Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: 2001: A Space Odyssey (Presented in 70MM)

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Topic: 2001: A Space Odyssey (Presented in 70MM)

Victor Liorentas
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 800
From: london ontario canada
Registered: May 2009

posted 12-22-2010 09:23 PM

I did see 2001 in 70mm on a two and half story high deeply curved screen in about 1981.This was the Park theater in London Ontario which was always kept up to the highest standard for the big films like Star Wars and such.
The print was a bit beat up but had good color and sound though nothing in comparison to The Empire Strikes Back which had played for months before.
The fact that 2001 was shot in 65mm made a big impression on me!It was so clear it's criminal that every big film is not shot in 65mm!
I did not get the last part of the film until i read the book which helped quite a bit.

It's not the same in any other lesser format!

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Tom Petrov
Five Guys Lover

Posts: 1121
From: El Paso, TX
Registered: Jan 2003

posted 12-22-2010 09:31 PM

quote:
I did see 2001 in 70mm on a two and half story high deeply curved screen in about 1981.This was the Park theater in London Ontario which was always kept up to the highest standard for the big films like Star Wars and such.
The print was a bit beat up but had good color and sound though nothing in comparison to The Empire Strikes Back which had played for months before.
The fact that 2001 was shot in 65mm made a big impression on me!It was so clear it's criminal that every big film is not shot in 65mm!
I did not get the last part of the film until i read the book which helped quite a bit.

It's not the same in any other lesser format!

Seeing 2001 for the first time on the big screen really changed my opinion of this film. As much as I thought it was great, the pacing really feels different in the theatre.

Also equally important was a having a crowd in there. Perfect projection also helped as well.

Watching it on a big screen is a totally different prespective than watching the film alone at home on a smaller screen.

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Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99

posted 12-22-2010 10:54 PM

quote: Tom Petrov
Have you seen 2001 in a cinema or in 70mm?

Nope, but I'm sure it would be just as boring and lack just as much editing. False color flyovers and eyeballs might have done the trick for the hippies back in the 60's, but that shit don't cut it today. I can't even appreciate it on a cheese factor because it is way overdone.

Also, I hate hippies. Everyone should.

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Mike Spaeth
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1129
From: Marietta, GA
Registered: Jul 2000

posted 12-22-2010 11:55 PM

Hippies smell funny...

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Dave Macaulay
Film God

Posts: 2321
From: Toronto, Canada
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 12-23-2010 11:06 AM

I doubt if new credits were struck for the TIFF reprint. DTS did not exist when the film came out. Nowadays I don't know - and doubt - if any lab can do the mag coating and recording. DTS is the only mainstream option for 70mm sound unless you're showing archive mag prints. The sound quality of 70mm mag is potentially very good, but properly setting up for a mag print playback requires alignment film that was produced for and shipped with the new print. This alignment film has basically all been lost. Some still exist locked away at service companies, but even with them a decades old print will have mag tracks of dubious quality. I did a lot of 70mm projection back in the 70's when prints and even the setup loops were available, but the mag tracks were often damaged by magnetized heads or had weird rhythmic pops and clicks from magnetized gunk stuck on projector rollers. I doubt if archive prints have much mag sound left at all, or much any colour left for that matter.
If you want to see the epitome of 70mm image quality without 60's psychedelia and grunting apes try and get a print of Ryan's Daughter struck.

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Paul Gordon
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 580
From: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Registered: Aug 2005

posted 12-23-2010 11:53 AM

The 2001 print playing in T.O. is DTS, no one does Mag stripping anymore... the last 70mm Mag stripped film was probably Vertigo or My Fair Lady. That being said we played a bunch of old 70mm prints from the 60's at out last festival and all the mag tracks played back fine. That included Chitty Chitty Bang Bang from 1968! an a Place to Stand from 1967.

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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!

Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 12-23-2010 01:56 PM

Mag striping can still be done and is often still done for small runs (one or two prints). 2001 having a DTS track with a small print run is more of the oddity.

Mag tracks, over time, actually hold up VERY well and are one of the more reliable storage methods for audio. Can they be damaged? Sure can but that isn't a necessity.

-Steve

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Ben Wales
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 602
From: Southampton. England
Registered: Jul 99

posted 12-23-2010 02:10 PM

quote: Dave Macaulay
If you want to see the epitome of 70mm image quality without 60's psychedelia and grunting apes try and get a print of Ryan's Daughter struck.

There is one new 70mm Print for "Ryan's Daughter", but is run with Sep Mag and only screens at the BFI in London.

Saw this Screening several years ago and WOW, blows out any Digital stuff off the screen for Quality!.

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Michael Coate
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1904
From: Los Angeles, California
Registered: Feb 2001

posted 01-01-2011 09:47 PM

quote: Michael Coate
The total run [of "2001: A Space Odyssey"] at the Glendale was an amazing 127 weeks.

quote: Tom Petrov
That is just impressive. I wonder if it was the original print?

Could you clarify what you mean by "original print"? Do you mean: I wonder if they ran the same print the entire run? Or do you mean: I wonder if they ran the longer cut of the film before Kubrick had it shortened?

quote: Tom Petrov
Was it 70mm or 35mm?

It was 70mm promoted as Cinerama.

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Tom Petrov
Five Guys Lover

Posts: 1121
From: El Paso, TX
Registered: Jan 2003

posted 01-01-2011 09:56 PM

quote: Michael Coate
Could you clarify what you mean by "original print"? Do you mean: I wonder if they ran the same print the entire run? Or do you mean: I wonder if they ran the longer cut of the film before Kubrick had it shortened

Same print from beginning of engagement to end.

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Louis Bornwasser
Film God

Posts: 4441
From: prospect ky usa
Registered: Mar 2005

posted 01-10-2011 08:51 PM

Glendale was 1st class in those days. I did several studio screenings there around 1980. There is no doubt that only one print was needed. Louis

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Bill Gabel
Film God

Posts: 3873
From: Technicolor / Postworks NY, USA
Registered: Jan 2002

posted 01-12-2011 04:56 PM

"2001: A Space Odyssey" will be playing in 70MM at the Museuem of the Moving Image in Astoria (Queens) , NY at 4pm Saturday, Jan. 15th.. Playing before it at 1pm also in 70MM "Playtime". (Sep Adm)

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Daniel Schulz
Master Film Handler

Posts: 387
From: Los Angeles, CA USA
Registered: Sep 2003

posted 01-12-2011 06:38 PM

The print showing in New York is the same (new) print that was just screened in Toronto.

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Paul Linfesty
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1383
From: Bakersfield, CA, USA
Registered: Nov 1999

posted 01-13-2011 04:56 PM

quote: Daniel Schulz
The print showing in New York is the same (new) print that was just screened in Toronto.

Anyone know what 70mm print is showing at the Egyptian in Hollywood next Friday (Jan 21)? I had vowed never to see this movie at a theatre again after the thoroughly trashed print shown a couple of years ago, but if it's new...

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Tom Petrov
Five Guys Lover

Posts: 1121
From: El Paso, TX
Registered: Jan 2003

posted 02-13-2011 04:26 AM

On Seeing Kubrick's '2001' in the Theater for the First Time 20 COMMENTS An experience I won't soon forget

2001:at Cinerama

Yesterday and today Seattle's Cinerama is having a mini sci-fi festival showing Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind, James Cameron's Avatar and Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Based on the headline and image to the right I'm sure you've already figured out what film I watched.

This was my first time seeing any Stanley Kubrick film in the theater, let alone 2001, and it was one of those movie going experiences I won't soon forget. It's a completely different experience watching it on a screen nearly 70 feet wide and with Cinerama's all new digital sound system.

As I watched I forgot about any interpretation of the material I may have had and was instead swept up by the sheer size and scope of the production. You can't help but become absorbed by the film as soon as Ligeti's " Atmospheres" plays over a black screen for the film's the Overture leading into Richard Strauss's " Also Sprach Zarathustra". It's one of film's grand moments.

I sat about eight rows back from the front, dead center. Typically this is a seat reserved for those that arrived late, but for this film, in this theater it was enveloping. I couldn't imagine a better seat. 2001 affords you the opportunity to look from one side of the screen to the other as it curls itself around its audience, first with the wordless mysteries of the ape, to the all encompassing blackness of space and finally a light display culminating in the star-filled embryonic fluid of the infinite.

As far as my personal interpretation of the film goes I see it as a circle of life story offering an alternative, or parallel, look at human evolution from ape, to present day man, to something currently unimaginable. These are ideas that can be pit alongside Darwin's theory of evolution and the Bible's story of creationism and in searching for the thoughts of others that have discussed this online I came across an essay by Don MacGregor titled "2001 and the Philosophy of Nietzsche" that I found particularly fascinating.

MacGregor's essay adds context and comparisons to what are my thoughts on the film exactly. His knowledge of Friederick Nietzsche's book, "Also Sprach Zarathustra", is knowledge I don't have and its influence on 2001 is undeniable when you read MacGregor's breakdown. Here are three key segments that stood out to me:

The Nietzschean idea seems to have its origin in Darwin's theory of natural selection. Nietzsche saw life as "a struggle for existence in which the fittest survive, strength is the only virtue, and weakness the only fault." According to Nietzsche, the evolution of man will travel through three stages: primitive man (ape), modern man, and ultimately, superman. Of this, Nietzsche wrote "what is the ape to man? A laughingstock or painful embarrassment. And man shall be to the superman: a laughingstock or a painful embarrassment." Man is just a bridge between ape and superman, but for the superman to be, man must use his will to make it happen, "a will to procreate or a drive to an end, to something higher and farther." [...]

In the journey from primitive man to superman, the monolith on the moon in 2001 marks a major moment. In the scene with the moon monolith, the sun is pictured directly overhead when the monolith emits a loud noise (perhaps to signal the arrival of this moment). This moment is described by Nietzsche as "the noon when man stands the middle of his way between beast and superman…a way to a new morning", the first morning of the superman. [...]

The superman is reached at the end of 2001. In the final scenes, the astronaut, David Bowman, lies on his deathbed. He wills the superman into existence before expiring. "'I love him who willeth the creation of something beyond himself and then perisheth' said Zarathustra."

There's always been a fascination with 2001 despite receiving mixed reviews upon its initial release in 1968. It has since grown to become considered one of the greatest films of all-time. I first saw it in 2007 at home. I marveled at the effects and the grandiosity of it all, but even though I enjoyed it I was unaware of what I was missing seeing it only on a 50" plasma rather than on a 68' movie screen. No film has ever given me a theatrical experience the way this one did yesterday. Should you be given the chance to do the same I highly suggest you don't pass up the opportunity.

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