Stanley Kubrick never made a Best Picture winner and never won the award for Best Director. In his 50-year career he was honoured by the Academy of Motion Picture Sciences only once; in 1968 he won the Special Effects award for 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kinn 175). Generally considered the greatest example of classic film effects 2001: A Space Odyssey is also considered one of the greatest science-fiction films of all time. Following the campy films of the 1950s Kubrick created an adult science-fiction film that was as carefully crafted as any of the mature films of other genres. By doing this he caused a major reversal in Hollywood, where the craft and artistry associated with science fiction was elevated to equal any other genre. This achievement, and Kubrick’s influence on future filmmakers, marks 2001: A Space Odyssey as a turning point in science-fiction filmmaking.
At the time Kubrick set out to make the proverbial “‘good’ science-fiction film” (Clarke vii), the USSR was the leader in space technology and the recently-created National Aeronautics and Space Administration was still buried in the early stages experimentation. Kubrick and his pre-production team spent months working with engineers and scientists to design the technology of space to appear logical. The first scene set in space following the Dawn of Man segment, which is centered around a ship docking with a space station, is prototypical of what Kubrick would do in the rest of the film. The station itself is made of two parallel rings rotating around the center of the station to create centrifugal force, which is comparable to artificial gravity. Before 2001 the issue of gravity in space was never addressed. It was a matter of convenience for there to be gravity and it was not considered important by filmmakers at the time. This is the first example in the film of Kubrick considering what had been dismissed previously, which is at the core of how he affected the science-fiction genre.
Kubrick’s use of rotation to create artificial gravity continues throughout the film. A stewardess on the shuttle to the moon walks up a curving wall to reach the cockpit, Dave Bowman is introduced running laps around the central ring of the Discovery ship, and when Bowman and Poole prepare for a space walk they travel between sections of the ship turning in opposite directions. In order to achieve some of these shots, Kubrick, his crew and the actors were required to follow mathematical precision in their movements to co-ordinate the positions of set pieces to allow the actors to appear to walk normally. The set pieces were extremely large, mechanical stages, which were unheard of before 2001. Years later, however, films like The Hunt For Red October (1990), Mission to Mars (2000), and The Perfect Storm (2000) followed Kubrick’s method and were filmed on mechanical sets, which were only possible because of the earlier work of 2001.
The space sequences, such as the Blue Danube Waltz or the landing at the Moon base, were equally mechanical operations, but on a smaller scale. Model spacecraft were built and manipulated through slow tracking shots. Unlike those used in The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951), the models of 2001 are manipulated in slow, careful ways to simulate their colossal size. George Lucas called 2001 “a visual film” (Standing on…), meaning it showed its story through images rather than told it through dialogue. The long, dialogue-free space sequences are the clearest examples of where Kubrick defined 2001 on a level of motion rather than description. The mechanical sets he used were key to that achievement.
The models photographed in these mechanical sets were carefully designed to appear realistic. Filmmaker Dennis Muren said they would “get model kits and put little wibbly things on it – it didn’t matter what it was, … and your mind [would] say ‘Hey, that’s something – I don’t know what it is, but it must be functional.” (Standing on…). The idea of creating details that are not understood but are accepted as realities within the science-fiction story was another innovation of 2001. The mechanical elements seen within the film are mostly unexplained, but the appearance of functionality adds to the realism. This is key to what was different about the films before 2001. The alien ships in The Day The Earth Stood Still or The War of the Worlds (1953) were based on the Roswell, New Mexico alien myth where “someone said they saw something that looked like a saucer.” (Muren, Standing on…). After 2001 created purpose behind the design of technology, the standard was raised. Star Wars (1977), Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), Alien (1979), and Wall-E (2008) are all science-fiction films that involved massive pre-production planning for the design of space technology. The most important change between pre- and post-2001 filmmaking is the pre-production design. When science fiction became a possibility for mature themes, the audiences demanded a more adult standard of craft. After Kubrick created a mature story in a mature way, later films like Solaris (1972), Blade Runner (1982) and Contact (1997) required equally high standards of design to match their adult themes.
At the heart of 2001’s story is the mystery of space. The indecipherable ending of 2001 acts as “a bow to the unknowable” (Harlan, Standing on…), which has caused endless debate. The Beyond the Infinite sequence is the most recognizable part of the film’s finale where Dave Bowman is sent hurtling through an ever-changing tunnel of light. Douglas Trumbull adapted slit-scan photography, a complex and time-consuming process, for 2001’s “Star-Gate” sequence (2001: The Making of a Myth). This same technology would be adapted for Star Trek: The Next Generation to create the warp-drive image used in the opening of every episode. It was also used in Star Trek: The Motion Picture for a similar “Star Gate” sequence, which was meant to echo that of 2001. Following the slit-scan shots are various nebula-like objects. These were created with chemicals and coloured paints photographed in water. Steven Spielberg used this “cloud tank” technology for his film Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) to create storm clouds that announce the arrival of alien spacecraft (Making of…). Although most of the technology used by Kubrick in 2001 was made obsolete in the 1980s special effects revolution, the pioneering high standard of the final product influenced many Hollywood film and television directors.
Working alongside Kubrick’s unique camera techniques was his use of sound and music. The classical soundtrack that Kubrick chose over Alex North’s original composition included Johann Strauss II’s waltz “An der schönen blauen Donau” (On The Beautiful Blue Danube) and Richard Strauss’s “Also sprach Zarathustra” (Thus Spoke Zarathustra). The “Blue Danube” theme guided the editing of the first space sequence to allude to the ballet-like nature of space travel and the camera movements that Kubrick used. The constant rotation and graceful movements timed to music are easily recognized in parodies of 2001, but the movements also appear in the science fiction films that followed. In Wall-E (2008) the same style of movement is combined during a space journey with an uplifting orchestra to create a sense of wonder. Brian de Palma’s Mission To Mars (2000) and Peter Hyam’s sequel to 2001, 2010: The Year We Make Contact (1987), both use the constantly revolving motion and a darker style of music to incite a feeling of unease. The power of music was important to Kubrick, who said, “A film is - or should be - more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what's behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later.” (Thinkexist.com).
Most films today are very busy with sound, there’s dialogue constantly, there’s music that’s very dense with a big orchestra. 2001 is really at the opposite end of that kind of style where you have one sound at a time. (Burtt, Standing on…)
The way that Kubrick used sound effects in 2001 was as careful as the way he used music, colour, or camera movement. In the scene where HAL disconnects Frank Poole’s lifeline and abandons him to space the sound effects are not layered, as they would be in most films. Instead the sound effects come, as Ben Burtt says, “one sound at a time.” The effect of this is to build the rhythm of Poole’s breathing over a long stretch of time so that the audience forgets it is there, then create suspense by adding the hiss of the pod’s jets as it turns on Poole, and finally cut the breath of the audience by cutting the sound of Poole’s breathing at the moment of attack. Throughout the film Kubrick uses this technique of choosing to not use sound to great effect. When Bowman is locked out of the Discovery he must go through the emergency hatch and enter the airlock without a helmet. The sound effects built to a climax that never comes. Following the silence after HAL stops talking to Bowman, there are alarm bells and alert sounds as Bowman prepares the pod to release the emergency hatch. The alarms build and then the hatch blows. Bowman’s violent entry to the airlock is completely silent, which denies the expectation that the alarm bells created. This scene is another example of Kubrick following science rather than filmmaking convention. Because the vacuum of space has no air for sound waves to travel on, there would be no sound to hear. When Bowman closes the door and refills the room with oxygen the sound returns. This basic premise of no sound in space was one that did not break Hollywood’s habit. In Star Wars (1977) George Lucas and sound designer Ben Burtt include explosions and laser fire to create an exciting action film, and in most space-based films there are still sound effects in space – it is one of the few scientific flaws addressed by 2001 that still remain in common use. Exceptions that follow Kubrick do exist, however, in the form of Joss Whedon’s television series Firefly (2002) and the film adaptation Serenity (2005), where the sound of the ship’s engines are not heard until the ship enters the atmosphere of a planet.
Works Cited
2001: A Space Odyssey. Dir. Stanley Kubrick. 1968. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2001
2001: The Making of a Myth. Dir. Paul Joyce. Narrated by James Cameron. Channel Four, 2001.
Hill, Rob. 501 Must-See Movies [Science Fiction & Fantasy]. UK: Bounty Books, 2004
Kinn, Gail and Jim Piazza. The Academy Awards: The Complete Unofficial History. New York: Barnes & Noble, Inc., 2002
Making of 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind'. Dir. Laurent Bouzereau. DVD. Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment, 2001.
Standing on the Shoulders of Kubrick: The Legacy of 2001. Dir. Gary Leva. Interviewed: Ben Burtt, John Dykstra, Roger Ebert, Jan Harlan, Peter Hyams, George Lucas, Dennis Muren, Sydney Pollack, Steven Spielberg. Blu-Ray. Warner Brothers, 2007.
Thinkexist.com
http://thinkexist.com/quotation/a_film_is-or_should_be-more_like_music_than_like/218935.html. March 26, 2009.
