Whatchu Watchin?

[Jumpin]

Mummelmann said:

Jumpin said:

You're not alone—I didn’t watch the film until relatively recently, although I remember my father watching it a few times when I was a kid (he’s a big Kubrick fan).

Fair warning so you know what you're getting into: this is not a typical "movie"/rollercoaster-type Hollywood film. 2001 is an interpretive art piece and has elements of slow cinema (think Jean Dielman). While there are a few dramatic arcs in it, they’re not the focus. Think of other art films like Fantasia, The Wall, or Blowup (or really anything by Antonioni). Think of it as the cinematic version of music.

I’d also recommend watching the film before reading the book - if you plan on reading the book - because the book is less a work of interpretive art and more an explicit narrative. And if you end up enjoying the book, in my opinion, Clarke’s Childhood’s End is the superior work—and it’s also the main inspiration for the PlayStation game Xenogears.

When it comes to 2001, I've been watching this sequence of films: 2001 → Alien → The Thing → Aliens. There is a bit of a thematic continuity, and also a logical progression of style from a more artistic film into a Hollywood blockbuster style film.

That sounds brilliant; since I started writing more seriously myself, I've discovered the medium in a whole new way. I no longer simply watch things, I experience them, and it's such an amazing way of watching movies and shows. I can watch movies for the visual spectacle alone, soundtracks have much more impact, and good writing sends shivers down my spine. Acting has also taken on new dimensions through this lens. 

The Alien movies are among my favorites on the 4K format as well, their use of practical effects lends it a timeless look. And the crushing atmosphere (especially of the first two movies in the series) is still more or less unmatched.

Even Jurassic Park survived the tooth of time in 4K, Spielberg was genius in his decision to go half-and-half on effects. It still looks great!

Sounds like it might be right up your alley then!

The ability to watch films from an alternative mindset beyond what most of us learned growing up—just having a story told to us. And, in this case, something to experience and interpret.

Kubrick and Clarke made the tangible elements of the film vague because they wanted audiences to experience the intangible - like emotion and the surfacing of subconscious thoughts (like an indescribable feeling you might have once felt in a dream, that’s laying at the back of the mind). And then, there are the interpretations of the tangible elements and what they might mean to different people: the monolith (for example) could represent alien uplifting, God, or something more symbolic - like the manifestation of intellect on top of the basal drives to dominate natural selection in human evolution… but, I think modern audience will experience this a little differently because those elements are engrained in our popular culture—even our videogames, like SimEarth and Xenogears.

I think my gateway into more artistic films was Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo. Granted, that film is based very much on the plot/story, but it is blurry around the edges and has a ton of artistic elements within it. When I first saw it, I thought it was a mildly interesting film, but I still much preferred other Hitchcock films like Rear Window. But that all changed around the time I hit my thirties.