In a speech at the 2007 Venice Film Festival at special screening of his seminal noir thriller Blade Runner, Sir Ridley Scott, the legendary director of Alien, announced that he believes that science-fiction as a genre is dead -gone the way of Westerns.
Scott believes that although the flashy special effects of block-busters such as The Matrix, Independence Day and The War of the Worlds, may sell at the box office, that none can beat Stanley Kubrick's haunting 1968 epic 2001: A Space Odyssey. The film is as fresh and perhaps more relevant today as the day it premiered.
"There's nothing original. We've seen it all before. Been there. Done
it," Scott said. Asked to pick out examples, he said: "All of them.
Yes, all of them."
Made at the height of the "space race" between the United States and
the USSR, 2001 predicted a world of malevolent computers and routine space
travel. Kubrick had such a fastidious eye for
detail, he employed Nasa experts in designing the spacecraft.
Sir Ridley said that 2001 was "the best of the best", in use of
lighting, special effects and atmosphere, adding that every sci-fi film
since had imitated or referred to it. "There is an over reliance on
special effects as well as weak storylines," he said of modern sci-fi
films.
More
than anything, 2001 and its journey from the
origins of life in prehistoric Africa in 4 million BC to Jupiter, where a new creature, the HAL 9000 computer inhabits the dark void of space. The film is Kubrick’s philosophical statement about
humanity’s
place in the universe, about where we as humans rate in the pecking
order of life — “feral, intelligent and hyper-intelligent.”
The
famous Monoliths at the opening of the film and the Star Child at the
end indicates that entities have
reached a higher level of consciousness. Despite the fact that humanity
remains more or less earthbound, Kubrick — through
his strange, infuriating and by turns terrifying movie points
towards our future: to our destiny beyond the Solar System.
The film’s primary themes include the origins of evolution;
sentient computers; extra-terrestrial beings; the search for one’s
place in the universe; and re-birth all seen within a cold, foreboding
light. Viewers often read the monoliths as signposts of our
discovery of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. Shortly after
the film’s release, however, Kubrick told a New York Times reporter
that it’s more a matter of the other beings discovering us.
Steven Spielberg called 2001 A Space Odyssey (1968) his
generation’s “big bang,” focusing
its attention upon the Russo-American space race -a prelude to orbiting
and landing on the Moon with Apollo 11 on July 20, 1969. And it
prophetically showed the enduring influence that computers would have
in our daily lives.
The special effects
techniques Kubrick pioneered were further developed by Ridley Scott and
George Lucas for films such as Alien and Star Wars. 2001 is
particularly notable as one of the few films realistically presenting
travel in outer space, with scenes in outer space completely silent;
weightlessness is constant, with characters are strapped in place; when
characters wear pressure suits, only their breathing is audible.
Stanley Kubrick -director of Dr Strangelove, Lolita, and Clockwork
Orange- spent five years developing 2001, collaborating with SF legend
Arthur C. Clarke on the script,
expanding on Clarke’s short story “The Sentinel”. The screenplay and
the novel were written simultaneously. The novel and the film deviate
substantially from each other, with the novel explaining a great deal
of what the film leaves deliberately ambiguous.
The film is notable for its use of classical music, such as Richard
Strauss’s Also Sprach Zarathustra and Johann Strauss’s The Blue Danube
waltz, as well the music of contemporary, avant-garde
Hungarian composer, György Ligeti (though this was done without
Ligeti’s consent). Atmospheres, Lux Aeterna, and
Requiem on the 2001 soundtrack was the first wide commercial exposure
of Ligeti’s work.
The
moon docking sequence, which preceded the actual moon landing by a
year, looks remarkably accurate. It’s no wonder so many people believe the Apollo
11 landing was filmed on a Hollywood sound stage — Kubrick had already
done it, and he made it look easy.
One
of the more crucial
elements of 2001 is the lack of sound that dominates the film, which
is true to that there would be no sound in space (no atmosphere
means no medium for sound transmission).
The real drama begins when HAL, one of
cinema’s all-time evil and terrifying characters, makes his appearance.
The HAL 9000: a malevolent, homicidal, and sightly effete (he sings
“Daisy”)) intelligent computer that controls the operations
of the spaceship Discovery, which is on its way to Jupiter with a team
of astronauts to explore the monoliths’ origins.
In the movie’s climatic sequence,
Discovery crewmen David Bowman and Frank Poole attempt to disable the computer after
the stability of his programming becomes suspect. Omnipotent in their
microcosmic on-board setting, HAL doesn’t take kindly to this
suggestion. Bowman and Poole hole themselves up in space pod to engage
in what they think is a private conversation. HAL, however, watches,
reading their lips. Not good…
Sir Ridley is one of Britain's most acclaimed film-makers. His
extraordinary number of box-office hits include Alien – another sci-fi
classic, best remembered for the scene of an infant creature bursting
through John Hurt's chest – as well as Thelma & Louise, Gladiator
and Black Hawk Down.
But it is for Blade Runner that sci-fi fans revere him most.
Ridley’s vision, writes Cinematical writer Kevin Kelly, turned
Philip K.
Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? “into a look at a dystopian future
that still influences the look and feel of science fiction films to
this day.”
Scott began his feature film directing career with The Duellists,
a small but dazzling masterpiece, which brought him the Grand Jury
Prize at the 1978 Cannes Film Festival. His second film was the
breakthrough hit Alien, which won an Academy Award for Special Effects. This was followed by Blade Runner, now considered one of the landmark science fiction films of all time. In 2003, Scott was knighted by the Queen of England.
Posted by Casey Kazan.
Related Galaxy posts:
For the rest of the 2001 plot action, don’t miss this video:
Kubrick 2001 The Space Odyssey Explained -Video
Related posts:
“Andromeda Strain 2″ - Is a Pandemic from Space Possible?
Future Present -Science Fiction as Prelude
James Cameron & Arthur C Clarke on Space Odyssey 2001 -A Video
“42″: Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Foreshadows Actual Weight of Universe!
“On Two Planets” & “War of the Worlds” -The Origins of Science Fiction
Sunshine -Heir to Space Odyssey 2001
Orson Wells & his 1938 Mercury Theater Broadcast of H.G. Wells “War of the Worlds”
http://www.cinematical.com/2007/07/31/comic-con-ridley-scott-talks-to-us-about-blade-runner/
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/film/article2351086.ece
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