From: Natasha Vita-More (natasha@natasha.cc)
Date: Sat Sep 18 1999 - 12:03:29 MDT
At 06:18 PM 9/18/99 +0000, Damien wrote:
>Hm, there would be many people on this list who weren't yet born when 2001
>came out... Maybe even Tron. These are retro-futures. That's not what you
>meant, is it?
2001 came out in 1968 and I think many people on this list were around at
time or can see it on video. I don't see it as retro, per se, but a
classic. But the designer could have used it to be retro. Retro is an easy
catch phrase for designers who like to use things of the past in their
work. And even here there is a blurring between a retro futuristic concept
and a futuristic concept because of a continue repeat of old with new ideas
and then applying them to new technologies. Making something appear new
that had once been used could be merely the alteration of beats to a riff,
or tilting the camera this way or that.
Hm, as an aside, I like Ebert's criticism of it.
BY ROGER EBERT (film critic)
"The genius is not in how much Stanley Kubrick does in ``2001: A Space
Odyssey,'' but in how little. This is the work of an artist so sublimely
confident that he doesn't include a single shot simply to keep our
attention. He reduces each scene to its essence, and leaves it on screen
long enough for us to contemplate it, to inhabit it in our imaginations.
Alone among science-fiction movies, ``2001'' is not concerned with
thrilling us, but with inspiring our awe.
No little part of his effect comes from the music. Although Kubrick
originally commissioned an original score from Alex North, he used
classical recordings as a temporary track while editing the film, and they
worked so well that he kept them. This was a crucial decision. North's
score, which is available on a recording, is a good job of film
composition, but would have been wrong for ``2001'' because, like all
scores, it attempts to underline the action--to give us emotional cues. The
classical music chosen by Kubrick exists *outside* the action. It uplifts.
It wants to be sublime; it brings a seriousness and transcendence to the
visuals.
Consider two examples. The Johann Strauss waltz ``Blue Danube,'' which
accompanies the docking of the space shuttle and the space station, is
deliberately slow, and so is the action. Obviously such a docking process
would have to take place with extreme caution (as we now know from
experience), but other directors might have found the space ballet too
slow, and punched it up with thrilling music, which would have been wrong.
We are asked in the scene to contemplate the process, to stand in space and
watch. We know the music. It proceeds as it must. And so, through a
peculiar logic, the space hardware moves slowly because it's keeping the
tempo of the waltz. At the same time, there is an exaltation in the music
that helps us feel the majesty of the process.
Now consider Kubrick's famous use of Richard Strauss' ``Thus Spake
Zarathustra.'' Inspired by the words of Nietzsche, its five bold opening
notes embody the ascension of man into spheres reserved for the gods. It is
cold, frightening, magnificent. ..." (snip)
Natasha
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