2001: A Space Odyssey

Saw this on the last re-release some years back, at the Curzon Mayfair, The pre-credits sequence with the snippet of Ligeti and the Curzon's sixties style interior made me feel like I had jumped back in time, or maybe forward.

Actually just looked back at the timetable for that cinema locally . & it has had 2 showings a day on for the current week and one showing a day for next week. So somewhat more than a one off.
Is that happening elsewhere than the BFI too?

Well there's the British Film Institute - a lottery-funded body with an educational and preservationist remit - and the National Film Theatre in London, which is run by the BFI but shows films owned, distributed or revived by many different companies. The BFI mount a number of different seasons at the NFT over the course of a year, and generally most seasons will have a 'lead' film that then tours the whole of the UK. Any cinema can show a BFI-distributed film, for as long as they like; here in Glasgow, 2001 has had a week-long run at the GFT, the city's sole arthouse cinema, and a one day showing at the big Cineworld multiplex. I'm sure the BFI is keen to have films they distribute (and create new prints for) shown as widely as possible, but as they tend to specialise in arthouse fare, showings at more commercial cinemas are generally limited to a single showing, if that; for their Chinese cinema season earlier this year, the BFI created a new print of Spring in a Small Town, which I saw at the GFT, but which never made it to Cineworld.

I don't know the nature of the financial arrangement between the BFI, Warner Bros (who have the DVD/Blu-Ray rights to 2001) and the Kubrick estate with regard to this new print of 2001.

Saw this last night on a massive screen, with a pleasingly big and attentive audience. A modern - loud - cinema sound system brought it home to me just how much of a space opera this actually is; it's amazing that the music choices were all made after the fact, and after a score had been commissioned.

There was one weird jump cut in the middle of the scene with Leonard Rossiter, which felt like the most obvious place where Kubrick had taken out footage after his initial cut.

I thought the music was what was already being used as the scratch track, before any soundtrack work was considered.

Oh right - I know there was an Alex North score that Kubrick didn't use - but was the classical music in place at the time of filming (which would make sense given the choreography between music and image)?

From Wiki:

In the early stages of production, Kubrick had actually commissioned a score for 2001 from noted Hollywood composer Alex North, who had written the score for Spartacus and also worked on Dr. Strangelove.[11] However, during post-production, Kubrick chose to abandon North's music in favor of the now-familiar classical music pieces he had earlier chosen as "guide pieces" for the soundtrack. North did not know of the abandonment of the score until he saw the film's premiere screening.

In March 1966, MGM became concerned about 2001's progress and Kubrick put together a show reel of footage to the ad hoc soundtrack of classical recordings. The studio bosses were delighted with the results and Kubrick decided to use these "guide pieces" as the final musical soundtrack, and he abandoned North's score.

Kubrick chose to abandon North's music in favor of the now-familiar classical music pieces he had earlier chosen as "guide pieces" for the soundtrack.

Thanks - it's not entirely clear, but I take that to mean that the classical music choices were first applied to the film after filming had completed, but before North's score was ready. So it's not like Leone's Once Upon a Time in America, where the Morricone score was played to the actors during filming.

It's interesting to me how often 'master planner' Kubrick made decisive creative decisions like this, well after filming had completed (ie his tinkering with edits, or abandoning narration on 2001).

Yeah, I guess he commissioned the score at some point in production then went with the temp tracks during editing.

So watching this today has confirmed to me that Kubrick films are so much more enjoyable the second time round, and should always be viewed on a big screen. Same as the Shining screening I attended a couple of years ago. I was blown away.

A friend who saw it in Croydon said they played generic R n'B during the intermission, is this standard or just a Croydon thing?

It's a Croydon thing (we got Ligeti)

we got 3 minutes of A$AP Rocky during the blank screen at the beginning. The docking bay part was 'Sugar' by System of a Down. The psychedelic trip to Jupiter section was 'Jesus He Knows Me' by Genesis.

they were obv going for the 'zane lowe rescores' vibe.

don't go all pinkfloydplanetarium on us

more films should have intermissions. how much better would winter sleep or boyhood have been with a gap after the 1.5 hour mark?

people wd go to the lobby, start texting, never come back.

i like uninterrupted long films for as long as i can stand em. pretty sure the 2001 intermission is there cuz the film premiered ~20 minutes longer.

I thought it was there cos it was a pretty common feature of cinerama 'roadshow' movies, back in the day?

Intermissions are also probably poopooed know as offering viewers a chance to theatre hop in the multiplex.

Serious Question: What was the last major release to feature one?

When I saw "As Good As It Gets" in Mexico, there was an intermission.

Pretty wild. "Hoo boy, these Helen Hunt/Greg Kinnear performances are wearing me out… better take a walk to the lobby for a few minutes."

pretty much all bollywood movies have intermissions.
when lawrence of arabia was re-released recently, i know that had an intermission with the original music.
cant think of any others though. apart from maybe grindhouse/death proof (though not sure if that was an intermission or just a specially arranged double feature with the trailers etc, lot of fun either way)

Cremaster 3 had a short intermission, not sure if that counts as a "major release" though

or even a release

The roadshow version of Carlos had intermissions between episodes/segments, and was the last thing that wasn't a rep film I recall attending that did so.

did the original release have an intermission?

i know Barry Lyndon did:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=titZx8VA4DY

As was typical of most movies of that era released both as a "road-show" (in Cinerama format in the case of Space Odyssey) and subsequently put into general release (in seventy-millimetre in the case of Odyssey), the entrance music, intermission music (and intermission altogether), and postcredit exit music were cut from most (though not all) prints of the latter version, although these have been restored to most DVD releases.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001:_A_Space_Odyssey_(film)

They were still doing it when I saw Heat at the dominion in 95.

The Directors Cut of Nymphomaniac had an intermission. When I saw Norte there was an intermission, but that was a festival-showing, anyone who saw it in actual release?

Saw Norte at the Glasgow Film Festival and there was no intermission.

During the 2001 intermission, we actually had someone selling choc ices etc in the auditorium, which was a nice touch

When I went to see Rivette's Out One at the NFT, spread over three nights, for the final evening the audience were asked beforehand whether we wanted an intermission or not (we voted no!)

The revived Gone With The Wind thread elsewhere on this board reminds me that there was an intermission during that when I saw a new digital print of it last year

Saw this at the BFI. Beyond the Infinite will never get old. Still amazed at how it was achieved, I'm sure a little googling would clear it up but why not enjoy the mystery. All I remember is a quote from a book I read years ago, Douglas Trumbull told Kubrick he would need giant plates of glass and a machine as big as a house, Kubrick said. "Do it. Get it. Whatever you need."

Blue Danube scenes are an elegy for a future that never happened.

Heywood Floyd is an asshole.

The most dated moment now is when you see Heywood Floyd reading a newspaper

Also all the dolly birds in service roles and hunks in the pilot seats. Wouldn't have been too far sighted to switch the gender roles around a bit.

oh boy here we go with "dated" again

i saw lawrence of arabia a few years ago at cinema 21 in portland and it had an intermission. it was nice because i had gone alone but during the intermission i stood around outside the theatre and talked to smokers from the audience about the movie so far + our expectations for pt 2, and i wouldn't wanna do that for every long movie (don't interrupt stalker) but it worked for that one. might work for barry lyndon. 2001 it's cool cuz it's a cliffhanger iirc.

Yeah I get it, a) it's stood up remarkably well and ii) who cares anyway, especially now it's set in the past. Just a minor observation let's be cool. Xp.

or not strictly a cliffhanger but yknow comes after an alarming reveal xp.

a scene not praised enough is hal murdering the sleepers: the cuts from frantic twitching vitals to serene sleeping faces to impassive eye to flatlines. really violent! honestly kinda feels like watching psycho.

(topped by hal's own death, tho; not a lot of better movie deaths)

xp - yeah, good point. 2001 frightened the shit out of me when i saw it the first time aged 8 or so and that was one of the scariest scenes. it's one of my favourite movies now but i still find the whole thing much stranger and more unsettling than the shining.

a scene not praised enough is hal murdering the sleepers: the cuts from frantic twitching vitals to serene sleeping faces to impassive eye to flatlines. really violent! honestly kinda feels like watching psycho.

― difficult listening hour, Thursday, December 11, 2014 12:49 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't remember this in the version I saw?

oh, the lines going across the screen - yeah that was a bit much!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4n3dbPqk58

amazing how effective the sound is there - just the low ambient hum of the discovery and then a series of beeps.

that last weird scraggly curve on CENTRAL NERV. SYSTEM rllllly freaked kid me out too

Stalker does actually have a "Part 2"brittle card though.

Stalker is about as long as a typical cgi blockbuster these days and 2001 ia only 2 hours long.

Er... title card.

Sorry about the typos. I'm blaming ios8.

xpost

The close-ups of the flashing 'Computer Malfunction', 'Life Function Critical', 'Life Functions Terminated' signs during that sequence really gave off a heavy J-L Godard vibe (text+primary colours)

Stalker is about as long as a typical cgi blockbuster these days and 2001 ia only 2 hours long.

def support intermissions for marvel movies.