At an expansive new exhibition in
New York, the director’s defining science fiction opus is explored in detail with help from those who made it with him
Though the calendar reads 2020 we’re still waiting for the future promised in 2001. Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film, created concurrently with Arthur C Clarke’s novel, is recognized as one of the most influential motion pictures ever made, endlessly scrutinized from both a story and production point of view. Both avenues are open to New Yorkers and visiting tourists from 18 January through 19 July at the Museum of the Moving Image adjacent to the Kaufman Astoria Studios in Queens.
Envisioning 2001: Stanley Kubrick’s Space Odyssey is an in-depth examination of how the New York-born director’s desire to make “the proverbial ‘really good’ science fiction film” (as Kubrick wrote to Clarke in a letter preserved under glass in the exhibit) led to “the ultimate trip”, as MGM’s marketing department called the movie once young people seized upon the heady, ambiguous film that exploded into sound and light to go “beyond the infinite” in its most notable sequence.