sjnapse: 2001 A Space Odyssey, step by step

I love this movie. I love this movie so much I lost count of how many times I've seen it. It became beyond any doubt my favorite movie, and for me, the ultimate argument against the "It was good for its time" appreciation of movies. Greatness in films isn't about the technology, limitations or just trends of the specific year it was made in. It's about intelligence, proper planning, ambition. But that's not what I logged in (after a long time) to talk about.

The truth is I love this movie so much I could never write a proper review. I can't, there's too much I want to write about. I could go through the whole movie scene by scene and write something every ten seconds. That's how great I think this movie is.

I've been watching it again today and I'll only cover 3 or 4 moments from the beginning in this post. This sort of review assumes you've seen the movie and will be able to place the screenshots in the right parts of the film in order to know what I'm talking about.

Now, I'm glad I mentioned the "good for its time" argument. Even though this movie is great whenever you watch it, it is a bit dated in a few details. This is not much about the movie in itself, but about how our collective mentality works. So back in 1968 when this movie was created, they had to imagine what the future would be like. We usually pretty much fail at this task, it's just a limitation we have grown to accept - the future is always going to surprise us. Take a look at the following image (click to enlarge):

This is right after the character Dr. Heywood Floyd arrives at what I believe to be a Lunar station (from where he will transfer to another one where he is expected) and needs to voice confirm his identity in a small booth to which he talks to. What you see in this picture is the woman behind the reception counter selecting the language in which the recorded message in the booth will be played to him.

So, yeah, one button for each language? That counter/keyboard can't really have that many functions or it will soon run out of space. Not to mention, the typical Star Trek mini skirt uniform all women seem to use in this "future".

It doesn't hurt the movie but it's at least fun to notice. It's not realistic (is it ever?) but it's an accurate prediction of what the future would look like, if the future happened suddenly in 1968.

On to the next scene I want to talk about - and this one really is an evidence of mastery.

Here Dr. Floyd talks to these people about whatever, not important. It's all shown in about 5 camera angles and the change from one to the next was very well thought out. It usually matches a pause in speech, the space between a sentence and the other, and it works particularly well when the speaker moves on to a different point in his speech. The scene was shown in what I would call a very safe and effective way. There's really no need to come up with crazy camera work, weird angles, reaction shots or crazy transitions.

It did make me think, though, on how it was made. It's easy to see that the scene was shot multiple times placing cameras where they should be, which is nothing but normal procedure. Upon watching the final edit, a director is very well aware of how all of it was made and is very likely to notice any continuity error. I composed these two screenshots together for that particular reason: they come one right after the other and, although you don't see it very well (click to enlarge, once more), in the upper shot, Dr. Floyd's got his hand in his pocket. If I were to bet, I'd say Kubrick probably noticed this. But honestly, I think he didn't care much. I like to think that takes maturity. It implies knowing that a good story, a solid and creative visual guideline, will make a movie great no matter how many continuity flaws it may have (unless it gets ridiculous).

I also like to point out the following scene to people:

If you've seen the movie you might remember that this kid actually acts like a kid. It's very natural the way she is embarrassed to talk to her dad on the phone, or maybe she was just embarrassed by the camera and crew, but it works. Not the usual artificial kid speaking like an adult thing. Just a note. If you've never seen the movie, pay attention to this part.

Finally. something I find funny: