An enduring ‘Odyssey’

ONE of the greatest movies ever made opened 50 years ago this month – but its birth was less than portentous.

When ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ premiered to a select private audience of 200 in New York on April 11, 1968, half had walked out within an hour.

The critics hated it, with the ‘New York Times’ review damning it as “somewhere between hypnotic and immensely boring”.

However, when this career highlight of director Stanley Kubrick opened to the general public a week later, queues forming everywhere after a tidal word of mouth transformed it into the first “event” movie. David Bowie took in a late-night screening in Greenwich

Village and immediately wrote ‘Space Oddity’.

All the great directors – Spielberg, Lucas, Coppola, Scorsese – name-check the film as a seminal influence, particularly the lunar landing scene scored to ‘The Blue Danube’ and the ominous battle of wits between the astronaut and a computer: “Open the pod bay doors, HAL” – to which the disembodied voice responds: “I’m sorry, Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

Kubrick was often asked to clarify the film’s true meaning, and always gave the same reply: “Did Da Vinci explain that the ‘Mona Lisa’ was smiling because of rotten teeth? Let people make up their own minds.” Even 50 years later, this is still an odyssey well worth taking.