Getting the week started correctly, here is another scary cinema post in this last week before we’ll all celebrate the season with treats or tricks. I might argue that 2001: A Space Odyssey is Stanley Kubrick’s most innovative, ambitious, and visionary film. But The Shining is my favorite Kubrick flick, and it’s one of the best horror films of all time.

Here’s a great examination of two of the film’s creepiest elements by one of my favorite film analysts, Rob Ager. Ager’s done lots of great breakdowns on Kubrick’s films and here he looks at the terrorizing of little Danny Torrance as well as the mystery of the bear-suited man. Fair warning: Ager’s analysis brings up themes of child abuse.

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In the late 1960′s, Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke teamed-up to create what is generally acknowledged as the greatest science fiction film ever made, 2001: A Space Odyssey. Now, Taschen has released their massive tome about the making of the film, and its pages capture all the spirit, effects, sets, costumes, concepts and the impact on its audiences of this unprecedented cinematic vision.

The Making of Stanley Kubrick’s ’2001: A Space Odyssey’
was born from a partnership between the Kubrick Estate, Paris-based design agency M/M, and writer Piers Bizony. The resulting volume is a massive, weighty black bound book shaped like the iconic monolith from the film. This version of the book contains all of Bizony’s writing from the Limited Edition version. The tall, skinny pages are full of tiny print — it makes the dense reading difficult to manage, but Bizony’s years of acclaimed, groundbreaking research make it worth the effort.

The text sections are broken up by loads of photographs from the set and stills from the movie. Concept drawings and painted designs offer first glimpses of the film they inspired and close-up stills of instrument panels, costume details and architectural flourishes constitute a kind of pornography for Kubrick geeks who’ll pore over every detail.

There are a lot of fold-out images here, which is novel and adds a sense of discovery to the leafing, but, like the reading, it’s also a little awkward and the thin paper had me nervous about tears when I first cracked this one. Taschen actually offers a fascinating apology for this and it’s worth quoting. You could call this The Making of The Making of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey…

It is very rare that our design approach takes such an individual and strong position, since we usually strive not to steal the show to our contents/artists/artworks, but rather serve all our subjects with subtlety. In this case however, we agreed after a longer discussion (which included the publisher, the author, and also the Kubrick Estate) that simply reproducing the surface of this fabulous movie in a conventional, glossy book wouldn’t do justice to the more profound reflections that are inherent to Kubrick’s masterpiece – which can be perceived as “cold” in some regards in its monolithic, uncompromising execution, or even “brutal”.

So our designers – M/M (Paris) – conceived the book like an entire symphony of fold-outs (preferably experienced with the Blue Danube playing in the background), which requires active intervention by the reader, rather than the “classic” leaned-back consumption. We were convinced that this approach would do justice to Stanley Kubrick’s vision and methods, since 2OO1: A Space Odyssey (by the way also produced in the same unusual – horizontal – aspect ratio) was never intended to be an ordinary, shallowly consumable experience in the first place.

Actually, the book and its pages have held-up just fine and when the book is in its protective slip cover it looks great displayed length-wise on a shelf, making this volume a great conversation piece for any film lover. Despite the difficulties posed by the design, this book is challenging, beautiful and unique, just like its subject.

On November 28, Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey was re-released in remastered, digital form in the UK. I haven’t been able to confirm when it will be screening in the U.S. but I’m hoping that some form of BFI’s sci-fi celebration will be making its way to the states soon.

While the spacefaring film might be the greatest of the director’s towering, groundbreaking achievements, even Kubrick had his off-days, and this documentary about the films he attempted to make can only leave us wondering at the places Napoleon, The Aryan Papers or the original A.I. may have assumed within the master’s pantheon…

Stay Awake!

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Yesterday we marked the anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing and today we’re reminded of the first human footprints on the lunar surface. What may have been a “small step for man” may have been an epic studio production for cinematic sorcerer Stanley Kubrick.

According to researcher Jay Weidner, we actually landed on the moon but had to create faked footage in order to get images that were as clear and iconic as the ones we all grew up with. In order to do this, NASA contacted Stanley Kubrick. Weidner claims that 2001: A Space Odyssey functioned as a laboratory as Kubrick worked out the techniques to fake the footage, and The Shining is a confession by the great director regarding his role in the scheme.

Weidner’s observations are compelling and his alternative history is full of weirdly-connecting stuff. You don’t have to believe Weidner or even take his claims seriously to find them engaging, entertaining and brimming with wondrous mystery. Weidner appeared in the documentary film Room 237 which investigated the strange interpretations The Shining has inspired. Here’s a section of Room 237 where Weidner lays out his case…

Stay Awake!

Please subscribe to my YouTube channel where I archive all of the videos I curate at Insomnia. Click here to check out more Cinema posts.