A few of my friends came over to my place last night for a viewing of Stanley Kubrick’s epic 2001: A Space Odyssey. It has been about 10 years since I have seen the film and I had forgotten a great deal of it. Kubrick’s command of shot composition is unparalleled, creating striking scenes of ships and planets in their simplest forms. For example, an epic shot of the earth, moon and sun for the opening credits is simply three circles overlapping symmetrically. Check out the opening credits. Kubrick was an amazing designer.
The orb design for HAL’s face plate (seen above) is a brilliant piece of work creating a character from the simplest of forms. And the psychedelic trip scene near the end is simply stunning, unheard of in any other motion picture. See it here.
2001 really does stand alone in terms of pace, concept/technology design and effect usage. It’s very hard to believe it was released in 1968.
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