Moonwatcher's Memoir: A Diary of 2001: A Space Odyssey
Published November 06, 2003
I have watched 2001 over 25 times, and regarding certain scenes, I would wonder, "how did they do that?" For example, the scene in which the leopard attacks one of the man-apes always looked too real to me to be, well, improvised. How do you improvise with a leopard? It turns out that the leopard was indeed trained to mimic an attack. His trainer was a man named Terry Duggan, and Richter explains that the scene was shot three times: the first take, nothing happened, the leopard being too scared or confused to move. In the second take, the leopard jumped from above into the space between Duggan (in costume as a man-ape) and Richter, standing a few feet away (also in costume, as Moonwatcher), and started to approach Richter - Duggan, seeing this, tackled the leopard. In the third take, the leopard jumps on Duggan, and is the take we see in the movie. It is this kind of detail Richter provides in the book that I found captivating and fascinating.
Richter notes that he was a heroin and cocaine addict during his work on 2001, something he kept from Kubrick during the first few months of filming. (His wife was an addict as well.) However, he was a "registered addict", receiving drugs under a government program to help users deal with their addictions. That he is honest about this aspect of his life, and chooses to reveal it to the reader, adds a measure of humanity to the work.
From start to finish, this is a compelling and revealing work. Richter's writing is compact and concise, and he presents us with information that is relevant only to the story of how The Dawn of Man sequence from 2001: A Space Odyssey was created and filmed. Conversations are reconstructed and presented to the reader. We learn how the other actors were hired and trained, how the costumes were designed and built, how the scenes were filmed on set in the studio (only one scene was filmed outside the studio, and that was only 200 yards away!), and how Richter coordinated so much of the production. He reveals how difficult it was for him to release people who had been working closely with him, when it was determined that their services were no longer needed by Kubrick. Seemingly trivial information instead comes across as rich detail: Richter describes the problem with the man-ape suits overheating, and how small hoses were be used to allow the actors to breathe by keeping the man-ape jaws open. Compressed air had to be blown down the suits to keep the actors cool.
- Moonwatcher's Memoir: A Diary of 2001: A Space Odyssey
- Published: November 06, 2003
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- Section: Books
- Filed Under: Books: Nonfiction, Video: SF
- Writer: Randy Reichardt
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I believe that the monolith in "The Dawn of Man" sequence actually plants the inspiration that led to the use of tools, which is more profound and far-reaching (and less cynical) than the mere notion of homicide. No doubt, one of the tools was the bone club, which became a vital means by which to bash the brains out of the local competing knuckledraggers, not to mention the prominent role that it would play in the evolution of courtship rituals ("Og, meet Beatrice". Pow!!). But tools also were used for hunting and, eventually, agriculture and the making of Fender Stratocasters, which led, in turn, to our modern music loving civilization. It's interesting that the second monolith, buried at the TMA-1 site, did not lead directly to a rapid leap in the evolution of human thought, but simply pointed the way to the third monolith. Ah, but all this talk of evolution is going to get me in trouble with the Intelligent Design crowd.
The film is awe-inspiring (literally) and truly great, but I don't buy this "unique genius" "marching to his own drummer" stuff. EVERYONE is unique and interprets reality in his/her own way. Having a vision and carrying it out are two different things, and those who have the various abilities that allow them to carry out the vision don't necessarily have "better" visions than the rest of us. The "unique great man" perspective leads to autocracy and cults of personality.
Super interesting review, though. Interesting to know the lead guy running around in an ape suit was on heroin and cocaine at the time - since he's still alive I assume he got off.
Duane: the Monolith on Earth was an instructor of sorts. The Monolith on the moon was simply an alarm clock that went off with it's discovery by humans. It alerted the creators of the Monolith that we had reached the point in our evolution where we had ventured into space, and the one found orbiting Jupiter (Saturn in the book) was present to help take mankind to the next level, to make them the overseers of sorts to another intelligent lifeform's upbringing (which is what occurs at the end of 2010.) Clarke kind of beat this to death with the following two books in the series, 2061 and 3001, but he raised some further intriguing possibilities with them as well.
Kubrick and Clarke together. What a couple of minds. It's too bad they didn't work together on anything else. It would have been interesting to see Kubrick handle something like Childhood's End or even 2010, which I think was still a decent movie and ranks a bit higher than the book for me, actually. The book was a bit of a letdown. The movie failed, in my opinion, because it didn't have the same mystic charm 2001 possessed.
Thanks to Duane, Tom and Eric for the feedback. I agree that the monolith plants the idea of using the bones as tools, yes, but the leap is made quickly to using it as a weapon. Richter does make mention of the latter in the book, that this is what the mimes and actors playing the man-apes had to work with as inspiration.
Kubrick and Childhood's End - wow, how that might have been...
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Really interesting stuff, Randy. I've been a fan of Arthur C. Clarke and especially 2001 practically as long as I could read. This is one of those movies that grows to mean more and more to you over time, I think. The first time I saw it I was fascinated because it was my favorite subject - space - and it dealt with it realistically. Now I know there's so much more to the story than I could have guessed as a kid.
Nice to know there are still some others out there who feel this story and movie are as important as ever.