Capital Celluloid 2016 - Day 25: Mon Jan 25

2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1968): Prince Charles Cinema, 8.01pm


If you are going to see 2001: A Space Odyssey then much the best to see the film in glorious 70mm. You have the chance all this month at the Prince Charles and this is your last one as the run ends tonight. Here are the other dates and here are the details of the other movies being shown in the great Stanley Kubrick season (all being screened in 35mm).

Chicago Reader review:
'Seeing this 1968 masterpiece in 70-millimeter, digitally restored and with remastered sound, provides an ideal opportunity to rediscover this mind-blowing myth of origin as it was meant to be seen and heard, an experience no video setup, no matter how elaborate, could ever begin to approach. The film remains threatening to contemporary studiothink in many important ways: Its special effects are used so seamlessly as part of an overall artistic strategy that, as critic Annette Michelson has pointed out, they don't even register as such. Dialogue plays a minimal role, yet the plot encompasses the history of mankind (a province of SF visionary Olaf Stapledon, who inspired Kubrick's cowriter, Arthur C. Clarke). And, like its flagrantly underrated companion piece, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, it meditates at length on the complex relationship between humanity and technology—not only the human qualities that we ascribe to machines but also the programming we knowingly or unknowingly submit to. The film's projections of the cold war and antiquated product placements may look quaint now, but the poetry is as hard-edged and full of wonder as ever.' 139 min.

No comments: