movies

From Ape to Angel: Even After More Than 50 Years, 2001: A Space Odyssey Can Still Amaze

/ Dave Price / Leave a comment

Since its debut in 1968, science-fiction enthusiasts and fans of great films have been debating the meaning of the epic movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, a joint project from renowned movie director Stanley Kubrick and famed novelist Arthur C. Clarke.

That’s why many of them were hoping with the 2018 release of his book, Space Odyssey: Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke, and the Making of a Masterpiece, which celebrates the enigmatic film’s 50thanniversary, author Michael Benson would finally provide definitive answers to their questions.

However, despite years of researching, Benson readily admits he still isn’t certain exactly what Kubrick and Clarke were trying to say in their “implicit rather explicit” film.

“It is a masterwork of oblique visceral and intuited meanings which permits every viewer to project his or her own understanding on it. And that’s an important reason for the film’s enduring power and relevance,” Benson says.

In 1968, Kubrick claimed he wanted audiences “to pay attention with their eyes” as they viewed his epic, evolutionary journey of humans from “ape to angel.

”The director likened his and Clarke’s work more to a painting than a regular film, an idea solidified by the fact the 142-minute film contains less than 40 minutes of dialogue. The dialogue-free imagistic story telling is a non-verbal, more akin to a musical masterpiece than a typical film” Benson writes in the forward to his 497-page opus.

When it was released 50 years ago, the film was initially dismissed as incomprehensible. But it quickly found favor with hipper elements of the Baby Boom generation, who were looking to drugs and ancient Eastern philosophies to take them on an inner journey and viewed the film as a similar attempt to grasp the complexities of an even more mind-boggling universe.

Soon it began receiving critical praise as well. Today, it is regarded as one of the greatest and most influential films ever made. 2001 was named the number 1 science fiction movie of all-time by the American Film Institute (AFI). It was also listed as number 15 on the AFI’s “100 Years, 100 Movies” list. In 1991, the film was deemed “culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant” by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.

Now I don’t pretend to be an expert on 2001, but I have seen the film a half-dozen times in my life, first as a 16-year old when it was released and most recently as a 66-year-old at a recent viewing at the Smithsonian Museum of American History which was followed by an engaging, thought-provoking talk by Benson.

So, after five decades, what do I feel certain in saying about the film?

First, as its title implies, it is a saga about a journey, one loosely informed by Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey, a sequel to his equally famous The Iliad. While The Iliadis about the fall of Troy, The Odysseyconcerns the 10-year, action-packed journey of one of the greatest surviving Greek warriors, Ulysses, as he struggles to return to his kingdom in Ithaca. But while Homer’s tale was bound by the limited knowledge of the ancient world, 2001tackles the vastness of interplanetary, interstellar, and intergalactic space with a fantastic adventure encompassing 400 million years of human evolution from howling apes discovering that bones could be weapons of death to the fictional rebirth of a sole surviving space explorer as a new superhuman “star child.”

Other borrowings from Homer abound in the film. For example, the astronaut hero is named Dave Bowman, a not-so-subtle reference to the fact the Ulysses used a bow and arrows to vanquish the suitors for his wife Penelope when he finally made it home.

But the greatest homage to Homer is the fact that the eerily calm-speaking, yet decidedly evil rogue super-computer Bowman must “kill” in the film is represented by a glaring single eye, echoing the central characteristic of the mighty, one-eyed Cyclops Ulysses must overcome in his journey.

There is no question that Kubrick and Clarke were determined to offer their story of human evolution in mythic terms and were steeped in the ideas of author Joseph Campbell’s seminal work The Hero with a Thousand Faces. In his book, Campbell contends that rite of passage for any mythological hero encompasses “separation-initiation-return,” a sequence which perfectly captures the tale of both Ulysses and Bowman.

Much of the mystery of the movie comes from the giant black monoliths – the first seen in the opening scene with the apes. Another black monolith, later discovered buried on the moon, proves the finding that launches Bowman and his fellow astronauts (who like Ulysses’ men do not survive) on their incredible journey to Jupiter and beyond. Here, I concur with the belief the monoliths are the creations of a super-alien race, which like the overlord gods of ancient Greek legend, has continued to have a hand on affairs on Earth.

Of course, the biggest impact of the film rests in its visually spellbinding scenes, which can still astound today. From the disturbing appearance of the murderous apes to the various spaceflights to the lobotomization of HAL-9000 (‘I’m sorry Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that”) to the final strange, abstract “Star Gate” sequence where Bowman ages, only to finally materialize as an ethereal, floating fetus, the film offers an experience which has yet to be duplicated even with our modern technological advances.

There is no question 2001deals with some of the major issues of modernity including evolution, the benefits and perils of technology, artificial intelligence, space exploration, and the concept of God. However, the film poses more questions than it answers.

In fact, the lasting brilliance of Kubrick’s and Clarke’s creation is it allows us to make our own decisions of meaning, much as in our actual lives we must weigh the possibility of human transformation through technology against the warnings of the dangers of that same technology.

Therein lies much of the disagreement about the film. Some viewers regard the film – especially its ending – as an optimistic statement of humanity. Others argue the film is a pessimistic account of human nature and humanity’s future.

But in the end, this is exactly what Kubrick desired from his masterpiece.

In 1968, he told a Playboy magazine interviewer: “You’re free to speculate as you wish about the philosophical and allegorical meaning of the film – and such speculation is one indication it has succeeded in gripping the audience at a deep level – but I don’t want to spell out a verbal road map for 2001 that every viewer will feel obligated to pursue or else fear he’s missed the point.”

And so, if its first 50 years are an indication, it appears that unlike Ulysses’ travels in the ancient Odysseywhich did finally conclude, the journey depicted in 2001: A Space Odysseywill continue as long as there are questioning humans on Earth, enticing planets to visit, and bright stars to light the sky.

If you have seen 2001: A Space Odysseywhat do you think of the film – is it optimistic about the future of humanity or a warning about the dangers of technology? What impact did it have on you as a viewer?

15 Facts About 2001You May Not Know

  • During the development of the movie, Kubrick and Clarke humorously referred to their project as How the Solar System Was Won, a play on the title of the 1962 western epic How the West Was Won.
  • The first working title of the film was Project: Space. Other temporary titles included Across the Sea of Stars, Universe, Tunnel to the Stars, Earth Escape, Jupiter Window, Farewell to Earth, Planetfall, andJourney Beyond the Stars.
  • Just before NASA’s Mariner 4spacecraft passed Mars in July 1965, a worried Kubrick attempted to take out an insurance policy with Lloyd’s of London – in case the actual discovery of extraterrestrial life ruined the plot of his movie.
  • Stanley Kubrick and lead actors Keir Dullea and Garyn Lockwood were all afraid of flying, with each traveling to England for the filming by ship.
  • Kubrick couldn’t come up with a way to depict his concept of how the film’s hero should make contact with extraterrestrial life, so he contacted noted author/astrophysicist Carl Sagan for help. Sagan said the best solution would be to suggest, rather than explicitly display, the alien beings.
  • Initially, for the opening scene with the apes, Kubrick auditioned actors and dancers to portray the chattering band. Finally, he decided to recruit 20 mimes for his apes. Two live chimpanzees were also used.
  • To portray as much reality as possible, Kubrick hired German-born designer Harry Lange, who had previously worked at NASA as the head of its futures projects section and Frederick Ordway, NASA’s former chief of space information systems and a scientist who helped develop the Saturn V rocket.
  • The scene where Bowman deactivates HAL, who is singing “Daisy Bell” was inspired by a visit Clarke made to Bell Labs in the early 60’s to see a demonstration of an IBM 704 computer singing the same song.
  • There has long been a belief that HAL is a sly reference to IBM, since each letter in the malevolent computer’s name is one alphabetical letter away from the letters in the computer company’s name.
  • HAL 9000 is often quoted as saying “Good morning, Dave,” but he never actually says that in the film.
  • Due to Kubrick’s perfectionism, 2001would up being $4.5 million over its original budget and was completed 16 months behind schedule.
  • Reactions to the premieres in Washington, D.C. and New York City were so negative that 241 people walked out of the New York showing, an exodus that reduced co-creator Clarke in tears.
  • Famous science fiction writers of the time were divided over the movie. Ray Bradbury and Lester Del Ray felt it lacked humanity, while Isaac Asimov and Samuel B. Delaney were greatly impressed.
  • Special photographic supervisor Douglas Trumball has said the total footage shot was about 200 times the length of the one-hour-and-42-minute film.
  • Some conspiracy theorists who believe the 1969 Apollo moon landing was faked contend that the footage of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin was actually directed by Kubrick using leftover filmed scenes from

O-My-God-Zilla: A Famed 50s Monster Makes Yet Another Comeback

/ Dave Price / Leave a comment

This article 1st appeared in The Prices Do DC

Get prepared DC and the rest of America – Godzilla, that Japanese king of all monsters, is back. And this month, it will be a double attack.

First up was the return of the original monster over the past 4 days. To celebrate the 60th anniversary of the movie’s release, Rialto Pictures showed its new restoration of Honda Ishiro’s uncut landmark 1954 film at the AFI Silver Theater and Cultural Center in Silver Springs.

The original film was chopped and butchered before it screened in America under the title Godzilla: King of Monsters in 1956. Actor Raymond Burr was inserted in the American version as the protagonist and only one hour of the original 98-minute running time was used. All the Japanese speaking roles were dubbed over. The restored version, named Godzilla: The Japanese Original, delivers the complete version with no dubbing.

For those few who might not be familiar with the Godzilla tale, it is the story of a radiation-breathing prehistoric monster, awakened after millenia by hydrogen bomb testing. Impervious to repeated shelling by the Japanese army, Godzilla wreaks havoc on a helpless Tokyo.

At the time, the monster – actually named Gojira in Japanese – was a visual metaphor for the feared effects of a nuclear attack and the aftereffects of radiation. It had specific resonance with Japan since they had been the scene of 2 nuclear attacks just 9 years before the movie’s release.

But the short run of the restored film just served as a prelude to the expected huge release of the remake of the original on May 16.  In that film, simply titled Godzilla, the famed monster is pitted against malevolent creatures, who bolstered by humanity’s scientific arrogance, threaten the existence of all humankind.

To celebrate the release of the new Godzilla (one of our favorite monsters of all-time and the only monster to be the central figure in a song by Blue Oyster Cult), here are a series of fun articles featuring the central figure of so many 50s and 60s nightmares.

Japanese are upset with supersized, fat American Godzilla. (from Science Fiction.Com)

In crossover ad, Godzilla chows down on a Fiat (from The New York Daily News)

Here’s what you all have been waiting for – Jawzilla: A Godzilla and Jaws trailer mashup. (from Indiewire)

Godzilla versus Smaug from The Hobbit: Who would win that dragon duel? (from The Wall Street Journal)

The ever increasing size of Godzilla and its implications for sexual selection and urine production. (from Deep Sea News)

Notes on Woodstock 2019 – Day 1

/ Dave Price / Leave a comment

First Contact 

Chatted with two fellow travelers this morning on the road to Woodstock 2019, the 3-day 50thanniversary of the historic music festival at the original site, at our Hampton Inn, which is about 30 miles from Bethel Woods. I assumed they were headed there when I saw they were both carrying clear plastic totes. Concert rules specified that you could only take such carrying cases onto the Museum and amphitheater grounds.

The two women were from Houston, Texas. One had been at the original festival (she had also seen the Beatles live, but that was another story) and she was bringing her best friend along to help relive the memories and make new ones.

However, she admitted to being a little worried. Festival officials had announced that no one would be allowed near the property, which is now listed on the national Historic Registry, unless they had a special pass permit, which had been mailed to ticket holders. There were three separate concerts scheduled for the three days and each required a special access permit in addition to a ticket. She had left Houston with three days of tickets, but only two permits. The one for the Ringo Starr concert hadn’t arrived. However, two days prior to the start of the festival Bethel Woods officials had emailed out a notice of what to do and where to goif you hadn’t received permits or tickets. “I won’t feel good until I have that permit in my hand,” she said. I gave her my card and said to contact me if she ran into any problems. She didn’t. So I assume she made it Woodstock without incident. 

On the Road Again.

Shortly after noon, Judy and I pulled out of our hotel, for the back-country ride to Woodstock. We SIRIed the directions. (How did I get anywhere before SIRI?).  To say the route was circuitous, winding, and up and down and up and down again does a disservice to all those descriptors. There were also long stretches where there was no sign of human habitation. I made note to find a different route back to the Hampton Inn after the concert. If was fun riding these roads in daylight, but I didn’t relish doing the same after midnight.

First Signs of Hippie Culture

About two miles from the site, we saw our first evidence of the reunion. A group of about 20 families, all dressed in the colorful garb of the late 60s and early ‘70s, had set up an impromptu campground. Many of them flashed us the peace sign as we drove slowly past the encampment.

Woodstock Straight Ahead Down This Road 

During the 1969 festival, there were reports of 17-mile long traffic jams, with thousands of music lovers abandoning their vehicles and walking miles to the hear the music, and in the parlance of the times “dig the vibes”. As we approached the single-entrance road, there were less than 17 cars in front of us. We pointed to our permit hanging from our mirror and the county sheriff officer waved us on through. We parked in Lot E-3. Woodstock 50 and whatever it would hold was only about a half-mile of walking away. As we ambled, we noticed the look of our fellow Woodstockians. For many of the women, it was peasant blouses, loose long shirts, fringe, and flowers-in-their-hair. For men, it was mostly tie-dye or music t-shirts. Judy was dressed as Judy always dresses in Judy style. I wore faded jeans and a white with blue and gold lettered t-shirt my two grandkids had given me bearing the slogan “I May Be Old, But St Least I Saw All the Good Bands”. Throughout the day, several festival-goers, when they saw my t-shirt offered up some variation of the comment, “Man, ain’t that the truth”.

And So It Begins

The first thing on the grounds we encountered was a small group showcasing a replica of a restored, painted VW bus they were calling The Woodstock Bus, which they had shipped from California for the festival. They had some great stories and I promised I would come back to interview them before the festival was over.

As we prepared to enter the Museum, I noticed Woodstock Museum curator Wade Lawrence instructing people where to go. I had met Wade on a Flower Power music cruise a few years ago. I had let him know we were coming to Woodstock 2019 to gather information for my next book and I wanted to chat with him if we got a chance. Wade acknowledged me, but quickly added, “I guess you can see that right now wouldn’t be the best time”. He was definitely correct.

The Afternoon

Since it was now after 2 p.m., Judy and I were hungry and we decided to make lunch our first stop. Now, the first festival in 1969 was plagued by food shortages, but it was clear that wouldn’t be the case 50 years later. In addition to the museum café, there were food booths set up all over the grounds. Much of the food offered had a festival-appropriate name. There was the Hendrix Hamburger, the Santana chicken sandwich, and the Hog Farm pulled-pork bowl. We were first joined at our table by a lone traveler who had decided to stop on his drive between his two homes – one in Martha’s Vineyard and one in Miami. While we were chatting, we were joined by a mother and her teen-aged son, who was a huge classic rock fan. He sported a Beatles t-shirt and admitted to being excited about seeing his first Beatle in performance. Then two couples from San Diego sat down with us. As we were offering our back stories, we discovered that one husband had worked for years in the U.S. Patent office which was located in our home community of Crystal City and he and his wife, who worked with AOL founder Steve Case, had lived in Old Town Alexandria, just 3 Metro stops from our current apartment. (Small world indeed, as they say)

After lunch, Judy and I spent 2 hours strolling the grounds and visiting the various booths and displays located there. There were two stages set up where live local music was performed throughout the afternoon. Judy spent much of her time in the artisan tents, while my favorite stop was the writer’s tent where I talked with a half dozen writers who had written books dealing in some way with Woodstock.

Of course, you can’t consider Woodstock without thinking rain and mud. I had mixed feelings about the rain. While it would be cool to say you survived the rain at Woodstock (even if it was 50 years later) and make for a good tale, I didn’t really want to be drenched before the concert. (I wasn’t worried about the show because our seats for Ringo were under cover). But of course, that would not be a decision for me decide. As we were talking to friendly recovering volunteers at the Recovery Unplugged tent (one was a former Jersey policeman), festival officials came by and announced that the weather was calling for a severe storm with hail to pass through the area in a short time, meaning that all tents should be pulled down and all items stored safely. Judy and I decided to seek shelter from the predicted storm by using this time to check out the actual museum, which we had visited once before several years ago. It was great then and the fact that we were actually seeing it again exactly 50 years to the week when the original festival was held, made it even more special this time. After we emerged, we discovered that the threatened, violent storm had only passed through the area as some brief showers. (I guess that “no rain, no rain, no rain, no rain” chant works better in the 21stCentury than it did in the previous one. After dinner (for me it was the Hendrix hamburger), we headed to the amphitheater for the big event of the first day – a concert by Ringo Starr and his All-Star Band, with opening acts the latest version of Blood, Sweat and Tears (which, in its second grouping had played at the original Woodstock festival) and Edgar Winter, who had performed two songs there with his deceased Texas bluesman brother, Johnny, in 1969. 

The Concert

Up first, Blood, Sweat and Tears provided the perfect dilemma for today’s fans of 1960s music – was it the songs or the original artists performing them that we most loved. There is not one member of BS&T who played at Woodstock and on their initial records now in the band. However, with today’s powerful, sophisticated sound systems, many of the songs sound much better live now than they did back then. That was definitely the case with BS&T, who I first saw in the fall of 1969, and on this night, recreated the performance from their set at the original Woodstock. For me, that meant they played two of my favorite Blood, Sweat and Tears tunes – “More and More” (their opener) and “I Love You More Than You’ll Ever Know”. (And, just in case you want to know my third unplayed-on-this-night favorite, it’s “I Can’t Quit Her”.

Edgar Winter, on keyboards and sax, was backed by a talented and versatile three-piece band, for his 45-minute set. One of the highlights was the classic “Tobacco Road” which he had played with his brother Johnny in 1969. Another was his brother’s signature song “Rock and Roll Hootchie Koo,” which Edgar introduced by saying, “here’s a song my brother would be playing about right now if he were here tonight”. 

Finally, it was Ringo ‘s turn. And I mean, really, what’s to say. He’s a Beatle, one of the only two remaining with us on Earth. He’s 79 years old, but you would never know it from his energy on stage. And he’s Ringo Starr and all that name implies. For more than a decade, Ringo has been touring with friends in various configurations of his All-Star Band. The group plays tunes Ringo sang with the Beatles, a few of his solo hits, and songs the members of his current lineup made famous in their own groups. Here is his set list for Woodstock 50:

Matchbox

It Don’t come easy

Evil ways

Rosanna

Pick Up the Pieces

Down Under

Boys

Don’t Pass Me By

Yellow Submarine

Black Magic Woman

You’re Sixteen 

Anthem

Work to Do

Oye Como Va

I Wanna Be You’re Man

Who Can It Be Now?

Hold the Line

Photograph

Act Naturally

With A Little Help From My Friends/Give Peace A Chance

And given the history of Woodstock, how could you find a better first-day closer than “With a Little Help from My Friends and Give Peace a Chance?” 

Heading to Woodstock – 50 Years On

/ Dave Price / Leave a comment

It was music and it was magic. It was a muddy mess elevated to modern-day myth. It was Melanie, Mountain, and a multitude of hippies, peaceniks, flower children, and freaks. It was mind-blowing and momentous, and it became a milestone for the ages. It was Woodstock. And I wasn’t there. 

Now, at the time, I had a good reason for not going.  Two-and-a-half weeks before Woodstock, the first three-day rock festival on the East Coast was staged just a few miles from Atlantic City, New Jersey, at the Atlantic City Racetrack. There, 50,000 fans attended the Atlantic City Pop Festival and I was one of them. During those three days, I saw Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Santana, Joe Cocker, Iron Butterfly, Canned Heat, and Joni Mitchell, all of whom were scheduled to perform at Woodstock. I also saw, among others, The Mothers of Invention, Procul Harum, the Byrds, B.B. King, Chicago, Three Dog Night, the Chambers Brothers, Dr. John the Night Tripper, and Little Richard. So, when friends from my South Jersey hometown asked me to join them on a journey to Woodstock, I declined. 

But I didn’t let the fact that I didn’t go to Woodstock keep me from writing about the festival just one month after it happened. Woodstock was the subject of my first freshman out-of-class essay I wrote in September of 1969 for Villanova University English Department Chairman Dr. Robert Wilkinson. Dr. Wilkinson deemed my essay cogent, informative, and insightful, but awarded me a grade of D since it contained two spelling errors and two grammatical mistakes. (He was a truly tough evaluator and I hope you will be easier on my books). Despite that crappy start, Dr. Wilkinson eventually became my life-long mentor and was one of the three main influencers (my mother Mary Louise Ivins Price and my high school journalism teacher Jack Gillespie being the others) who led me to enter the worlds of teaching and writing. 

And now, 50 years later, I am returning to Woodstock as a subject for my writing. The festival, in both its original year and its 50th anniversary, is serving as a main linking event in a three-book series I am writing examining the past, present, and future of the music we now call classic rock. In this book, Come Together: How the Baby Boomers, the Beatles, and a Youth Counterculture Combined to Create the Music of the Woodstock Generation, I’m attempting to guide readers through the post-World War II years of the rhythm and blues and country and western music that set the stage for rock & roll, the early Elvis years of rock, the Beatles invasion of America, the psychedelic ’67 Summer of Love, a tumultuous 1968, and the historic festival at Woodstock one year later.  

The next book in the series, What’s That Sound? –  25 Genres and 50 Artists Who Helped Make the Music of the Woodstock Generation will pick up the story at the three-day anniversary celebration held in 2019 at the site of the original Woodstock festival. Then we’ll explore the music of artists who performed at the Woodstock music festival, the Atlantic City Pop Festival, and later in the ’70s, all of which led to the creation of what we today call classic rock. The final volume – tentatively titled Rock of Agers: Why Do the Classic Sounds of the Woodstock Generation Continue to Resonate So Loudly Today? – will show you how you can experience the entire classic rock story by sailing on four floating Woodstock-festival-like music-themed cruises. The book then offers six chapters examining the variety of ways the sounds and legacy of classic rock are being passed on to new listeners.  

So start saving your money. I think the books will be worth buying and I hope you will, too.