2001: A House Odyssey on a 1570 movie print on the BFI IMAX is an unbelievable expertise.BFI
Launched in 1968, 2001: A House Odyssey is an odd, mesmeric movie that retains its energy to amaze. Constantly showing on critics’ lists of the very best movies ever made, topping the Sight and Sound journal administrators’ checklist in 2022, its themes, which embrace the character of man and expertise run amok, seem extra related yearly.
With 2001, Kubrick rewrote the cinematic rulebook, counting on picture and sound to inform the story rather than exposition (the primary piece of dialogue is 31 minutes in, and the final is 35 minutes earlier than the top).
I noticed it for the primary time after I was 11 years previous, and it had a profound affect on me. I can recall staying up late drawing the well-known Earthrise picture a number of occasions that evening, like an obsessed Roy Neary in Shut Encounters of the Third Sort.
Made a yr earlier than the primary moon touchdown, it’s superb how a lot expertise it presages, comparable to video calls, pill computer systems, Instagram-like portrait screens, and, after all, AI. It additionally exhibits how far we haven’t progressed: sci-fi author Arthur C Clarke’s impression of how we’d have developed in the beginning of the brand new millennium appears hopelessly optimistic.
As a movie, what’s exceptional is that it had such a profound affect, regardless that I had watched it on a tiny 14-inch Sony TV. I can solely think about how it could have felt had on my younger thoughts had I seen it as I did final week – on the BFI IMAX, on the largest IMAX movie display screen within the UK*, on a 1570 movie print.
The “Unrestored” Model
The current BFI presentation was thrilling on two counts. First, the movie print was the ‘Unrestored Model’, a brand new movie print made in 2018 to mark the movie’s fiftieth anniversary, made beneath the supervision of “Interstellar” director Christopher Nolan,
The print was struck photochemically from the unique digital camera damaging, which is exceptional if you consider it — a brand new print constructed from the grasp movie inventory that handed by the cameras as Kubrick shot the movie again in 1968.
This was necessary to protect the movie for the subsequent technology, as over the intervening years, the unique prints of the movie had, like David Bowman after he handed by the Stargate, succumbed to the ravages of time.
Nevertheless, with this new print, Nolan didn’t look to “repair” something however quite sought to recreate the expertise of what it was like to observe the movie in cinemas in 1968. As such, imperfections from the grasp have been left in, and the colour grading was additionally redone utilizing notes that Kubrick had left.
The print additionally contains the unique overture that precedes the beginning of the movie and the intermission – one thing that ought to make a comeback for longer movies.
Should you’re not a fan of this fetish for authenticity, then you may see the absolutely cleaned-up digital remaster that was additionally created for the fiftieth anniversary. This model is the idea for the extremely rated 4K UHD disc launch, and I additionally noticed it projected digitally on the BFI IMAX again in 2018.
This model, nevertheless, was not digital; it was movie, and never simply any movie – however an IMAX movie print. Visually, this is identical because the common Unrestored 70mm print however blown up onto IMAX 1570 so it may be proven on the IMAX movie projector onto the BFI’s unbelievable 20m excessive display screen. After all, the movie retains the two.20:1 side ratio of the unique however that is absolutely the very best technique to expertise this unbelievable movie – an IMAX 1570 print on the large BFI display screen. I’ve seen this print earlier than, having seen it on the London Science Museum, however this was my first alternative to see it on my favourite display screen, and that is what made it a must-watch expertise.
The Energy of IMAX
The dimensions of the display screen right here is necessary because it lets you lose your self within the expertise, and you’re feeling as if you happen to’re falling by the Stargate together with David Bowman. With the whirr of the movie projector within the sales space nearly audible, the authenticity of the print comes by, and a few occasions I seen some very vital scratches within the first reel, with mud transferring round and wobbly traces seen at occasions. Constructed-in flaws apart, that is nonetheless a brand new print, and the picture was far more stable and steady in comparison with the unique print of Star Wars that I noticed on the BFI NFT1 a number of months prior.
Sound is so necessary in 2001, and the standard of the audio within the BFI auditorium was additionally very important right here. The fantastic thing about the music, and the deep respiratory of the astronauts the one sound for a protracted interval, clearly an affect on Star Wars sound designer Ben Burt when he created the sound of Darth Vader a decade later.
The size additionally helps you to see the outstanding element within the fashions and ships, which completely maintain up even to this present day – maybe solely the backgrounds of the Earth and Moon is the place fashionable expertise may provide an enchancment.
Movie prints are inherently bodily and due to this fact inclined to wreck, so the power to indicate them ought to by no means be taken without any consideration. This was introduced dwelling to me when the BFI’s head of expertise, Dominic Simmons, advised me a narrative involving the movie can of a 70mm print of 2001, after I was proven the inside of the NFT1 projection sales space earlier this yr, forward of its Movie-on-Movie Competition.
Simmons defined that when he was alive, Stanley Kubrick was not proud of the state of the prints of 2001, so had refused to permit the BFI to display screen it. As such, hundreds of kilos have been spent on getting a brand new print struck and, after Kubrick died, his widow and his producer gave the BFI permission to display screen it on January 1st, 2001.
Nevertheless, throughout a take a look at run, a really vital scratch in reel three was picked up, so much more needed to be spent to exchange the broken reel. It turned out that the scratch was the fault of an unwitting projectionist.
“It was really a very small buildup of filth on one of many backside rollers that was actually exhausting to search out — he hadn’t realized it was there. And because it ran, it simply scored. He was completely devastated! So, prints are fragile, and it’s a must to be actually, actually cautious if you’re screening them.”
It’s tales like this that make you admire the magic of cinema, and the way every print has its personal story to inform.
In London, we’re spoilt, with venues such because the Prince Charles providing common movie showings, and the Science Museum at the moment promoting tickets for a Christopher Nolan movie season to offer its 1570 IMAX movie projector a run out. Should you get an opportunity to see a film projected on movie, it’s best to take it, particularly if it’s in 70mm and much more so if it’s IMAX 1570.
Additional studying:
EPIC By Vue Evaluation: Is It A True IMAX Rival?
‘The Odyssey’ IMAX 70mm Tickets To Go On Sale A Yr Forward In US And UK (up to date)
Nitrate Movie Set To Shine At The BFI Movie On Movie Competition 2025
Lucasfilm’s Kathleen Kennedy Introduces BFI Screening Of Uncommon 1977 Star Wars Movie Print
