New Hollywood Series: 2001: A Space Odyssey

New Hollywood Series:
The year 1968 is recognized as the start of the period sometimes called the Golden Age of American cinema. Whether that label is true is debatable, but it was a unique and special period of time between 1968 and 1980 where filmmakers had more control over their work than in any previous generation of filmmakers since the pre-studio era.

By 1968, the old studio system that had been in power throughout the 1940s and 50s was dead, ownership of the film studios was changing and there was an emerging independent film scene, although it would not be commercially viable for a couple more decades.

This time is often referred to as New Hollywood and it was a period that saw the emergence of filmmakers like Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg, Peter Bogdanovich, George Lucas, Sydney Lumet, and William Friedkin, among others. The films of this crowd were marked by innovative film techniques and a willingness to push boundaries of sex and violence while also making deeply personal films. The filmmakers were products of the counter-culture generation and they carried the revolutionary spirit into the cinema.

Throughout the year of 2008 we’ll be taking a close look at the films from the New Hollywood era here on Maverick at the Movies, celebrating the 40th anniversary of this extraordinary period of American film making.

There are filmmakers who got their start during this period who are not often considered New Hollywood, but nonetheless made films that share New Hollywood traits and have continued to impact contemporary film. This is especially true in the horror genre where Wes Craven, Tobe Hooper, George A. Romero, and John Carpenter all made significant contributions to cinema but working outside of the mainstream system.

One filmmaker whose work from this period is extremely influential was Stanley Kubrick. Films like Dr. Strangelove: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, Spartacus, and Lolita, were released ahead of the New Hollywood movement but established some of the trends and auteur attitudes of their films.

The year 2008 marks the 40th anniversary of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. With the recent passing of screenwriter Arthur C. Clarke and the continued influence of the film, today’s episode of Maverick at the Movies is dedicated entirely to this film.

The Score:
Overture: Atmospheres (Gyorgy Ligeti)
Title Music: Also Sprach Zarathustra (Richard Strauss)
Music is a key way 2001 links old and new Hollywood. The film opens with an overture played over a black screen. Overtures were popular in classic Hollywood epics like Lawrence of Arabia, but Kubrick’s film puts it over a black image and chooses sounds that are creepy and do not establish a theme that is carried throughout the film. The film does use a big orchestral sound, which was largely done away with in the early years of New Hollywood and would not see a return until Star Wars in 1977.

From Earth to the Moon: The Blue Danube (Johann Strauss)
This music is used in scenes of space travel and gives a sense of beauty and wonder to the images. It contrasts with the scenes later in the film that have little or no sound, where space becomes a cold, empty, and dangerous place. But for now it’s full of wonder.

TMA-1: Lux Aeterna (Gyorgy Ligeti)
This piece starts out with an innocent sound but by the end it builds to distortion and becomes frightening and the first indication that something may go wrong. The piece also has a spiritual or religious component to it, embodied by the use of choir, that supports some of the themes of spiritual awakening in the film.

Discovery: Adagio (Aram Khachaturian)
This piece scores the music for space travel and is astoundingly similar to music by Jerry Goldsmith in Alien and James Horner in Aliens.

Star Gate: Requiem for Soprano, Mezzo Soprano, Two Mixed Choirs, and Orchestra (Gyorgy Ligeti)
Star Gate II: Atmospheres (Gyorgy Ligeti)
Transfiguration: Also Sprach Zarathustra (Richard Strauss)
The music of 2001 exits the same way it came in with Ligeti and Strauss. Stargate and Stargate II take us through the hell of spiritual and intellectual growing pains experienced by our protagonist; some of Kubrick’s visuals in the these scenes are akin to what he later did in The Shining, although to a very different end. The visuals get continuously more abstract and the music supports those visuals with rising dissonance.

The music selection bookends the film, taking a challenging film and making it more accessible by appealing to traditional storytelling principals. The use of Strauss’ music is interesting to the ending; "Also Sprach Zarathustra" is adapted from Friedrich Nietzsche’s work. One of Nietzsche’s key ideas was that a new breed of human being, the ubermensch or super people, would rise and lead humanity into a more enlightened age; the use of Strauss' interpretation of Nietzsche melds with the final images of the star baby.

Final Thoughts:
2001: A Space Odyssey has influenced nearly every major science fiction and fantasy film since its release from Star Wars and Alien to Star Trek: The Motion Picture and The Matrix, and for that reason alone it is worth viewing by film and science fiction aficionados. Concepts like hibernation, artificial intelligence, and realistic space travel were presented in this film in ways that have been alluded to, imitated, and downright ripped off ever since.

2001 represents an honest attempt to make an intelligent, pure science fiction film and the picture is able to reach into the possibilities of the genre. While many science fiction films deal with fantasies of intergalactic politics and warfare, the issue truly central to the genre is the relationship between humans, their civilization, and technology, and this is where 2001 shines. Spanning from the dawn of humanity to a future where humans take the next turn in their evolution, 2001 establishes themes of dehumanization and mechanization and a uses deep and sometimes abstract symbolism to take humanity to a new level where it is reaches a new beginning.

2001: A Space Odyssey demands a lot from its viewers and those who are willing to engage the film will be rewarded. It may take a second or third viewing to understand the film and even those who have viewed it multiple times debate the picture’s ultimate meaning. But what 2001 proves is that film can be a medium for serious intellectual and entertaining expression.