Monday, March 24, 2008

Open the pod bay doors, please, Hal.

In memory of Arthur C. Clarke. It's a long clip, but worth it.

I saw this movie with my Dad at the drive-in, in a double feature with Fantastic Voyage. My Dad stayed up to watch Raquel Welch in FV, but fell asleep during this. I stayed awake, rapt, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Finally had to read the novel to get it.

HAL's staring red eye still gets to me.

4 comments:

Ada [The Duchess] said...

Very moving, and definetly worth seeing.

Thanks for the video.

Mutha said...

Holy Cats -- that's good stuff. It is not so much HAL's red eye for me as the profound silence and stillness that is throughout that movie. Great post.

Clowncar said...

Yes, it is, Adaora. Thanks for stopping by.

You hit it right on the head, Mutha. Those long, still, silent shots, so formally framed, really have a power to them. That shot of the mothership staring down at the pod in this clip looks so much like a child and a reprimanding parent. Or predator and prey.

Anonymous said...

I'd read the book first, long before I saw Kubrick's masterpiece so I knew what I was getting into, and then...damn. It was incredible. IS incredible. The eerie stillness of it all, the silence, and the frightening audacity of us as a species to think we're all alone in the night. (And yes that's a gratuitous Babylon 5 line but it still gives me chills too.)