"Dave, I'm afraid."
It's been about ten years since I last watched 2001: A Space Odyssey, a movie which introduced me to the idea of science fiction films saying more about the time they were made than the time they sought to portray (this theory put forth in the lamented Guilty Children van by Wallace M. Kemp in 1991).There is a speech by Arthur C. Clarke on the DVD, delivered to a group of bored-looking movie types in Los Angeles in 1968. It's fascinating, and reveals the type of enthusiastic visionary who inspires people rather than freaks them out.
Speaking of freakouts, the journey Beyond the Infinite in the movie shows its age, making today's viewer think that Jupiter is merely a gateway to the iTunes Visualizer. Still, the gradual unglueing of HAL remains very powerful, and the Dawn of Man sequence makes me look forward to monoliths showing up in my life, justifying violence as an essential learning tool.
posted
by Marty Barrett at Tuesday, October 18, 2005
2 Comments:
Sorry for not commenting sooner. I visit your site 3 times a week. That picture from 2001: A Space Odyssey scares the shit out of me. I never liked the end of that movie. A giant baby staring at me, yeah . . . that's the image I want as I drowse to sleep tonight - oh wait, Aimée. My bad. By the way, I used to have a quote from that movie on my Mac classic as the "beep" when things went wrong. It said "I'm sorry Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that." Pretty cool right? Well, sort of anyway. O.K. not. Anyway, much love from the east coast, currently free from natural disasters (unless you live in Taunton.)
"Like we always do around this time."
Looking forward to December.
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