Thank you for the days IV: Wednesday

What now? I hear you say. Three songs with the day of the week in the title, that's what! I spoil you, I know.

Tori Amos is quietly pretty amazing sometimes. Her Wednesday is nearly a quarter of a century old, but still sounds fresh and innovative. So literate too. This is from the Scarlet's Walk concept album, and describes the eponymous heroine getting into a new relationship with a partner whose secrets make her suspicious. We've all been there though, right?

A change of pace now with some electronica from New York's Fischerspooner. Their Wednesday comes from the 2009 album Odyssey. Fun fact: Fischerspooner's name comes from concatenating the duo's surnames (Warren Fischer and Casey Spooner). Your definition of "fun" may vary.

How to follow that? How about with some pre-Purple Rain Prince? This is Wednesday from Piano And A Microphone 1983, the album of demos his estate issued posthumously in 2018. For the casual fan there possibly isn't too much here to get excited about, certainly little indication of what was to come post-Purple Rain. But this is Prince, so we can view it from a different perspective.

Thursday tomorrow, and past the halfway mark. What do you mean, phew?!

I've got these slings, I've got these arrows

There's a moment, about two thirds of the way through Bending Hectic, a new(ish) offering from Radiohead-diversion The Smile, where an instrumental break sounds like it ought to be soundtracking 2001: A Space Odyssey. The moment where Dave takes the Discovery's pod through the monolith in Jovian orbit, perhaps.

However, literally no-one wants to hear me bang on about 2001 for the eight hundredth time, not even me, so let's keep it simple and just say here's a new song from The Smile. I especially like the tuning of a guitar as a motif, and the lyrics are right up my current strasse.

Music Assembly: Gayane ballet suite (adagio)

In about 1983, I won a competition in Look-In magazine. The prize was a CED player and two excellent films: Logan's Run and 2001: Space Odyssey. Not a bad haul for a 12-year old, and a pretty mature selection of films. Being a sci-fi fan, I had already read Arthur C. Clarke's novel of 2001 and, if memory serves, had seen Kubrick's film once on television. But this gave me my first chance to watch, and re-watch, Stanley's masterwork on demand.

A quick point of order on CED players: Capacitance Electronic Discs were analogue video discs that were played not with a laser, but with a stylus! Essentially, they were very high capacity records. They were also a short-lived format, overtaken by VHS and Betamax somewhere between their invention (1964) and actually hitting the market as a consumer product (1981). These discs couldn't be handled - they came in a rigid plastic sleeve, which you inserted whole into the player, whereupon the disc would be extracted and you could withdraw the sleeve. I can still hear the droning noise of it all loading up. I think I may still have the player somewhere, along with the films and a CED of Goldfinger that I picked up later. I hope I do, anyway, it's probably quite collectable now. But I digress: back to 2001.

Although Kubrick had commissioned a score from composer Alex North (who had previously worked on both Spartacus and Dr Strangelove), he later rejected it in favour of the temporary soundtrack he had assembled himself from existing classical pieces. Stanley subsequently explained this choice in an interview, saying, "However good our best film composers may be, they are not a Beethoven, a Mozart or a Brahms. Why use music which is less good when there is such a multitude of great orchestral music available from the past and from our own time?" Ouch! But anyway, Kubrick's soundtrack is how I first came to hear the adagio from Aram Khachaturian's Gayane ballet suite. Used in the film to great effect, this achingly sad piece perfectly reflects the isolation and loneliness, the separation of a long space flight. So perfectly, in fact, that it was later referenced in the soundtrack to Aliens, to reflect a similar mood.

There are other more famous pieces in the 2001 soundtrack; indeed, the use of Richard Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra has become iconic, a shorthand pop-culture reference and oft-parodied. Likewise, the inclusion of Ligeti's choral works brought a whole new audience to that composer's work, a fact that certainly softened his initial displeasure to his music being used in an edited, modified form. But, for me, the haunting, contemplative strings of Khachaturian's adagio bring the film to mind as much, if not more, than all of the rest. It is simply beautiful.

Here it is in context...

...and in full.

If it can be written, or thought, it can be filmed.

This is going to be a long post. So, as a public service, I'm going to offer up an abridged version first, before the main event.

TLDR / Abridged version (contains a bold, underlined spoiler)

If you have any interest at all in film and/or the art of film-making, the Stanley Kubrick exhibition at the Design Museum is an essential, must-see event, regardless of how far you have to go to get there. It's on until 15th September 2019. You can, and must, book your ticket for it, right here, right now. The end.

Unabridged version
[All photos can be embiggened with a click...]

The Design Museum, established 30 years ago this year by Sir Terence Conran, sits at the southern tip of Holland Park - this affords you a lovely, leafy approach from the Tube. The Museum is worth a visit on its own merits but right now, and until 15th September, it is pretty much an essential part of your trip to London, for it is home to "Stanley Kubrick: the exhibition". It is hard to imagine a more detailed or more lovingly curated insight into the mind, and work, of the godlike genius; if you are a Kubrick nerd, like me, you will be in raptures but even if you're just a film fan and/or interested in the mechanics of film-making there is still so much for you to enjoy here.

On entering the museum, the first thing you see in the foyer is the striking orange beauty of the Adams Brothers' Probe 16, aka the Durango 95 that Alex and his droogs steal for a night of the old ultraviolence in A Clockwork Orange. One of only three made, this is a properly rare car even without the film provenance, and is a striking (if impractical) piece of automotive design that evokes an immediate Pavlovian response in film connoisseurs and petrolheads alike.

Once you've got your timed-entry ticket (and you'll want to book in advance, it's proving very popular), you enter the exhibition through a passageway that is carpeted in the famous tessellated pattern of the Overlook Hotel, between a bank of 32 monitors that provide what amounts to a montage of Kubrick's greatest hits, clips spliced together from his most famous works and scored with Also Sprach Zarathrustra (what else?) - the effect of all those monitors is slightly kaleidoscopic and, to this reviewer at least, also served to highlight Kubrick's well-known love of symmetry in a shot (I felt the need to walk down the very centre of that short passageway as a result). The montage ends with a shot from 2001, entering the monolith, which seems apt as you enter the exhibition proper...

The first room focuses on Kubrick's life and development as a film-maker, and his uniquely meticulous preparation for, and approach to, each new film project. This is also where his early career is covered, both as a photographer for New York's Look magazine (there is a separate, and free, exhibition of his photos from this period on the first floor of the museum if you have time) and nascent film-maker: Day of the Fight, Fear and Desire, The Killing and Killer's Kiss are all covered in this room. There's also this great quote, that describes how he came to transition from still pictures to moving ones...

My fantasy image of movies was created in the Museum of Modern Art, where I looked at [the work of] Stroheim and DW Griffith and Eisenstein. I was starstruck by these fantastic movies. I really was in love with movies... I remember thinking at the time that I didn't know anything about movies, but I'd seen so many movies that were bad, I thought "Even though I don't know anything, I can't believe I can't make a movie at least as good as this." And that's why I started, why I tried.

There's also a great illustration of Stanley's research process - there are shelves of books that constitute a small part of his personal Napoleon archive, for example, along with hand-written, colour-coded notes for the great unmade film that he thought could be so good. I also got disproportionately excited about some of the scripts and screenplays on display in this room - these felt more like quasi-religious artefacts to this fan-boy... as did the array of lenses, some custom made to Kubrick's personal order, and clapperboards. Most quasi-religious of all is Kubrick's editing table - I hadn't realised the extent to which he was involved in the editing, cutting film by hand with a razor blade. That's one of many ways in which this is perhaps the most fascinating room, especially for fans who already feel they know the more celebrated films inside out. I loved a notebook of Stanley's, open at a page from 1965 which began "A story is a means of holding interest and steering matters into certain areas of interest."

There's more here, of course, so much more, especially for 2001; Kubrick's Oscar for its special effects; a detailed explanation of the slit-scan methodology developed by Douglas Trumbull for the Stargate sequence; a scale model of the centrifuge used to enable the "jogging around the Discovery" sequence, and more besides. And perhaps of more niche interest, certainly less well-known, are the black and white photos of Kubrick's early years, behind the scenes of those first four films. Oh, and a exploration of the importance of chess to Kubrick, not least as a way of hustling income as a young man but also in his films, and on set. I blew an hour in this room alone, and could happily have stayed longer.

After this, it's essentially one room per film for each of his more renowned pictures, starting with Paths of Glory, a 1957 anti-war film based on the novel of the same name by Humphrey Cobb. Interestingly, I learned that all of Kubrick's films save one were based on novels by other people (+5 kudos points on offer here to anyone id'ing the exception). Kirk Douglas starred as the French officer with a conscience, an experience that would undoubtedly benefit all concerned when later reuniting on Spartacus. There's also an interesting aside about the only woman cast in the film, Susanne Christian, who would later become the third (and final) Mrs Kubrick. She's pictured left, looking for all the world like she belongs on a Smiths album cover. There's also a looping video of the film running that splices key scenes together, here ending with the firing squad scene and Douglas's return to the trenches a changed man - powerful stuff. The looping video montage idea is repeated for every subsequent film in the exhibition, and works very well too.

I had sort of expected, hoped even, that the films from thereon would be in chronological order but no - rather, the films have been loosely grouped thematically, or at least that was my interpretation of the ordering. For the next film is Spartacus, again starring Kirk Douglas as the titular slave turned gladiator turned rebel. This was the only Kubrick film over which he did not have complete artistic control, having been drafted in by Douglas's production company after original director Anthony Mann was fired after only a week. It was also notable for going public with the fact that Dalton Trumbo was the screenwriter, at a time when he was blacklisted for refusing to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee, following a McCarthy-led witch-hunt investigation of communist influences in the film industry. Hence, Kubrick described Spartacus as the "only picture I've worked on where I was employed." Of course the looping video montage in this room includes the famous "I'm Spartacus!" scene but other note-worthy props include a costume worn by Sir Laurence Olivier. This room also has what might just be my favourite picture of the whole exhibition, not just for its scale and vague sense of the abstract but also for its illustration of Kubrick's meticulous nature - here it is. Stanley gave every extra on Spartacus a number, so that he could direct them all individually. Fine, if there were five or ten extras... but Spartacus had hundreds...

The third in what I thought of as the war-themed rooms centred on Full Metal Jacket, Kubrick's Vietnam masterpiece. Memorably a film of two halves, the looping video included clips from each. Notable props on display included Joker's iconic "Born to kill" helmet, complete with CND badge. There were also a lot of photographs of Hue, taken by Don McCullin; these, and Hue in general, were the basis for the shell-struck town Joker and his fellow soldiers encounter the sniper in. Since Kubrick, by that point, famously made all his films in the UK, great lengths were taken to recreate Hue: Beckton Gas Works, a derelict coke-smelting plant of more than 600 acres, deputised ably, after six weeks of selective demolition and the addition of 200 living palm trees flown in from Spain... plus 100,000 plastic tropical plants from Hong Kong, four M41 tanks from Belgium, M79 grenade launchers, M60 machine guns and a whole host of leased Sikorsky helicopters painted the appropriate military green - such were the lengths Kubrick would go to, to avoid flying around the world to make his films. Much is also made here of a Kubrick quote: "I don't see the characters in the story in terms of good or evil, but in terms of good and evil." Although not explicitly tied to FMJ's Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, it is shown next to a recruitment poster featuring an uncannily similar drill sergeant...

Now here's where my amateur interpretation of the sequencing of the films comes unstuck, for if it was as simple as "stick all the 'war' films together" then Dr Strangelove would be next, right? But no. Instead, the exhibition turns at right-angles into what I think of as a sex/desire/controversy triptych of films, the first of which is Lolita. Interesting to learn that a lot of promo for the film at the time centred on "how did they film this?" The answer, as you'll know if you've seen it, is to reverse the book's storytelling order, to make for a more conventional narrative, emphasise Humbert's infatuation with Lolita rather than his lust, and cast 13-year old Sue Lyon to play the titular character. Also key to the film's impact was the fact that Nabokov himself wrote the screenplay, although this was not without its complications - seemingly unwilling to cut much, early drafts of his screenplay were unworkably long. Lolita was another Kubrick-Harris production; here's a photograph of the director and producer with their starlet, Sue, that I'm not sure how I feel about. Easy to draw parallels with how they're looking at her with how Humbert would look at Lolita... or am I just adding that interpretation because of the context the film adds, perhaps? Either way, a great photo. Sue would make a few more pictures after Lolita but then fade from the limelight, but she continued to write to Stanley regularly throughout his life - the exhibition includes one such letter from Kubrick's correspondence archive. Also, the looping video clip for Lolita includes Peter Sellers making an "I'm Spartacus" joke - not the last time Kubrick referenced his own work.

Next up in the sex/desire/controversy theme is A Clockwork Orange, Kubrick's 1971 adaption of the Anthony Burgess novel. There are some great props on display here, most notably from the Korova Milk Bar. Although perhaps I shouldn't call them props, after learning from this exhibition that artist John Barry almost withdrew permission to use his work over use of the word "prop" to describe it. Of course, such art (including the penis rocking chair, reproduced here) wasn't the only stylistic method Kubrick used to evoke a near-future dystopia - the exhibition nicely draws attention to the use of Thamesmead, then a relatively new development, as a key location, and highlights the brutalist architecture (especially in the film's second half) as reflective of the society in which Alex lives. Given the furore that followed the film's release, with allegations of copycat crimes and the like, Kubrick eventually withdrew the film from release, where it effectively remained until his death. Viewers had to seek out underground screenings. In light of the (somewhat hysterical, in retrospect) moral outrage that forced Stanley's hand, and the feared impact that such a film would have on the nation's moral fibre, I found this quote from him to be especially interesting:

The point I want to make is that the film has been accepted as a work of art, and no work of art has ever done social harm, though a great deal of social harm has been done by those who have sought to protect society against works of art which they regarded as dangerous.

Oh, and if you have good eyes you can spot another Kubrick self-reference in one of the many photographs on display for this film. And of course, the looping video montage includes, but is not limited to, this famous scene:

The third film in this thematic block is Kubrick's swansong, Eyes Wide Shut. Ostensibly a film about desire, and the paths it can lead you off onto, Kubrick pulled off a masterstroke in casting (then) real-life husband and wife Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman as the film's married protagonists - it definitely added a certain something for the viewer, especially in scenes of particular emotional intensity (love-making, arguing). One criticism often levelled at the film is that the New York street scenes were unconvincing; of course, by this point in his career Kubrick would not leave the UK to make this or any other film. The exhibition is at pains to illustrate just how much time and effort was spent identifying locations in London that could double for parts of New York, to no avail - in the end, Kubrick had his streets built on set. Perhaps they aren't completely convincing but it doesn't detract from what is an under-rated entry in the Kubrick oeuvre. It's an provocative film that examines the power of secrets when revealed and, perhaps, examines the knife-edge relationships (especially marriages) tread in maintaining their equilibrium. Perhaps this is why it wasn't an out and out smash, and continues to feature some way down any list of Kubrick's best films - it's uncomfortable viewing for many. Anyway, there are some great original props here (and I emphasise original, since some of the props in other rooms are reproductions): a selection of masks from the secret ball, the "Fidelio" napkin, and the letter given to Bill (Cruise) to advise he desist in his quest to understand what has been going on at the ball...

My theory about thematic linkage of rooms/films starts to fall down at this point. Never mind because next up is The Shining, for my mind one of the greatest films of any genre, by anyone, ever. On the one hand, this is a conventional horror film about spooky goings-on in an isolated location. On the other, this is a disturbing portrayal of the unravelling of Jack Torrance. Kubrick was intrigued by this duality, and is quoted here as saying that the source novel, by Stephen King, "seemed to strike an extraordinary balance between the psychological and the supernatural in such a way as to lead you to think that the supernatural would eventually be explained by the psychological." Of course, King would famously profess not to like Kubrick's interpretation, perhaps because too much was changed in the transition from page to screen. I have to say, much as I love him and his work, I think there might be some small element of hubris colouring King's judgement, for Kubrick's Shining is a masterpiece. This room in the exhibition has some terrific props - the Grady girls' dresses, Danny's Apollo 11 jumper, a scale model of the Overlook maze (complete with cryptic instructions on how to escape, that could be enough on their own to tip an unstable caretaker over the edge), some prototype axes, and more. The exhibition also highlights the fact that this is, in part, a film about obsession - for Jack, his writing, and his inability to write. In that regard, perhaps this room follows on thematically from Eyes Wide Shut rather well. Oh, and although I have seen it dozens, perhaps hundreds of times, that scene, included in the looping video montage, in which a wigged-out Jack confronts a freaked-out Wendy, only to receive a baseball bat to the face... well, it's a powerful movie, how much more can I eulogise?

Next up is Dr Strangelove, a film that could quite easily have been placed with the war-themed movies (so perhaps that's another hole in my sequencing theory). Kubrick's A-bomb paranoia movie, featuring a notable dual performance by Peter Sellers, is rightly regarded as an anti-war classic. It some ways, this room does follow nicely on from Eyes Wide Shut and The Shining, given the similar themes of how sanity and equilibrium are such fragile qualities, easily derailed. The exhibition includes a beautiful 1:20 scale model of the war room, pictured left, plus plenty of sketches highlighting Ken Adams's terrific design work for the film. In what is essentially as much a very dark comedy as a piece of socio-political observation, it was interesting to learn from the exhibition that Kubrick spent five long days filming a pie fight scene for the end of the movie... only to not use it at all. Turns out he feared the slapstick, clownish nature of the scene would lessen the film's anti-war message. Good call, Stanley.

The penultimate film room in the exhibition concerns Barry Lyndon, Kubrick's 3hr historical drama. Now I'll be honest, this is the film on Stanley's CV that I've always struggled most with. That's not to say it isn't a beautifully crafted piece of work, because it is. It's just... I don't know. Maybe I'm just not, by nature, going to be interested in 18th Century historical dramas, however wonderfully crafted. Maybe I just don't buy American pretty-boy Ryan O'Neal as the titular hero (I wouldn't be alone in this view). Tellingly, the only photograph I took in this room was an information sign next to a display of three-wick candles; Kubrick specially ordered these as they produce a brighter flame than regular candles, allowing more light to be captured. Such attention to detail (and the specially commissioned lens he used, a reconstruction of a NASA lens design originally used for shooting in space) enabled an authentic look and feel to the film - indeed, Barry Lyndon, as much as any other Kubrick film, stands up as a visual work of art. I just need to appreciate the story more. A repeat viewing is in order, I think... whenever I have 185 spare, uninterrupted minutes.

The final room in the exhibition is, for this reviewer, the most important of all. It focuses on the film that got me into Stanley Kubrick in the first place - 2001: A Space Odyssey. As a childhood fan of Arthur C. Clarke's fiction, especially that which would now be called YA, making the transition to 2001 was easy, especially as I then won a early form of laser disc player, complete with 2001 and Logan's Run on disc (you had to manually turn the LP-sized platters over half way through - no wonder the CED format didn't catch on). Anyway, it is a glorious, glorious piece of visionary film-making, that I've blogged about numerous times before (and watched far more times than is healthy)... so I'd better try to keep my eulogising on topic here, i.e. about the exhibition, not the film. There are holy grail props galore here, for starters, including the Moonwatcher primate suit and highly intricate head, Dave Bowman's flight suit, the PanAm stewardess's "bump" hat, Dave's space helmet and various other parts of his space suit, a recreation of HAL and his monitors, a recreation of a section of the orbiting space station (featuring the Hilton Space Station 5 and Howard Johnson's Earthlight Room), the actual watch and cutlery used in scenes on-board Discovery... I could go on. Such were the innovations in this film, the 2001 room could have been a lot, lot bigger - bear in mind, for example, that an explanation of the slit-scan technique and discussion of the centrifuge built to shoot "revolving" sequences are covered in the earlier, introductory room. And I haven't even mentioned the Harry Lange drawings, the technical design nature of which lends them the air of blueprints. Oh, and the models... lots of models: the PanAm Orion III space plane that takes Heywood Floyd into orbit; the moon shuttle that takes him to the Tycho monolith; and a beautiful, elegant, long Discovery, complete with tiny pod in front of it. cradling Frank's body in its arms and waiting, hopefully, for HAL to open the pod bay doors. Of course there is also a looping video montage too... and then, finally, you pass underneath the Starchild, suspended from the ceiling in front of a sign that says simply "The End". How fitting is that?

There is, of course, a fine exhibition gift shop, next to the regular shop, at which you can buy all manner of Kubrick-related merchandise. I had to restrain myself quite hard here, but still blew £35. What I can tell you is that the Taschen Stanley Kubrick Archives book is an absolute steal at £15. Even if you can't make it to the exhibition, you might want to consider buying that.

I realise, scanning back through what might be the longest post I've ever written, that there's lots I've neglected to mention. The most glaring omission is the coverage given to Kubrick's characteristically intense interest in getting the soundtrack for his film's exactly right, whether that's Nancy Sinatra and Surfin' Bird in FMJ, Beethoven in ACO or the choral works of Ligeti in 2001. Tarantino gets lauded for his use of soundtracks as plot devices, but Kubrick did that too, every bit as much. Also, whilst I mentioned Napoleon, I didn't mention AI. Or the iterations of film poster design for The Shining. Oh, and I really wanted to include this quote, about editing, that should apply to writers every bit as much as film-makers:

When I'm editing, I'm only concerned with the question of "Is it good or bad?", "Is it necessary?", "Can I get rid of it?", "Does it work?". I am never concerned with how much difficulty there was to shoot something, how much it cost, and so forth. I'm never troubled losing material. I cut everything to the bone. When you're shooting, you want to make sure you don't miss anything and you cover it as fully as time and budget allow. When you're editing, you want to get rid of everything that isn't essential.

All in all, I spent well over three and a half hours in this exhibition, and could happily have spent much longer had I not been up against the clock to get to a TV studio on the other side of the city... but that's another blog post, for another day. In summary then, it's exactly like I said at the top: "Stanley Kubrick: the exhibition" at the Design Museum is an essential, must-see event; go while you can.

+3 kudos points if you read this far. Who did?

My back pages

A lot of early posts were written on this old thing,
with a mug of tea on hand

According to Blogger, these are my ten most "popular" posts:

10. Blog mirror? - that fatuous survey
9. That Was The Year That Was: 2017 - end of year rundowns are always popular
8. Oh, I'm sorry - did I break your concentration? - I staged a screening of Pulp Fiction
7. Cryptic-schmyptic - I made a big ol' crossword
6. To Whit, to whoo...? - inexplicably popular account of a weekend away
5. Europe. It's like a different country or something...II - inexplicably popular Belgian Crack
4. That Was The Year That Was: 2015 - as I said, end of year rundowns...
3. That Was The Year That Was: 2016 - ...always popular
2. Don't be a notefold cock - gets a little bump whenever Dave repeats Modern Life Is Goodish
1. That Was The Year That Was: 2014 - ...really, really popular

I should add that these stats are skewed somewhat, since they only take into account traffic after I moved New Amusements wholesale to Blogger, back in January 2014. That skewing, that incompleteness and inaccuracy, is the only excuse I need to dust off these other posts, all of which remain relatively popular(ish). In no particular order:

• Separated at birth V - Danny Alexander and Beaker - self-explanatory
• The good, the bad and the ugly - either the misleading Clint-reference or the girl ("the good") make this popular
• It also makes calls - remains popular for its "evolution of a mobile phone" picture
• If not now, when? - making the best of the end of the world

But sod popularity. These are the posts I'm happiest to publicly proclaim affection for. And yes, that does mean there are other posts I'm equally (or more) proud of, but don't want to invite revisits to. Anyway, here goes, again in no real order:

• This is as good as it gets - in which I reviewed the remastered Gene back catalogue
• C30, C60, C90, Go! - my paean to the joy of compilation tapes
• David Gedge - a top man, clearly - this Wedding Present gig review would, nine years later, make it into a book
• 2001 - beyond the infinite - I wrote quite a lot about the importance of 2001: A Space Odyssey
• How did it come to this? - in which I vent about Trump
• The space race is over - a lament for the NASA of my youth
• Bombay away - in which I subtitle Bollywood for the purposes of satire
• Play well - the joy of sex Lego
• Going back to my roots - an ode to 80s home computing
• Clandestine Classic XLIX - Ask Johnny Dee - a nice retro story, in which I was a royal git
• Derailing my train of thought - this says everything to me about my life
• And of course the "list" posts: best gigs, favourite books and scary films - because, who doesn't like lists?
• And the series: Clandestine Classics, Fantasy Cover Versions and the Amusecasts...

I've enjoyed writing this blog, and hope you've enjoyed reading some of it too. I've also really enjoyed looking back over all these posts, and hope the links above prompt you to read something you missed first time around. And at the risk of being mysterious, you'll see why I'm doing this recap tomorrow...

The 15 Movie Questions Meme

Shamelessly pinched from the always-excellent Too Much Apple Pie, who in turn pinched it from Rol at Sunset Over Slawit, who in turn got it from Sunday Stealing, and so the list goes on. I try to maintain a healthy meme-aversion but since this is all about films, I'll let this one slide. Ask me these questions again in a week's time and you'll get several different answers, undoubtedly, but for now here goes.

1. Movie you love with a passion.

   Easy. The Graduate. Made before I was born, this still speaks to me about how I felt about my life when I was a graduate. Except, you know, I didn't sleep with a family friend's wife and then run off with the daughter.

2. Movie you vow to never watch.

   Not so easy. I usually vow never to watch a film again, having suffered it once. But just on principle, I intend never to watch anything with Transformers in the title.

3. Movie that literally left you speechless.

   Lars von Trier's Antichrist. And no, it wasn't that self-mutilation scene that tipped this film over the edge for me but the opening two minutes. I can't think of anything I've found as hard to watch. So speechless, but not in a good way.

4. Movie you always recommend.

   Most films by Stanley Kubrick, but most of all 2001: A Space Odyssey. I've banged on enough about this in the past so I'll just say that it makes space travel look how I want it to be, and has a breadth and scale that is unsurpassed even now, more than 40 years later.

5. Actor/actress you always watch, no matter how crappy the movie.

   Not that he's made too many crappy ones, but Robert De Niro. People rightly talk about Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, both astounding, but God, have you seen Cape Fear too? The guy is bloody amazing.

6. Actor/actress you don’t get the appeal for.

   I don't really understand why teenage girls the world over get their collective knickers in a knot over Daniel Radcliffe but I guess that's because I'm neither teenage nor a girl.

7. Actor/actress, living or dead, you’d love to meet.

   I'm not sure it's such a great idea to meet your heroes - how can they do anything other than disappoint? So I won't say Dustin Hoffman or Robert De Niro or anyone else who I might feel let down by, but instead Tim Robbins. I think he'd be interesting to talk to without even discussing his many excellent films.

8. Sexiest actor/actress you’ve seen. (Picture required!)

   Well, I couldn't choose so here's two and you can decide for yourself!
      

9. Dream cast.

   Well, obviously Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro, Natalie Portman and Audrey Tautou, for starters. Now I just need to work on a pitch to bring them together...

10. Favorite actor pairing.

    John Gordon Sinclair and Clare Grogan in Gregory's Girl. If you were a secondary school boy in the 80s, you know why.

11. Favorite movie setting.

    I'm with Rol on this one. The Overlook Hotel, the setting for King and Kubrick's spectacular collision.

12. Favorite decade for movies.

    I'm guessing this will be an unpopular choice but the 70s. Lots of gritty movies like Midnight Cowboy and Marathon Man, some great pre-Lucas sci-fi like Logan's Run and Westworld, the rise of Spielberg (Jaws, Duel, Close Encounters)... what's not to love?

13. Chick flick or action movie?

    Action movie if I'm on my todd, chick flick if watching with my significant other. I'm no fool.

14. Hero, villain or anti-hero?

    Sometimes hero, occasionally villain but mostly anti-hero.

15. Black and white or color?

    Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.

2001 - beyond the infinite

So, let's recap. As you will know from my last post, I was all excited at the prospect of seeing a remastered print of one of my all-time favourite films on the big screen for the first time. Yes, 2001: A Space Odyssey was on at Cin City (my name for the cinema, not theirs). To add to my excitement, 2001 was to be introduced by Professor Peter Krämer, a senior lecturer in film studies at UEA and author of the recently-published BFI Film Classics book on 2001. On arriving (uncharacteristically early) at the cinema, I was even more excited to see that they'd be showing 2001 in Screen 1 - biggest screen, best sound, largest capacity. On taking my seat, I was pleased to see that Screen 1 was about two thirds full - a good crowd and, this being Cin City, not one made up of popcorn-chomping, wrapper-crinkling, giant-drink-guzzling buffoons but actual film fans. Aficionados, in many cases. A small wooden lectern stood to the left of the screen, ready for the Prof to do his bit. And, under the shadowy glim of the house lights, do his bit he certainly did.

Peter Krämer isn't quite the archetypal mad professor but, on Sunday's evidence, he's pleasingly close to it; let me present that evidence. For starters, he seemed to have the essential Doc Brown hair. Secondly, from where I was sitting his spectacles appeared to be made from the bottoms of old Coke bottles. Thirdly, he had a vague and, as yet, undefined European accent - not too strong but enough to mangle some words and stretch others to the limit. And finally, the clincher - every now and then he would burst out from behind the lectern and wave his arms around maniacally, à la Magnus Pyke, all the better to make his point. Brilliant! But what points did he make? Well I've been to a few of these "introduced" screenings at Cin City, and most of the talking heads only speak for about 10 minutes. Professor Krämer spoke for more like 25... but at no point did I find myself wishing that he'd get on with it, or that they'd just hurry up and show the film. Because, you see, I learnt new things about 2001 during the Prof's talk... and this is a film that I like to think I am already well versed in, and have seen more times than is probably healthy. Professor Krämer also gave potted summaries of some of the main themes of his book, specifically his counter-arguments to three of the most popular misconceptions about 2001. But more about that later.

After the Prof had enjoyed his well-deserved applause (and shamelessly plugged his book a few times) the film presentation began. And I say presentation, because 2001 was shown as it would have been on its initial premium release in the US (minus the curved Cinerama screen though): that is to say, it began with a three-minute overture ("Atmospheres" accompanied by a blank screen), then the film was shown in two halves with a ten-minute intermission, then the presentation concluded with a four-minute reprise of "The Blue Danube", again with a blank screen. The intermission came right after the scene shown, left, in which Dave and Frank discuss the possibility of HAL making an error, and the need to shut him down if that error were realised. It was the perfect moment for a break, a mini-cliffhanger and a neat way of prolonging the tension, even if, like me, you've seen the film dozens of times and know what happens next. Oh, and during the intermission the background noise from interior Discovery scenes was played (again with blank screen) to give the impression that things were still moving on, even whilst the assembled masses ran to the loo or headed for the bar. Me, I went out into the lounge and bought Professor Krämer's book, which he signed (in obligatory mad-prof-scrawl) "From one 2001 fan to another. Enjoy the trip!" Another thing that I learnt from the Prof was that films were shown like this in the States in an attempt to make the movie-going experience comparable to a night at the opera; I don't know if that worked for these so-called premium showings back in the Sixties but it made a nice change on Sunday.

But what of the remastered film? Well, you all know the plot and, from my previous eulogy, you all know my thoughts on it, so I'll just focus on this new print. There are no extra scenes, and nothing has been removed. This is not a retooled director's cut, after all. Having said that, Kubrick's first pre-release cut of the film was four hours long, so there's clearly plenty of unused material out there somewhere... but really, that would be a bad idea. You don't mess with the classics. No, the remastery here is all to do with sound and picture quality. The former is pin-sharp, yet with great depth, whilst the latter.... quite apart from the obvious cleaning up the problems of Sixties matting (you know, when you'd get a rectangle of slightly-less-black black around a spaceship as it moves across the screen), everything just looked so crystal clear - I could even read the instructions for the zero-gravity toilet! This newly remastered print looks like a film made in 2010, not the late Sixties, and in some ways even better because the newly-sharp models look more convincing, simply more real than a lot of modern CGI. As for the lingering landscapes in the Dawn Of Man section of the film - these are simply stunning. And what of the Prof's book? Well, I've only read the intro and first four chapters so far, but that's enough to be able to give you an opinion. I'm not going to pretend you'll be seduced by his scintillating prose style but this is a book worth reading. Firstly, you'll learn things about the film's genesis, development, production and release that you didn't already know - Krämer has clearly done his homework and this book is stuffed with archive references. Secondly, the author's inherent 2001 fandom shines through, and that is exciting to read if you're a fan too, and probably contagious if you're not (yet). And most importantly, the Prof puts forward original thoughts about Kubrick and his film, and makes cogent arguments to disabuse us of commonly-held misconceptions about 2001, notably that: it was a commercial failure on first release (not true - it was a hit from day one); it was so avant-garde that it was only watched by potheads as a "trip" (not true - it was conceived and delivered as a blockbuster); and it was Kubrick's pessimistic view of man's future (not true - arguably it was an optimistic counterpoint to the doom of Dr Strangelove). So the book is good and certainly worthy of your time. As for the film... well, I've got a couple of hours of uninterrupted sofa time this evening and a Kubrick box-set sitting by the DVD player... I might just turn out the lights and watch 2001 again...

All the links you need to better your life with 2001-ness: The film | The novel | The soundtrack | Professor Krämer's BFI Film Classics book | The essential Kubrick boxset | Internet Resource Archive (nice fan site)

Stars in my eyes

I am genuinely very excited. Why? Because a beautiful remastered print of 2001: A Space Odyssey is doing the rounds, and my local arthouse cinema is showing it on Sunday evening. Complete with an introduction from a film studies prof who's just written a BFI book on the film!

2001 has been one of my favourite films since I first saw it nearly thirty years ago. To my mind it is still one of so very few films that make space travel look like space travel ought to. Quite apart from the beautiful silence (no engines roar as the Discovery glides across our screens), everything looks graceful and that's how I'd want it to be, even if it wasn't. Add the god-like genius of Kubrick to the mix, with his understated direction, beautiful lighting and aseptic set-design, a timeless classical soundtrack, a story that still has the power to both amaze and bewilder, and one of the all-time great movie characters in HAL and you have all the ingredients for what is still regarded as a masterpiece of the genre, more than four decades after its original cinema release. A masterpiece that I've never seen on the big screen: I've owned the film on laser-disc, VHS and two separate DVDs, but I've never had the 2001 cinematic experience until now... so yes - I'm very excited.

And in a pleasing and entirely serendipitous moment of synchronicity, I went out into the back garden last night to watch the Perseids. My God, it's full of stars...

Minghella and Clarke

The deaths of film director Anthony Minghella and science-fiction writer Sir Arthur C. Clarke were reported yesterday. Both make me sad, in different ways.

Minghella will inevitably always be best known for directing the Oscar-winning The English Patient but for me his best work was the film adaptation of The Talented Mr Ripley, which he wrote the screenplay for as well as directed. Beyond loving Ripley, I am sad for Minghella's death because he was only 54, and dying from a haemorrhage following surgery for cancer of the neck and tonsils sounds a horrible way to go, all in all.

Clarke's death saddens me in a different way. He was 90, and so had had a good innings, and the last few years of his life he was wheelchair-bound - I suspect he himself wasn't scared of dying any more. And what an accomplished life - on top of the books, films and television work for which he was so well known, he worked on the development of radar during the Second World War (then a top secret) and soon after correctly foresaw the advent of satellite communications, even specifying the height such satellites would have to reach to maintain geostationary orbit. In fact, his 1945 article in Wireless World was so accurate that when the first commercial satellites were launched twenty years later they could not be patented! And then, of course, a short story of his became the kernel of 2001: A Space Odyssey, not just one of the great sci-fi films of all time but one of the great films of any genre. So a life full of achievement and a ripe old age - what's to be sad about then? Just this: as a teenage boy in the Eighties, I devoured Clarke's books. That time, and those books, are over now. Sadness all round then.

The greatest films in the world... ever!

On a recent company meal out (you know the sort of thing, where you give up your leisure time to socialise with people you're normally paid to hang out with) I found myself in something of a conversational conundrum. After copious amounts of wine and beer, the conversation descended into the kind of pseudo-serious debate that I thought I had left behind at university, many years ago. The subject? What is the best film of all time...

To me, this was patently a ludicrous subject. How can anyone, by any objective measure, identify a single "best" film? I think a few of my colleagues were in agreement, but alcohol was flowing in such Bacchanalian quantities that, whilst waiting for dessert, we went around the table and everyone named their favourite film.

Surprises? None of the men named any "Godfather" films, or "Raging Bull". "Citizen Kane" didn't get a mention. Neither did any of the films that you would expect people of my age range (late-20s/early-30s) to have grown up with, like Star Wars or ET, though Back To The Future was acknowledged. In fact, very few films made prior to 1990 were cited, with the exception of "It's A Wonderful Life" and "Gone With The Wind". As the act of going round the table made its inevitable way towards me, I began to wonder if people were actually naming their favourite film or just the first good film that came to mind, or even whether they were trying to score pretension-points by naming an obscure or arty film. As for me, I went for "Cape Fear" in the end, and was surprised to be asked by a number of people whether that was the Gregory Peck/Robert Mitchum original or the Nick Nolte/Robert DeNiro remake. Much as I enjoy the original, I went for the remake (stunning performances from all four leads, amazing quotable dialogue, terrific camerawork...).

The next morning, to distract myself from my hangover, I reconsidered my choice. It turns out I have lots of favourite films, of different genres or for different moods. Sometimes a film doesn't even have to be especially good to make my shortlist - it need only evoke a warm memory of the first time I saw it. Anyway, to draw this ramble to a close, here's a random selection of films I heartily endorse (in alphabetical order only) for the aforementioned variety of reasons. My favourites? Well, some... but ask me again in a year or two and I'll probably come up with a quite different selection...

• 2001: A Space Odyssey
• American Beauty
• Callan
• Cape Fear
• Goldfinger
• Goodfellas
• The Graduate
• Quadrophenia
• The Shining