months everywhere in the country. I’m not saying that Profit Motive and the Whispering Wind would turn out to be a blockbuster if it ever played in chain multiplexes, but many more films would find a receptive audience if the public had a greater variety of films available to watch. Instead, programmers assume that consumers have low-brow tastes and feed them only low-brow films.
The Sight & Sound poll is the only “best films” list that you should take seriously: http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/topten/
I also like the longer list at theyshootpictures.com.
If you are interested only in American movies, you can do worse than this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AFI’s_100_Years…100_Movies_(10th_Anniversary_Edition)
Jonathan Rosenbaum’s alternative list of the best American movies has some more interesting choices: http://www.chicagoreader.com/movies/100best.html
Ok, admit you dozed off or slept while watching.... over 2 years ago
Decalogue: One. It was a routine viewing at a friend’s house; I tried to get into it, then slept until the credits were rolling. I have not had the will or opportunity to take on the series since. Three Colors: White was much better.
I slept through part of My Bloody Valentine 3D and most of Coraline during a 24-hour movie marathon at a friend’s house.
I went to a screening of Godard’s Made in USA in Philadelphia. I could not tell whether I had fallen asleep, because it was so like a dream.
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Favourite Music Moments in Movies over 2 years ago
“Big Pimpin’” by Jay-Z during the helicopter attack scene in Apocalypse Now Redux. That blows me away every time.
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Favourite Music Moments in Movies over 2 years ago
dp
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Criterion B&N November 2009 Sale now Live! over 2 years ago
Aw, the sale ended a day earlier than I thought it would. :-(
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Projects that never materialized over 2 years ago
Martin Scorsese has a lot of projects which are not certain to happen. Silence, Sinatra, the Dean Martin biopic.
I want to see Napoleon, even if it meant Kubrick would never make A Clockwork Orange or Barry Lyndon.
David Lean was about to start shooting an adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s Nostromo when he died.
Bernardo Bertolucci, David Lynch, Terrence Malick, Woody Allen, David Cronenberg and Pedro Almodóvar have all attempted to direct D. M. Thomas’s The White Hotel, with stars such as Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman, Kate Winslet, Ralph Fiennes and Anne Hathaway attached.
Go to Comment
What Movie would you like to see the beatles in? over 2 years ago
Paul and George in Easy Rider, with John as the hitchhiker and Ringo as George Hansen.
Weekend at Bernie’s III: when their friend Paul dies in an inadvertent car crash, John, George, and Ringo attempt to convince people that he is still alive with hilarious consequences!
Saving Private Ringo?
Cool Runnings.
Go to Comment
2001: A Space Odyssey...Outdated? over 2 years ago
As you can tell, I love 2001: A Space Odyssey. Kubrick was not a little director, hobbled by the need to explain to the audience what is happening through narrative and dialogue. He was a great director, one who understood that film is a medium for images and sound. Kubrick is one of the greatest directors who have ever lived, and in my opinion, 2001 is his finest work; maybe the finest by anybody.
It is not like other films. It is not like other science fiction films. The moments of dramatic tension between protagonists (Moonwatcher, Bowman) and antagonists (the opposing australopiths, HAL) are brief and not the core of the work. The spare dialogue conveys much less of the narrative than the images do, and the narrative itself is astounding; it spans the entire history of modern man.
2001: A Space Odyssey works on every level. Visual, auditory, narrative, philosophical. Its themes of man’s evolution, man’s relationship to his creator, and man’s relationship to his creations are as thought-provoking now as they were when the film was made. How is the film informed by Nietzsche’s concept of the Übermensch, and incidentally, is this related to the choice of Also Sprach Zarathustra for the soundtrack? Can a machine ever truly attain consciousness, or can it only be programmed to emulate it? What does it truly mean to be human? Can there be tools without weapons?
Likewise, the visual effects remain impressive, especially when you appreciate the work that was done to achieve them. There was no CGI in 01968. I still wonder how some of the effects were done; the people walking around upside down in the windows, for example.
I don’t even think Kubrick’s vision of the future is dated. The future may not have come exactly as he saw it, but Kubrick at least presents a plausible alternative future. And in some ways, the future did come as Kubrick saw it. Those monitors aren’t CRTs. I’ve placed video calls myself. A deleted scene has Floyd shopping online. Kubrick’s depiction of the surface of the Moon is dead on. Ebert even claims that astronauts coming back from space said that it was like 2001, though I don’t know whether that’s true.
2001 is a feast for the eyes, the ears, the intellect, and the imagination. Watch it again when you can devote your undivided attention to it. If there are no characters on-screen, don’t sit there waiting for something to happen; just appreciate the beauty of what you are looking at. You are capable of figuring out the plot, such as there is, of this film without anyone telling you what it is.
Go to Comment
movie running times too long over 2 years ago
“If I have to go pee, the picture stinks.” – Jack Warner
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Is Nonesuch Records the Criterion of CDs? over 2 years ago
No. The Criterion of CDs is Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs.
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Why are 98% of good films rated R? over 2 years ago
Hm, let’s look at the AFI 100. Say, everything on the 1998 or 2007 lists made after 1967.
R (30 ratings)
The Godfather
Raging Bull
Schindler’s List
Chinatown
Apocalypse Now
The Godfather Part II
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Bonnie and Clyde
Midnight Cowboy
Taxi Driver
The Deer Hunter
MASH
Nashville
Network
Unforgiven
A Clockwork Orange
Saving Private Ryan
The Shawshank Redemption
The Silence of the Lambs
The Wild Bunch
Easy Rider
Platoon
Sophie’s Choice
Goodfellas
The French Connection
Pulp Fiction
The Last Picture Show
Do the Right Thing
Blade Runner
Fargo
PG-13 (5 ratings)
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Forrest Gump
Titanic
The Sixth Sense
Dances with Wolves
PG (15 ratings)
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
The Graduate
E.T. The Extra Terrestrial
Annie Hall
Jaws
Rocky
American Graffiti
Cabaret
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Tootsie (Appealed from R)
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
All the President’s Men (Appealed from R)
Amadeus
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Patton
G (2 ratings)
2001: A Space Odyssey
Toy Story
The R-rated list is obviously the best in terms of quality and quantity, but one could say, at least, that since the end of the Production Code, almost half of the films that have had a lasting impact on American culture have had a rating of PG-13 or lower. Considering that about half of the films on the list were made under (or before) the Production Code, it would seem that the films of the classic studio era are felt to stand up to films made with artistic freedom.
Looking over the Sight and Sound critics’ and directors’ polls, The Godfather and Raging Bull look like the only movies that are rated R, or would be rated R.
Go to Comment
Grammy Nominations- What the Fvck? over 2 years ago
“Have the Grammys lost touch?” Are you surprised? I always thought the Grammys have the least credibility of any major awards show.
“Wow, an award statue! Oh, it’s just a Grammy.”
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What Movie would you like to see the beatles in? over 2 years ago
I’d like to see the Beatles in Goodfellas. “Funny how?”
Or Star Wars. Paul as Luke Skywalker, George as Obi-Wan, John as Han Solo, and Ringo as C3-PO. Yoko Ono as Princess Leia.
Or how about this: John hasn’t written a hit in months. To get away from distractions, he takes a job as winter caretaker at the Overlook Hotel. The whole group goes with him, happy to have the whole building to play in for five months…
Go to Comment
What's so great about Pauline Kael? over 2 years ago
“When I heard about this story, even before meeting and studying with Dr. Suber, I was getting my M.A. at NYU Film School and we were trying to come up with a group film project for a Practicum class. Hence was born Citizen Kael, a 16mm. spoof movie loosely based on Kane that told the story of how Pauline Kael had duped a naive and trusting professor. For instance, Kael’s dying word is “Suber” and a check burns in a fireplace at the end.”
Please tell me that the print has survived and will be scanned for YouTube shortly.
Go to Comment
What's so great about Pauline Kael? over 2 years ago
I’m thrilled. I’m also going to switch to my real name now to avoid confusion with HAL 9000.
Go to Comment
Lost Movies over 2 years ago
In 1926, Chaplin directed a film called A Woman of Paris, but decided that it was not commercially viable. The negative was destroyed in 1933 for tax purposes, and Chaplin’s widow burned the last remaining print in 1991.
Mexican revolutionary general Pancho Villa got a $25,000 advance and 50% of net revenue to let Mutual film his real battles for the 1914 film The Life of General Villa, starring Villa as himself. He had to attack in broad daylight so they could shoot on location, and if they didn’t get the shots they wanted, his men had to reenact the battle later.
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Lost Movies over 2 years ago
Sorry, I meant A Woman of the Sea.
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christmas movies over 2 years ago
My Night at Maud’s.
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Scariest movie ever made over 2 years ago
L’Arrivée d’un train à La Ciotat. Truly terrifying.
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At what age or what stage of your life have you really started getting into film? over 2 years ago
The Baader-Meinhof Group? :-o
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What is this obsession with Criterion? over 2 years ago
Don’t forget the booklet. You’ve got to have the booklet.
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The impact of the DVD format over 2 years ago
The advent of home video has been disastrous. Repertory screenings have become almost nonexistent to those of us who do not live in a major metropolis, where niche audiences are large audiences.
Go to Comment
What Criterions have you seen before Criterion released them? over 2 years ago
Spartacus, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Hunger, and Made in U.S.A.
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If You Could Have a Criterion Title Tattooed on Your Penis, Which Would It Be and Why? over 2 years ago
Bigger Than Life is finally on Criterion? :-o
(Burns Region 2 copy)
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greed for money killed cinema (and art in all its forms): yay or nay? over 2 years ago
Individual expression is essential to cinema, but it is founded on profit and loss just like any other industry. Cameras, film, (or digital cinematography cameras), sound equipment for double system shooting, lighting equipment, sets or locations, music production or licensing, optical printing, and lab costs, as well as a cast and crew, are hugely expensive, and if no one is willing to bear those expenses, then all of those resources are better used for something else.
If greed has killed cinema, how would you propose to revive it? Should we outlaw greed? Should we, through taxes, take money away from things its possessors want to buy and spend it on things that we want to buy?
Don’t you find that to be immoral? More so than selling those people a film they really want to see, out of “greed?”
I don’t see why people are uncomfortable with things being done for money, or valued in terms of money. Anything you can get a stranger to do for you is about money, and it is all you will get for the most damaging experiences of your life. If you want to keep cinema alive, make so much money that you can blow a fortune on all the artsy-fartsy “films” you want, purely out of a sense of philanthropy.
But I think there is a deeper question here: why don’t audiences want to see the films that we all agree are the best?
Cognitive research shows that our viewing skills improve over time as we view a wider and more challenging range of films. People used to seeing Transformers movies might not have developed an appreciation of art films. That doesn’t mean that they can’t, and it is not their fault. Programmers and distributors make assumptions about the intelligence of viewers, and write off The White Ribbon as too challenging for most people. We can’t honestly say that consumers choose Avatar over The White Ribbon, because most consumers never have that choice. Unless they are shown in the same theatre, we can never say which is truly the more commercial movie.
The fact is that great films get week-long runs west of the San Andreas Fault and east of the Hudson River while terrible movies play for months everywhere in the country. I’m not saying that Profit Motive and the Whispering Wind would turn out to be a blockbuster if it ever played in chain multiplexes, but many more films would find a receptive audience if the public had a greater variety of films available to watch. Instead, programmers assume that consumers have low-brow tastes and feed them only low-brow films.
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Artsy-Fartsy over 2 years ago
I can’t help but think that this is because of me.
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Your birthday director(s) over 2 years ago
October 10, Ed Wood. Oh lucky me.
Banana Nut, Ethan Coen is only half a director.
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If You Could Have a Criterion Title Tattooed on Your Penis, Which Would It Be and Why? over 2 years ago
“If you could”? Well, the good news is that you can, and if anybody actually tattoos a Criterion title on his penis, I’ll eat my hat.
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If You Could Have a Criterion Title Tattooed on Your Penis, Which Would It Be and Why? over 2 years ago
“If you could”? Well, the good news is that you can, and if anybody actually tattoos a Criterion title on his penis, I’ll eat my hat.
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Michael Bay Movies On Criterion? over 2 years ago
Kubrick and Scorsese each have an in-print Criterion title: Spartacus and The Last Temptation of Christ, respectively.
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I'm a newbie to this site and was wondering how reliable in people's opinions is the list that orders films in accordance with popularity over 2 years ago
The Sight & Sound poll is the only “best films” list that you should take seriously: http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/topten/
I also like the longer list at theyshootpictures.com.
If you are interested only in American movies, you can do worse than this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AFI’s_100_Years…100_Movies_(10th_Anniversary_Edition)
Jonathan Rosenbaum’s alternative list of the best American movies has some more interesting choices: http://www.chicagoreader.com/movies/100best.html
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