The Powerful, Clashing Visions of KUBRICK’s and KIRBY’s ‘2001’
A birthday tribute to Stanley Kubrick… — UPDATED 7/26/21: The late Stanley Kubrick was born 93 years ago. Perfect time to re-present this piece from Jack Kirby’s centennial celebration in 2017. Dig it. — Dan — Rob Kelly’s REEL RETRO CINEMA offers new looks at old flicks — and their comic-book adaptations. Here, he takes on 2001: A Space Odyssey as part of our 13 DAYS OF KIRBY 100 celebration of the King’s centennial. For other REEL RETRO CINEMA columns, click here. or the complete 13 DAYS OF KIRBY 100 Index of stories and features, including essays by the likes of Alex Ross, John Byrne, Marie Severin, Kelley Jones and many others, click here. By ROB KELLY In 1968, Stanley Kubrick decided to slow things down. As a new wave of directors and writers descended on Hollywood in the late 1960s, movies got faster and faster. Just a year earlier, Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde ushered in a new level of hyped-up screen violence, and the film became a massive, groundbreaking hit. But Stanley Kubrick was never one for rushing. It had been a full four years since his last film, Dr. Strangelove, and when he returned to movie theaters it was with a film of breathtaking visuals and challenging ideas. Loosely based on a short story of Arthur C. Clarke’s called The Sentinel, 2001: A Space Odyssey would open in our prehistoric past, focusing on a small tribe of hominids as they struggle to survive. Featuring no music and no dialogue, Kubrick was testing audiences’ patience and forcing them to accept the rhythms from the distant past he was trying to replicate. Eventually, however, something strange happens: A solid black monolith appears, which seems to guide the hominids into learning how to use bones as a weapon. One of them, in an orgiastic display of enlightenment, tosses a bone into the sky. We then make a flash cut to a space station orbiting Earth, a time jump of several hundred million years. In its slow, methodical way, 2001 reveals its story. Another monolith, similar to the one that appeared in our prehistoric past, has been discovered on the moon. When a team of astronauts investigates, it emits a powerful high-pitched signal. We then jump another 18 months ahead, and two astronauts, Drs. David Bowman (Keir Dullea) and Frank...
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