further musings on 2001: A Space Odyssey

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I did a search first, of course :)
Interesting. I'm a big fan, so was a little surprised/disappointed to find the for-against ratio to be close to or less than 50/50; maybe it was unrealistic to think there would be a general consensus in the 'for' direction. While I appreciate that the pace is slow compare to most science-fiction movies, my mind is always so busy turning things over as I watch that it doesn't drag at all.
The slowness, in fact, coupled with the occasional repitive sound patterns such as the breathing or the beeping of the equipment induces a near-hypnotic state--even without drugs*--that allows you to stay 'plugged in' visually to the image while your mind performs variations on the themes of the film. In that respect, you might say the visual style is similar in principal to minimalist music such as Philip Glass (of whom I'm also a fan, and also very much in the minority I suspect! :(
Also, although attempting such a thing in the first place will inevitably be seen as pretentious by a segment of the population, it dares to present a cosmological world-view (or one at least one highly descriptive facet/episode of it) that is original and believable.
Finally, it is very very beatiful to watch and listen to, to my taste.
*disclaimer: when I watch this, often there is grass involved--looks like confessing to drug of choice was also predominant in the archives, so what the hell :)
I also note that my 'Stanley Kubrick Collection' DVD is 148 minutes, not the 165 minutes I've read about so I guess this round of releases is the wide release version (it's the same disc as in the boxed set, by the way, though some have reported image differences; they both claim to use 'elements' from the original source (a necessity I guess when transfering a cinerama format to video) so perhaps the color is just hotter on the boxed set version). This, of course, will allow for a 'director's cut' version sometime down the road... we all know the drill.

djprobed

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Parts Connexion

Topic - further musings on 2001: A Space Odyssey - djprobed 15:47:23 01/13/03 (6)

Cinemascope ... - apercu 11:04:32 01/19/03 (0)

For those too young to have seen it in 1968...... - danj 19:32:33 01/16/03 (2)

Re: For those too young to have seen it in 1968...... - joe2cooled 21:37:41 01/21/03 (0)

a space odyssey - njjohn 05:57:47 01/18/03 (0)

Re: further musings on 2001: A Space Odyssey - joe2coold@icqmail.com 19:42:55 01/13/03 (1)

How to pick a rental movie (OT) - YRY 20:47:09 01/13/03 (0)

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