2001: A Space Odyssey is hailed as one of the greatest science fiction movies of all time but the film didn’t pop into existence from a vacuum in Stanley Kubrick’s mind.
Firstly it wasn’t the first ever space movie. Kubrick did not invent the genre, he added to it.
Secondly the screenplay was written by two people. Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke.
Thirdly the visuals of the film are said to have been influenced by a 1960 short documentary called ‘Universe’ and a 1964 Film by the New York World’s Fair ‘To the Moon and beyond’.
Fourthly one of the unique features of 2001 is the silence. For those of you who have never seen it, there is no dialogue in the first 25 minutes and the last 23.
Now silence isn’t a new movie technique. Silence is an ancient movie technique, in fact it was the original style movies came out in. There are hundreds if not thousands of silent movies that predate 2001: A Space Odyssey
Finally, classical music. Arguably the most iconic scene in the movie contains a song first composed in 1896. So we can count that as old too!
So the individual components are not 100% original themselves.
But what makes 2001: A Space Odyssey a cornerstone of cinema is that together, as a mix, the parts presented the world with something wholly unique.
Which is great news for the artist in my opinion because this means saving yourself from agonising over thinking way outside the box.
As Kubrick has shown, you can achieve Hollywood superstardom by staying within the box and remixing.
Thomas Duggan 