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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
for 2001 fans everywhere - let the arguments begin (continue, 11 Oct 2000
Over 30 years after the release of 2001:A Space Odyssey, the film remains at the top of many people's list of all time great films. 2001 is a landmark in cinema history not just because of the special effects, assiduous attention to detail or Stanley Kubrick's stunning photography but one of the few examples of cinema as a true art form, rather than the mechanical recording of a stage play set on location as many films are. The film doesn't rely on dialogue or narration for explanation of the storyline, all of the narration and much of the dialogue was ripped out of the original screenplay. Instead the story is told through images, stunning beautiful images that leave the viewer to absorb the work and assimilate the essence of the film, and herein lays the problem with the film for many people.If you've ever seen 2001 and asked "What does it all mean?" "Why did a computer kill the crew?" "The haunting final scene in the hotel room - what is that all about?" "What are those black monoliths for?" This book might just help you enjoy the film on a new level. Arguments rage in internet forums about whether 2001 is an allegory of Homer's Odyssey (as hinted in the title) or Friedrich Nietzsche's "Also Sprach Zarathustra" (alluded to by the opening music of Richard Strauss' work based on the German philosophers book), or a modern allegory of man-machine assimilation devised by Arthur C. Clarke - the co-author of the screenplay. In his book Leonard Wheat argues that the film is cleverly an allegory of all three, and he provides painstaking evidence taken from the film and other sources to prove that 2001 is a work of film genius that is following three concurrent allegories in addition to the over story. There are times reading the book when you ask yourself how anyone can read so much into a film, and whether it really was intentionally placed there. Certainly there a few Directors that would have gone to such lengths, but Stanley Kubrick's painstaking attention to detail and drawn out shooting schedules are legendary, and if there is a work that deserves such analysis so long after its release then this is one. If you enjoy watching 2001:A Space Odyssey and have ever gotten into arguments about its "meaning" then you will love this book, if you never quite understood the film and regarded it as a rather laboured sci-fi epic this book may just re-deem you. Get the book, get the video, watch it again, and again. Stanley Kubrick died in 1999, his work lives on.
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