- 2 months ago
Variety hosted 120 Screening Series in honor of its 120th anniversary, presented in Laser by Barco, showcasing 10 films that have shaped the last 120 years of storytelling. Each screening will be followed by a conversation with filmmakers, either involved in the featured film or creatively inspired by it, moderated by Variety senior artisans editor Jazz Tangcay.
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00:00And I just remember saying, there'll be flying cars, and I'll be like an old man with a long
00:07gray beard, like down to the floor, and like a cane. Like that was my concept of the future as
00:13an eight-year-old. Hi, and thank you so much for joining us.
00:30So for people who've been coming to the screening series, the one question I love asking is, can
00:35I get a show of hands for people who are watching this film tonight for the first time? There
00:40you go. David was curious. David wanted to know. I'm also curious how many of you first-time
00:45watchers understand the ending. What about people who've seen it? Raise your hands if
00:51you understand the ending. But have you read about the ending? That's because that's cheating.
00:56Why don't you explain this ending, or what your takeaway is on it?
01:01The thing is, okay, first of all, I can't believe this film's like almost 60 years old, but because
01:09it so holds up. But, you know, this was written in conjunction with Arthur C. Clarke, and it's
01:19kind of an amalgamation of Kubrick's original ideas and Clarke's musings, and then they incorporated
01:26some of Clarke's short stories and, and iterated on them. And they made a deal where Clarke can,
01:34at the same time as they were working on the film, wrote the novel. And so there are details in the
01:42novel that aren't in the film because Kubrick kept cutting things out and cutting things out and cutting
01:48things out. And in fact, after the initial release, I can't remember how many, how many cities, 10,
01:5420 cities, slowly rolling out the film, Kubrick put, brought the film back and cut another 17 minutes
02:02of scenes, finished scenes, out of the movie. And subsequently had his assistant burn the negatives
02:10of those 17 minutes so they'll, they'll never be seen ever again. And so he kept paring back
02:16explanatory dialogue and whatnot. But according to Clarke and according to Kubrick, you know,
02:23effectively the monoliths uplift evolution. And at the very end of the film, our hero, he meets the
02:33aliens, the aliens have evolved into a kind of pure energy. And they put him in a human zoo, where
02:39either he lives his whole life out or time is nonlinear. And at the end of his death, he sees a
02:46another monolith and, um, he touches it and he is transformed into what they call the star child,
02:53which is an evolved life form and sent back to earth to, we don't know, do what he thought it was,
02:59you know, a positive thing. Other people thought it was a doomed thing. There was also a whole subplot
03:04where there were, uh, space platforms with nukes on them. You can see them in a couple of shots early
03:10on in the film, actually. And what the star child does is neuters all of the nukes, uh, at the end
03:18of the film. But he thought that was too sort of similar to what he'd done in strange love. But he
03:23also contended that it didn't matter if you didn't understand the ending that is meant to be thought
03:28provoked, provocative, sort of like a Rorschach test. There you go. Amazing. How many people got that
03:34from this film? I mean, you know, this film, I fucking love it. I mean, it's in, it's one of
03:41my favorite movies of all time. I mean, that's why you're here tonight. Both of you love this film
03:44so much. Um, but I mean, this film really did change, you know, filmmaking from that point forward.
03:51It's, you know, infiltrated culture ever since. Um, Nicole, I'm curious to you, like, you know,
03:57what impact did it have on you after you first saw that film and how has it influenced your work
04:04ever since? Yeah. I mean, I was in high school when I first saw this and, um, obviously it had
04:09been out for a while, but it really, you know, it was one of those films when you see it for the
04:13first time and you're just imagining, first of all, what it's like. I wanted to be a fine artist
04:18in the beginning. And, um, to me, this film is like a piece of art. It's a piece of fine art.
04:23Um, unlike other films that he had done before. So I found it really fascinating when I was
04:28studying film to see the chronology of his work, especially, um, in terms of the storytelling
04:34and then getting to 2001 and creating something that was just a visual masterpiece. And then going
04:40back to like doing Barry, uh, Clockwork Orange, you know, after this. So I just, to me, Kubrick is,
04:47you know, he's too brilliant probably for his own, or was too brilliant for his own good in terms of
04:52that. He probably, I don't know what he should have done. He should have been a genetic engineer
04:57or something, but you know, he was just so hands-on. So when I studied the film and listened
05:02to, um, the professors talk about, you know, how he had been literally the minutia for every
05:09single department. I mean, basically he was the production designer, he was the cinematographer.
05:14So everybody that was there with him was like in his, you know, in his world and doing work
05:19with him. And even though he was very collaborative, he also had his mark on everything
05:26to such a, a fine point. So that was fascinating for me going into, into the field.
05:32What about for you? How has this film, 2001 impacted your work? I mean, I think we've seen,
05:38we see elements of it definitely in foundation. There's definitely a lot of elements in foundation.
05:42I mean, in terms of filmic influence foundation, uh, 2001 has the largest influence and, and,
05:51um, I remember when I first saw it, I think it was, uh, I was like eight or something when
05:57there was a re-release in 74. And, um, I don't know what my parents were thinking, taking me to it,
06:06but, uh, but, but I saw it and, and I remember in everyone was talking about it. And I remember
06:13in class the week after they said, we want you to write like a short essay, what you think the year
06:202001 will be like. And I just remember saying, there'll, there'll be flying cars and I'll be like
06:26an old man with a long gray beard, like down to the floor and like a cane. Like that was my concept
06:33of, of the future as an eight year old. One of the things about this film is that this is the kind
06:38of film that probably only happens. I mean, they happen very rarely and they happen kind of once
06:44in the career of not tour. And it's a kind of film that gets made when an auteur has, you know,
06:52enough clout, whether that's through box office or through respect that they can just push this
07:00thing, the Sisyphean thing up the hill and, and, and get it made and basically just say,
07:05fuck you to everyone. And, and, and it's so rare when that happens and, and sometimes they're
07:14spectacular and sometimes they're flouts. But I think I just, I just love when these sort of
07:19rarities, you know, come along and a couple of things blow me away about this film. First is there's
07:25no scores. It's all, you know, uh, existing classical music and the score is so bold and,
07:34and, um, or, or the music he chose is so bold. The visual effects are insane. It holds up today
07:42because it's all, it's all, well, there aren't, they're not really visual effects. It's, they're
07:46all practical. And there's so many things about it. I was just saying outside that, that we attempted
07:53to ape and foundation. And, you know, in the first episode, when the ship is sort of jumping,
07:59we kind of emulated the slit scan stuff that, that they do at the end of the thing. And they
08:04use some cloud tank stuff, which we also use some cloud tank stuff, but we also used a lot of
08:09miniatures for the ships. And I was just lamenting the fact that because this was shot on film,
08:14even as pristine as it looks film grade, hides imperfections. And so we shot foundation at 4k
08:21and we had giant miniatures. Some of our miniatures, you know, the ships were 10 feet high and things
08:27like that. And in 4k, everything looked like a miniature. It looked like a model. And so we
08:32said shitty. It looked like shit. And, and, and, and we had to dump like $2 million worth
08:39of model stuff. There's only like nine shots that still use a miniature because you just can't get
08:45away with that anymore. The film grain sort of hides that. But then there are other things that
08:50I was thinking about, like we have various zero gravity scenes. And nowadays it's relatively easy
08:56and procedural to do wire removal, right? That's not a big deal, but they couldn't do wire removal back
09:02then. So all those shots, when he's disabling Hal, I mean, every single shot is sort of painstakingly
09:08like the shots where he's floating, they would either, you know, put the camera upside down or
09:13flip it. And in every single one of these shots, the wires that are suspending him are just being
09:18hidden by his body. So for every single shot, they're recomposing the shots and hanging him or
09:23turning the camera on the side or turning the camera below him or above him. And the amount of time
09:28that that would take. The other thing that I'm not even sure how they did, having shot,
09:35done a lot of shooting with actors in space suits is, well, first of all, the actors get really hot
09:42and sometimes pass out. And they did in this film too, but they fog up the helmets. And so our space
09:51suits had like little air conditioners and fans in them, but they still fogged up. And we got to the
09:57point where, you know, we could shoot, you know, like 10 minutes and then they would all fog up. And so our
10:02visual effects supervisor just said, fuck it, take all the helmets out and we'll put the glass in, in visual
10:08effects. And I don't know how they did that. Or, or, or maybe they just shot 10 minutes at a time. I, I actually
10:14have no idea how they did it because.
10:16Well, don't forget that you could only shoot for like 10 minutes.
10:18Well, maybe, maybe.
10:19So that's why now we can shoot, that was film. So you had to reload.
10:22There were things they did that, that, yeah, that I'm just like, how the fuck? I'm just saying they,
10:26it must've taken so fucking long to do each of those shots. It's, it's amazing.
10:33Do you know how many days I can't remember? Does anybody know how many days they shot for? It was
10:36like 250 or something.
10:38Well, there you go.
10:39Right. So, I mean, you know, in that respect.
10:41Okay. Then we could have done that too.
10:42Right. I mean, in television we get, you know, maybe we're lucky if we get 25 to 35 days for
10:48a pilot. So, you know, it's not easy to compare it. So anyway, give yourself a break.
10:54I'm curious, Nicole, is there a scene for you? I mean, that opening sequence alone is just
10:59mind blown, but is there a sequence that stands out for you?
11:02You know, I mean, I think just because I see all the influences from, you know, that other
11:08filmmakers have gotten like Spielberg and Denis Villeneuve and, you know, just the, the lighting
11:14that they were able to do. And I know how hard that is to do for film and that they built
11:19it into the sets. And, you know, I saw pictures of some of the sets when I was studying it.
11:24And I mean, it's just mind boggling how huge they were and how intricate they were. Um, I think,
11:30I don't know, it's funny because it's very flat, but I love the way that the ship feels. Um, the,
11:38the, the, the Jupiter ship, just in terms of like how they were able to just shoot the entire ship
11:45and, and still create shape in the light. Um, and it had a lot to do with the production design,
11:51obviously. And then all of the colors that they were playing with. And that's really,
11:55really hard to do in film. I mean, we're kind of spoiled now because we watch digital all the
11:59time and we can play with colors and add colors and desaturate and saturate pinpoint things.
12:04But when you shoot in film and you're, you know, shooting with yellows and greens and reds and
12:09blues, it's so hard to get all of that and to have that projected and look beautiful. So I think that
12:17really across the board in the film kind of blew me away, but I do also love just the really simple
12:23white scenes as well. So, you know, it's just, I mean, there's too much, I, there's nothing that
12:28I don't like. So that's a really hard question. I can't imagine what it was like shooting back
12:32then, but like how easy is it to shoot on white to get, because that's so much texture and layer
12:38to it. Like talk a little bit about that. Well, there's also footprints that constantly have to
12:43be, I mean, they were wearing booties most of the time. So yeah. Yeah. But it's still a pain.
12:47Yeah. I mean, I think, I, I think, you know, shooting, uh, I mean, it's my biggest nightmare
12:52when I walk into a set or I go on a location scout and it's a white room. It's just like
12:58terrifying. So to be able to shoot something like this and like I was saying to give it
13:03shape is pretty incredible. Um, and I think, you know, definitely there's something to be
13:08said about shooting 65 millimeter and all of the texture that you get. I think if this had
13:13been shot digitally, I don't think it would be the same film. Definitely not. I can't even
13:17imagine in 1968 seeing something shot on 65 millimeter and projected in 70 millimeter.
13:22People's minds must have just been, they just probably didn't even know how to, how to watch
13:27it because it was probably so different to have that. I wish I could have been an adult. Yeah. In
13:32a theater watching it then. And I just think I would have left my body. Yeah. It's like the first
13:36time you see an IMAX, you know, it's just like, whoa. But the other thing that's, I mean, you know,
13:41interesting to me is like, so, so much of the film is practical, right? Which is astounding. But my
13:47favorite sequence probably still is the Donna Mann stuff just because it's, it's, it's just
13:53this tone poem where you, you understand it's so bold, but that wasn't really practical, which
14:02is also mind blowing. Cause that was all front projection for, first of all, that, I don't
14:07know if everybody understands that. Yeah. Explain front projection. I technically, I can't really
14:12tell everybody what it is, but it's, it's, it's, you're just, you're anyway, it's now we're used
14:17to rear projection. So it's like, basically they're just on a stage. They're honest. Yeah. All the,
14:23all the ape stuff was on a stage. They're in their costumes. They were all mimes and they, they filmed
14:29these plates in Africa. It's being projected from the front, but it's into a mirror. So it's like,
14:41I guess it's sort of like it's angular projection, but so all those backgrounds, so all, all the
14:47interactive light and everything. And the only thing that was interesting was if they got too close
14:51to the camera, they would, you would get the light coming from the projection. And, and, and it's
14:59really interesting that the, there's only two shots where you can actually see the light and it's in
15:04the reflection of the cheetah's eyes, which is really arresting, which you think that they did
15:11that on purpose. Exactly. And they didn't do it on purpose. That was a mistake, but it's really cool.
15:15What blows me away is that the, that sequence, which looks amazing, wasn't practical really.
15:24But, but again, like that, the front projection, you know, now everybody shoots on the volume if
15:28they're trying to do something like that and you cannot shoot wide shots on the volume. So you
15:32wouldn't be able to do this, but nobody would do front projection anymore. Well, they had 90 foot
15:36wide screens that they were shooting on. Everything he did is like no one would ever do again.
15:42That's why it looks so amazing. But it's so funny. Um, you know,
15:45I actually did a story with, on ILM and George Lucas was doing star Wars and he wanted to do
15:51something like he'd seen this and was like, I just need to do something a bit better than
15:55this. And the VFX on this wasn't. So that was the birth of, of ILM. And it's so ironic
16:00that he'd seen this. I mean, he's, he said he's inspired by this so many times, but yeah,
16:06but I, I just, it just blows my mind that how he and his associates even figured out
16:14how to do this.
16:16And he didn't, it's not like he had something that he had seen that he was like, Oh, I'm
16:20going to emulate, you know, what someone had done before. He just did this all in his
16:24crazy brain. He figured this out.
16:26There were a lot of tests, a lot of mistakes, a lot of, you know, all of the above.
16:31Yeah. But I mean, it's just like, just to think of all the different people and all the things
16:35that you had to figure out to make a film like this that long ago, it's, it's, it's mind
16:40boggling to me. Cause like we, some of this stuff we still can't even do as well.
16:44It's also interesting to me that the, you know, this was a mass ended up being a massive
16:48success, right? Making, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars, even, even back then.
16:54Right. And the leads, like you would expect that the leads from this film would go on
16:59and be in a bunch of other, and they're like, who are those guys? And, and, and they, they
17:05all had careers afterwards, but it was like in episodic TV, Banachek and stuff like that.
17:11And it was just like, what, why did we never hear? And when I agreed to do this, we watched
17:15it again with my wife and she was like, who the fuck are those guys? He could have anyone
17:19in the world.
17:19They're kind of, they're kind of caricatures of people in that time. I think, I think he
17:25was also kind of taking the piss out of them a little bit in terms of, you know, I should
17:28not talk about the directing part of it, but it is, there is like a, you know, people laugh
17:32too, because it's kind of goofy. And I'm wondering, you know, what it was like being in the audience
17:38then, because obviously everybody was maud and looked like that. And, you know, the way
17:42they were dressed and the way they acted and spoke. But when you watch it now, it's like
17:46really funny, you know, it's like, well, and the whole sequence in the space hotel.
17:50And there was like the product placement for Howard Johnson's and stuff like that.
17:54Yeah. And, and IBM and yeah, they've got the Hilton I saw.
17:58But isn't it crazy? Like, what is, what was this film like 1968 and obviously the years
18:05before that, just to get inside Stanley Kubrick's mind and like the computers, right. And to think
18:12of AI. I was just getting that. And also, and again, this was an original idea that he
18:20did in conjunction with Clark. And just, and, and just all the shit going on with Hal. I
18:27mean, we're, we're, it's happening right now. Yeah. It's, it's in the news every day
18:31or the Terminator movies. It's, it's just crazy to me that this was done that long ago. It
18:36was so far ahead of its time. And in some ways, Kubrick reminds me of Cameron, you know,
18:43who I've worked with. And Cameron is like better at, at, at the, all the HOD, the department
18:48heads jobs than they are. Like his, he's like such a sort of polymath. And Kubrick sort
18:53of reminds me of that. But just, just the, the world building and the future casting that
19:00he did is staggering to me. I think I don't, did you read the Vincent
19:04Labrudo book on him? No, no. It's kind of amazing if you guys love Kubrick. It's a,
19:09it's a wonderful book. And it's just like, he talks a lot about, you know, how, how tortured
19:14he was and how, you know, just like a true tortured artist. And when you, you know, and
19:19he didn't really make that many films and, you know, and just, it's fascinating to get
19:24into his mind, but he, he was never very happy, you know, even though he did such great
19:29work. And the last few months of his life, he had it. I remember someone telling me that
19:35it was working with him because I went to see the premiere of Eyes Wide Shut. Uh, and
19:40I remember thinking, this is the only time in my life I'm ever going to get, cause he
19:44died, but get to go to a premiere of a Kubrick film. And, and by that point he'd become like
19:50a real recluse, his refrigerator in the kitchen, just filled with happy meals from McDonald's
19:56and just crazy shit. But I also think, I also think you have that kind of brain. You
20:00make this kind of movie and then yes, he made a handful of movies after and, and they're
20:06amazing. Although nothing I think comes close to this. And I just think maybe his brain just
20:10kind of broke after this. I don't know. Or he couldn't top himself again, but it's so
20:15crazy. This was, he would only, he'd win one Oscar and it was for this film. He never won,
20:19was recognized by the Academy. But I think even as amazing as his subsequent movies are
20:26and the movies before are amazing, but I just think this film is just really singular. It
20:33just stands above all of his other work. And I love The Shining. Yeah. The level of just
20:39pushing the art and pushing the storytelling. I just don't think he did a film before or
20:44after they came close to this. I mean, it's like the, to me, the closest filmmaker to him
20:47is Terrence Malick. Yeah. In terms of, you know, obviously there's a lot of, you know,
20:52Tree of Life. Tree of Life is too, you know, Thin Red Line. Just like being able to jump
20:56to the different, through the different genres. And like you would think after doing something
20:59like 2001 that you would, let's make another space movie and instead you make Clockwork Orange.
21:04So it's just, it's fascinating like to sort of imagine what he was trying, like just how he
21:09was challenging himself to as a filmmaker. Well, I think to that, like, you know, we've sort of
21:14touched on it, but why do you think this film has lasted and resonated for this long with
21:20audiences, people discovering for the first time tonight, going away and they'll never
21:25stop thinking about it. And they'll start seeing, what's going to happen is you'll start watching
21:29movies and TV shows and you'll see references back to this and you'll start recognizing them.
21:35But I mean, I guess to that, yeah, why do you think this is? There's a phrase called an
21:40Ur-Myth. You know, an Ur-Myth is like a primal myth that is sort of beneath like all the other
21:46myths. And I think, I think there are films that function in that same way that they're
21:50just so forward thinking in its own way. It's not quite the technical achievement of this,
21:57but Blade Runner would be another example of, I think, also a science fiction film that didn't
22:02do initially well, but also has just become so influential. And, and I think if you look
22:08at certainly science fiction, um, writ large, it's almost impossible to get away from 2001
22:18and Star Wars and Blade Runner, but you don't get Blade Runner and Star Wars without 2001.
22:25Like they all go back to 2001 and there's, there's no antecedent for 2001. So part of it's that part
22:34of it's, it's just mind blowing and beautiful. And at the time it came out, people were obviously
22:38doing a ton of drugs and they, I mean, they, they were marketing it as, as 2001, the ultimate
22:44trip. And so people were obviously dropping acid and, you know, smoking a bowl or whatever.
22:49But, but, and I think that also led, you know, people have these sort of sense memories of like
22:56when that came out in the seventies and just getting wasted and, you know, talking about it. So I think
23:00that's, has an element to it as well. The technical achievements, I mean, you know, it's, it was
23:05interesting for my wife to watch it. Who's not a science fiction person. She found the movie really
23:10tense, like almost unbearably tense and scary and eerie. And some of it I think is due to the music
23:19that, you know, but also the lack of dialogue. There's also long stretches of silence. Like
23:25when the crew dies, the other three that are in cryostasis, they die. But, but if you think
23:31the way that a typical movie would unfold, you would also have like the remaining actors
23:36be like, Oh my God. And there would be sad music and that, you know, and they would have
23:40had backstories before that. He just elated all of that. He just kind of took all of the existing
23:48rules of film and just said, fuck you. Uh, which is amazing because it, and don't you
23:53wonder, and you wonder how he knew that space would be like that and so silent. And, you
24:00know, I've heard from people who have been in space and it is that it's just so quiet
24:06and it's, it is scary. You know, you think of like all the sort of violent noises that you
24:11hear when you're like, you know, watch spaceships take off, but it's like when you're there, it's
24:15just super quiet. I always wanted to be an astronaut by the way. Didn't happen.
24:19By the way, Nicole was, Nicole was supposed to work on the third season of foundation and
24:24turned me down for another project, but should never have done that. No, I'm just kidding.
24:31Another cool project.
24:32I mean, that's so amazing. Um, David, Nicole, I want to say thank you so much for sharing
24:37some insight into, uh, this film and thank you everybody for coming out tonight. Thank
24:43you to Barco and the team at variety and of course to Soho house.
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