justdrew wrote:compared2what? wrote:8bitagent wrote:justdrew wrote:I just like to mention there's also this guy named Arthur C. Clark ...
... it's not really a movie version of the Arthur G. Clarke book
I just wanted to get his name down spelled right once: Arthur C. Clarke
here's something I hadn't realized:
It [the book] was developed concurrently with Stanley Kubrick's film version and published after the release of the film. The story is based in part on various short stories by Clarke, most notably "The Sentinel" (written in 1948 for a BBC competition but first published in 1951 under the title "Sentinel of Eternity"). For an elaboration of Clark and Kubrick's collaborative work on this project, see The Lost Worlds of 2001, Arthur C. Clarke, Signet., 1972.
Sentinel of Eternity deals with the discovery of an artifact on Earth's Moon left behind eons ago by ancient aliens. The object is made of a polished mineral and tetrahedral in shape, and is surrounded by a spherical forcefield. The first-person narrator speculates at one point that the mysterious aliens who left this structure on the Moon may have used mechanisms belonging "to a technology that lies beyond our horizons, perhaps to the technology of para-physical forces."
For millennia (evidenced by dust buildup around its forcefield) the artifact has transmitted signals into deep space, but it ceases to transmit when the astronauts who discover it breach the forcefield. The narrator hypothesises that this "sentinel" was left on the moon as a "warning beacon" for the possible intelligent and spacefaring life that might develop on Earth.
This quotation illustrates the idea, and its ramifications:
"It was only a matter of time before we found the pyramid and forced it open. Now its signals have ceased, and those whose duty it is will be turning their minds upon Earth. Perhaps they wish to help our infant civilization. But they must be very, very old, and the old are often insanely jealous of the young."
In the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, the operation of the sentinel is reversed. It is the energy of the sun, falling for the first time on the uncovered artifact, that triggers the signal that creatures from the Earth had taken the first step into space.
Typo! We regret the error.
Apart from Mr. Arthur C. Clarke, there are three instances of Kubrick actively working with the author's whose work he's adapting that spring to my mind, in all of which he made significant alterations to (or actively subverted) aspects of the original material, with or without the author's consent or public endorsement.
For example, despite what the credits and all parties involved have to say about it, in my view, it's simply not possible that Nabokov wrote the screenplay for the 1962
Lolita. Or that he viewed it as more than very tenuously related to anything he ever authored or conceived of, even. Because that really would be like pigs flying, it's so wholly outside of the scope of his verifiable habits and characteristics. And besides that, it's tremendously altered both in theme and substance. As is
The Shining. As is
A Clockwork Orange.
IIRC, Stephen King was very vocal about his objections to the movie. I know that Anthony Burgess has expressed some dissatisfaction with
ACO, too, but don't remember if he did it at the time of the film's release or not. At the time, anyway, Nabokov professed to be happy with the way the movie turned out. And he may have been. But as noted, there's just no chance that it could have been in any capacity other than: As a fan of the movies and vision of Stanley Kubrick. Because artistically speaking, it's got practically nothing to do with his novel.
So....You know, I'm pretty sure that from
Dr. Strangelove onward, all Kubrick's movies were adaptations. Though I've never read the material that
Dr. Strangelove,
Full Metal Jacket, or
Eyes Wide Shut are based on, and so cannot say exactly how heavily adapted. But for the ones I have read, including
2001, the only way the novels are an aid to understanding the movie is as potential indicators of what parts were so inherently incompatible with Kubrick's worldview that there was nothing even he could do to wrestle them into conformity with it, and was just forced to leave them out.
He was a director who was very particular about detail, and famously insistent on using his movies to say and do solely and exclusively what he felt there was to be said and done, as well as famously stubborn in remaining completely impervious to all other considerations. So it's usually a pretty safe bet that looking for an elaboration of any of his work in any part of the books they're based on that he chose not to include isn't going to be much of an aid to understanding it.
I apologize for being so dogged about something so picayune. Those movies are very personally valuable to me. So I'm personally passionate about them. But I wouldn't really argue with anyone who pointed out that was my personal problem, and not necessarily relevant to anyone else.
