The Odyssey 1997 Film
Nancie Fazzari
"You are like a cluster bomb that explodes in a thousand different ways at once,'' the heroine is told in "Love Always.'' As opposed to a cluster bomb that doesn't? I dunno. This movie is so bad in so many different ways you should see it just to put it behind you. Let's start with the dialogue. Following are verbatim quotes: * "Someday you'll love somebody with all the intensity of the Southern Hemisphere.'' * "There's a Starbuck-free America out there!'' * "To be young and in love! I think I'm gonna head out for some big open spaces.'' * "Like sands in an hourglass, these are the days of our lives. That's the way the cookie crumbles.'' * "Watch your back.'' And my favorite, this advice from the heroine's girlfriend (Moon Zappa), as she sets out on her hitchhiking odyssey across America: "Follow your intestines.'' Does Jude Pauline Eberhard, the writer and director, intend these lines to be funny? Does this film belong in one of those funky festivals where they understand such things? Alas, I fear not. "Love Always'' is sincere in addition to its other mistakes.
The movie tells the story of Julia Bradshaw (Marisa Ryan), an intrepid San Diego woman who finds herself in a series of situations that have no point and no payoff, although that is the screenplay's fault, not hers. Early in the film, for example, she goes to the racetrack and her horse comes in, and she says "Yes!'' and rides her bike home along the beach, and we never really find out why she was at the track, but no matter, because before long the film goes to visit an amateur theatrical and we see an entire "rooster dance,'' from beginning to end, apparently because film is expensive and since they exposed it, they want to show it. The rooster dance also has nothing to do with the film, which properly gets under way when Julia receives a postcard from her onetime lover Mark, asking her to come to Spokane so he can marry her. This information is presented by filling the screen with a big closeup of the postcard, which Julia then reads aloud for us. Soon we find her in the desert with a bedroll on her back, posing photogenically on the windowsill of a deserted house so that interesting people can brake to a halt and offer her rides.
Her odyssey from San Diego to Spokane takes her via a wedding in Boston. That's a road movie for you. At one point along the way she shares the driving with a woman who is delivering big ceramic cows to a dairy. After Julia drops a ceramic calf and breaks it, she drives the truck to Vegas to get another calf, but when she gets there, the ceramic cow lady's husband tells her the dairy canceled the order, so Julia wanders the Strip in Vegas, no doubt because the Road Movie Rule Book requires at least one montage of casino signs.
Back on the road, Julia meets a band of women in a van. They are the Virgin Sluts. They dress like models for ads for grunge clubs in free weeklies in the larger cities of smaller states. She is thrilled to meet them at last. She also meets a make-out artist, a sensitive photographer, and a guy who is convinced he has the movie's Dennis Hopper role. On and on her odyssey goes, until finally she gets to Spokane, where she finds out that Mark is a louse, as we knew already because he didn't send her bus fare.
"Kubrick changed with 2OO1, once and for all, the genre of science fiction - it is a philosophical film - Kubrick takes a bow to the unknowable creator of the Universe. And the more intelligent a person, the clearer it is, that there is so much more that we dont understand. Kubrick expressed great respect in 2OO1 and what is so interesting is that when the film came out, people over forty could not deal with it, generally speaking. Whilst young men made the film into a success".
Jan Harlan, in conversation with the author, 2016
That happened to me as well when I was 15. I didn't realize this until years later, but seeing "2OO1: A Space Odyssey" in 70mm with six-track stereophonic sound back in 1978 in Copenhagen turned out to be an experience which has stayed with me ever since. I was fascinated with the story, which at first didn't make much sense, but it inspired my appetite and curiosity sufficiently to go and see it again the following day. In the following 40 years I must have seen it between 30 and 35 times. At least! Maybe even more. "2OO1" has been a constant source of inspiration. The music. The photography. The dialogue. The mystery. The special effects. A talking Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer (named HAL). It's a great film, because - as Director Terry Gilliam says:
It is a great conversation piece. Everyone who has seen it seems to have an opinion about it. This text summarizes some of the countless details about Stanley Kubrick's film which I have come across since, with special focus on the photography and projection technicalities.
Go toStanley Kubrick's "2OO1: A Space Odyssey" in Super Panavision 70
Stanley Kubrick's "Journey Beyond the Stars" was announced by MGM's President Robert H. O'Brien, in 1965, and in December the same year, photography began in England at Shepperton Studios and MGM Borehamwood. Originally Kubrick wanted to shoot 2OO1 in the wide-screen format of 1,85:1. In one of their countless technical discussions, Cinematographer Robert "Bob" Gaffney talked to Stanley Kubrick about other possibilities.
"I said, You've got to make it visceral. If you are going to put people in space there's nothing bigger than 70mm wide screen to do that and Cinerama is even better because it would be curved, and he agreed".
Bob Gaffney, in the book Stanley Kubrick by Vincent LoBrutto" Faber and Faber 1997
MGM and Cinerama Corporation jointly produced the film, and "2OO1" was filmed and photographed on 65mm film in Panavision's Super Panavision 70 system. Large film, large lenses and large cameras. Generally two film standards were available to film makers: 35mm and 65mm film. 65mm film is between 3,5 and 4 times larger than 35mm film in negative area, and offers unprecedented sharpness, which adds to the illusion of reality. The negative is approximately 48,5 x 22mm in size, and each frame is 5 perforations tall compared to 4 perf on 35mm film. 65mm is used in the cameras, which is then printed onto 70mm stock, which is used cinema projectors. The extra 5mm of width is added to make room for the magnetic oxide strips, which carried the sound. Super Panavision 70 was the "roadshow" exhibition standard of the 1960s.
Stanley Kubrick typically used his own film cameras and lenses on his films. "2OO1" was different, as he had no 65mm cameras, and had to rent equipment from Panavision, through Samuelson Film Service in London. "He took Panavison equipment on sufferance I bet he and [Panavision founder] Bob [Gottschalk] did not discuss anything at any time about the film he would have dealt with Bobs staff rather than meet him; I think I could be pretty sure of that. And, for "2001" Stanley said, I shall want the equipment for about four weeks beforehand, and I shall want alternative lenses at each focal length. And I will choose which Im going to use. That meant equipment was going to be supplied through us. Now you would expect to supply the equipment free of charge for a week thats enough time normally! to check out all the lenses, all the focus scales, everything; every kind of check that you want to make. But Stanley wanted it for four weeks. And I suppose Bob approved: Well, it would still be good to have a Stanley Kubrick picture...whatever kind of a sod he is, it will be prestigious to have a Stanley Kubrick picture...shot in Panavision 65mm. Anyway, thats how we came to do "2001". It became an iconic film."
Sir Sydney Samuelson, in conversation with the author, 2013With one exception in 35mm and mono sound, I have only seen "2OO1" in the original 70mm 6-track version in the cinema. In later years, I have also seen the digital version on a couple of occasions. I still prefer the 70mm version, and especially, first release prints from 1968/69 if possible. The first 70mm prints are by far the sharpest, and most enjoyable. Every detail is visible on the big screen. The drawback of seeing those first release 70mm prints these days are the missing colors, which have faded over the years. The color layers of Eastman Kodak's print 70mm stock from those days seem to lose their colors unevenly. The yellow and cyan dyes disappear faster than the magenta layers, and the overall image looks pink, or sometimes brown.
Normally 70mm prints were contact printed from the original camera negative, creating the best possible exhibition prints. This is a very risky procedure, if the negative is damaged during printing. If this happens, replacements must be retrieved from an internegative copy, and thus making the print a little more grainy. Many 70mm films were first generation prints in the '60s, but this did introduce a lot of wear and tear on the priceless 65mm negatives. This was especially noticeable on the most popular titles like "2OO1: A Space Odyssey", "Lawrence of Arabia", "My Fair Lady" and many more, which were printed several hundred times.
When Film Historian Robert Harris restored "Lawrence of Arabia" and "My Fair Lady", also photographed in Super Panavision 70 nearly 30 years ago, the negatives almost fell apart when they opened the film cans. It is essential to keep the original camera negatives and sound elements safe. Instead of using the original camera negative, laboratories have now made copies of the negative, and used those to make the prints. This would be the normal laboratory procedure today:
1) Cut edited original camera negative (OCN).
2) Copy OCN to 65mm 5 perf Interpositive (IP).
3) Copy IP to 65mm 5 perf Internegative (IN).
4) Copy IN to 70mm 5-perf release prints.
Super Panavision has a wide aspect ratio (AR) of 2,21:1, which means a 22,1 meter wide screen would be 10 meters tall if projected properly. 35mm film is a little different and with a different AR of 2,35:1 / 2,39.1. The largest image area on 35mm film is almost square in shape. In order to present "2OO1" in general release, it was necessary to make a 35mm IN reduction from the 65mm OCN master. The procedure of copying the OCN mentioned earlier was necessary for the general 35mm release in cinemas not equipped for 70mm projection. A special lens from Panavision reduced the "flat" 65mm negative to 35mm and introduced an "anamorphic compression" on the film print to make it fit the square area. When viewed on the rewind table, "2OO1" looked squeezed, and a special projection lens was needed in the cinema to de-compress the picture on the screen. The same principle known as CinemaScope.
Go to "2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY" Production Information
In an ideal world the audiences would be able to see the entire image area on the screen, however, since "2OO1" was produced in 70mm Cinerama, and was shown on the big curved screen all over the world, some of the image area was cropped. If any film is shown on a flat screen, most of the image is shown. However, because geometry of projection dictates that a masking plate in the projector is required to follow the curvature of the screen, the masking plate needs to be butterfly shaped. If not, the light would spill out on the black masking, ceiling and floor and distract the audience. But that was not the only problem as Director Douglas Trumbull will explain:
More in 70mm reading:
Stanley Kubrick's "2OO1: A Space Odyssey" in Super Panavision 70
Cinema Retro's Coming Issues
It's All in the Writing. Jan Harlan in Denmark
Danish version of this article
The Original Reserved Seat Engagements Of 2001: A Space Odyssey
Full credits for "2001:A Space Odyssey"
2001: a space odyssey Campaign
Internet link:
"The film was shot in Super Panavision for projection on the curved Cinerama screen but the unique format wasn't accounted for during the years of production. During the entire production, we never once viewed footage on a curved screen or in the format. So, in a sense, the movie was not made with a curved screen in mind. In some of the Cinerama theatres there were a serious projection problem, because the projection booths were mounted up too high and you had a horrible sort of curved, keystoning effect: the titles would come out badly curved and it looked very distorted".
Douglas Trumbull, interview in Cinefantastique June 1994