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Yes, we have done 2001 in both 70mm and 35mm

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Then it seems that Warner Brothers is planning a wider 35mm release next year. I hadn't heard any rumors about a 35mm release, but I guess the runs in Seattle and DC have convinced Warner Brothers of this film's ability to make money.

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Tao Yue
MIT '04: Course VI-2, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Projectionist, MIT Lecture Series Committee

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2001: A Space Odyssey- Loews Astor Plaza, NYC

Well, I got all excited last night reading this post and at 9:15pm, I hopped in the car and drove at 70mph to get to Manhattan to catch the 10:20pm show. I have to agree with Bernie, the Astor Plaza is a far cry from its glory days. It seems like even what used to be the first run, "flagship" theatres like the Astor Plaza (where every show was a roadshow presentation) they have become nothing but corner-cutting, grind houses.

2001 70mm quality: Or lack-thereof. So I get there just in time to catch the entr'acte Legetti music. Hmmm, the curtain is already opened and the audiences (about 150 -- good crowd for a Tuesday night at 10:20pm) is sitting, staring at a blank screen; the dowser is opened which allows us to watch the scratches that have already accumulated on this fairly new print. Music fades, first frame hits the screen with the gorgeous, deep blue background and the stylized MGM logo....it is out-of-frame. We wait. And wait. It takes the person we know is not a projectionist (thanks to Bernie's post) almost to the end of the Zarathustra sequence to correct the misframe. Only he doesn't rack it down enough, and so for the rest of the film, we are treated to seeing the white splice flashes with EVERY shot change. Pretty damn distracting to say the least. OK, I think, I can live with this...just ignore the flashes. But now it becomes all to apparent that something is wrong with the sound as well. There is a very obvious flutter, much like you would hear if the pressure roller is not engaged on the sound drum or the sound drum is not spinning freely or the wrap around the drum is too tight or too loose. Or it is possible that it is simply a poorly recorded print? I conclude it is more than likely one of the local problems, not the fault of the print. This painful flutter continues for the entire film. Every time the horns in each of the Zarathustra sequences play those predominant high notes, the people around me can hear my teeth grinding.

I go back to see if I could find someone, anyone who could address this problem. I am told by the kid sitting outside the projection booth door that THERE IS NO PROJECTIONIST. The kid is dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt -- this engagement doesn't even rate a full fledged manager to handle the booth -- it gets a lowly usher. The projectionist, it's explained, comes in only on Fridays. Wonderful.

I said, "this can't be a digital soundtrack, can it?" He says, almost with a sense of pride, "Oh, I haven't the faintest idea. I just have to make the change if it messes up." I dig further and find out that by "the change" he meant from the 70mm projector to the 35mm projector running the 35mm backup print [running] simultaneously with the 70. He went on to say that at a few of the shows "the big film jumped out," so Warner Brothers made them run a 35mm backup. He couldn't give me any more details about what exactly did that mean, that the 70mm "jumped out," only that it was "messy." I'll bet!

Seems it would be to more to Warner's best interest to insist on having a FREAKING PROJECTIONIST in the booth at all times while they are running one of three $20,000 70mm prints. After all, the theatre is taking its house-nut off the top, the contract should say the house-nut allowance MUST include a licensed Projectionist's salary and he had to stay IN THE BOOTH while the print is running. Couldn't be more simple. I asked if there was any problem with the projectors regarding the sound. I said, "You DO hear how bad it sounds." He answeres, "Naw, it's an old film. It's the print." I knew I was doomed. I walked away mumbling, something like, yah, he doesn't know what sound format they are running but he knows whatever's wrong is the fault of the print.

Anyway, back to the presentation. Ok, so the sound is bad and the picture isn't quite framed properly.
Next is the DIRT. Gobs and gobs of it for the first half reel. And you know, those opening scenes are basically stills. The dirt looks all the more obvious on a perfectly motionless shot. But there they were, not what I would consider ordinary dirt specs, but BIG black gobs of crap doing a dance all over the screen. What do these people do, stretch the first 75 ft of film across the floor and let the ushers walk on it? Absolutely unforgivable. No reason why even if this junk arrived on the print, there's no reason why it can't be cleaned prior to the show. What an application of Film-Guard would have done to improve this presentation. Then there were a bunch of scratches in a fade-to-black -- the screen is totally black and here come 4 or 5 parallel, white emulsion scratches on the black background over four or five frames. A good projectionist would at least try to blacken them so they aren't so glaringly obvious.

Once we passed the dirt mines and the scratches, the picture cleanliness did improved, but the focus looked a tad soft for 70mm. I am thinking, I can get my 35mm print to focus as sharp as this. I just expected a bit more clarity. But in all fairness, it was quite watchable. Was the soft-ish focus the print? Probably not, given the fact that there was no one in the booth to touch up the focus throughout the entire 3 hours.

Now comes the intermission....or does it? Gee, I thought this is where it goes. Funny, it goes here in every show I have ever seen. Or maybe Mr. Kubrick left special instructions: "When you show 2001 at the Loew's Astor Plaza, cut out the intermission and the Atmospheres music leading into the second half (and be sure to throw out the intermission music and the "Intermission" title footage before you ship it out)." Yeah, direct notice from Kubrick....that must be why they deleted it. The pigs.

So, the Astor Plaza managed to turn a spectacular, classic, Roadshow picture....one of the most powerful films of the last 100 years, into what we used to expect to see in the neighborhood, sub-run, underbelly, $1.00 grind houses. The kind of thing where a roadshow picture would play at the Rivoli and right around the corner on Forty-Douche Street, the same title would be playing day-and-date at the Lyric or the Amsterdam at half price, but with a decided degradation in showmanship and presentation values. This was a Lyric level show.

Still, this is one awesome, powerful film of great impact -- the greatest work Kubrick ever created, IMHO. And it still holds up today, despite the lack of all that frenetic nonsense that most people expect to see. Every shot in 2001 looks TOTALLY believable -- maybe because NOT A SINGLE FRAME WAS GENERATED IN A COMPUTER!

There were three youngsters sitting in front of me. I wondered what they thought and if they found some of the sequences slow, which is a common criticism of the MTV generation. After the show (much to my surprise and delight, these kids sat through the entire credits) I approached them and asked if they had seen it before -- they had....on TV. "Now you can understand why you really never SAW it before," says I. They all agreed whole heartedly. They asked me if I had seen it. I chuckled. I said, yes, 30 years ago when I was a kid and it first came out, I saw it maybe 6 times, two in Cinerama, then about 50 more times over the years in various theatres where I worked. They wanted to know what Cinerama was. That was all I needed. We talked until they threw us out of the lobby and then for another half-hour out in the street. They wanted to know all about Cinerama. One kid said 2001 was one of the most beautiful films he had ever seen.

Guys, there may be hope yet.

PS -- there was no curtain after the show either. None at all. I mean, it hung there....it just never closed.

Frank Angel,
Dir, Brooklyn Center Cinema

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Also, any later reports on film condition and presentation would be appreciated.

Some minor issues:

• Sound could've been somewhat better. Theater is not equipped with Dolby.
  
• Heavy flickering on bright scenes. Bulb? Shutter?
  
• The brilliant color saturation of the film suddenly dulled in the dinner table scene in reel 10. Printing issue?
  

But easily ignored given the overall quality of the presentation. Three-quarters of the audience (smallish, roughly 50) probably didn't notice. The other one-quarter seemed to be either current or former projectionists.

Print was in great condition, even near the reel ends. So it can't be the one that got trashed at Astor Plaza. Print number 20014. Is this the one that made the four-theater tour starting at the Seattle Cinerama?

Do you know when 2001 is running till at Coolidge? That would definitely be worth the drive. Thanx.

That was deliberate. The art direction for that sequence was very monochromatic.

First saw that picture in 70mm on a deep-curved screen at the long-gone Century theatre in Buffalo --- still gives me goosebumps.

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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 716-477-5325 Cell: 716-781-4036 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

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That was deliberate. The art direction for that sequence was very monochromatic.

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Thanks, John, for pointing that out. I've never seen 2001 on film before, and it's hard to tell the difference on video or DVD. However, with this new 70mm print, the colors are so nicely saturated that it's quite noticeable when they go away.

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I was able to meet the operator, a very pleasant British fellow, and he told me they were using the orginal mag preamps that came with the V8! It is, after all, a collage and they don't have any budget for equipment. All things considered, I really felt they were getting the best out of the equipment they had.