jan 1, 1968 - 2001: A Space Odyssey premiere

Description:

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) is an epic sci-fi movie produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick, and written by him and sci-fi author Arthur C. Clark, inspired by Clark’s short story The Sentinel (1951), and other short stories of his. The story begins when a mysterious Monolith (black slab) is discovered on Earth’s moon, assumed to have been left there by an unknown extraterrestrial intelligence. As it is being studied by human scientists, it sends what appears to be a transmission into outer space.

About a year later, a crew of five astronauts leave for a scientific exploration to a Jovian world on the space-ship Discovery.
Only two of them, David Bowman and Frank Poole, are left awake to help the sixth crew member, a supercomputer called HAL 9000, with monitoring the ship's day-to-day function. The film is noted for accurate depiction of space flight, innovative special effects and the use of ambiguous imagery instead of dialogue, which is a rarity in the film. It initially received mixed reviews at the time of its release for its slow pace, but today it has now come to be recognized by many professional film critics as one of the greatest and most influential films ever made.

Interestingly, it was released in the midst of the space race between the USSR and the United States. The soundtrack incorporates numerous works of classical music, by composers including Richard Strauss, Johann Strauss II, Aram Khachaturian, and György Ligeti. In the early stages of productions Kubrick commissioned Alex North, a noted Hollywood composer who had written the score for Spartacus and also had worked on Dr. Strangelove, to write the score for the film, but during post-production Kubrick chose to not make use of Alex’s work and instead use a variety of already existing classical works, including Also Sprach Zarathustra. Alex was not aware of this until he saw the movie himself.

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