giovedì 22 novembre 2018

2001 TRIBUTE: '2001' in 70 millimetri a Melzo il 7 e 12 dicembre


Cinquant’anni fa, il 12 dicembre 1968, 2001: Odissea nello Spazio faceva il suo debutto nelle sale italiane. Quest'anno, il 7 dicembre alle ore 17,00 e mercoledì 12 dicembre alle ore 20,30 al Cinema Arcadia di Melzo, nella prestigiosa Sala Energia (Miglior Sala in Europa ICTA) verrà proiettata in esclusiva la versione in 70MM in lingua originale senza sottotitoli presentata a giugno al Festival di Cannes e supervisionata dal regista Christopher Nolan. (I biglietti sono acquistabili qui: http://www.arcadiacinema.com/generic/scheda.php?id=39586#inside)

L'iniziativa appartiene alla rassegna 2001 TRIBUTE: dal 1 dicembre fino al 12 dicembre Milano sarà al centro di eventi, appuntamenti e incontri che festeggeranno la ricorrenza ma anche i 90 dalla nascita del regista newyorkese.

Il tributo a 2001 comincia la notte di sabato 1° dicembre con la “CULT NIGHT - 2001 Un’odissea spaziale” al Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci. A partire dalle 18.30 e fino a mezzanotte il Museo aprirà le sue sale al pubblico e ospiterà la mostra “2001: a tribute to Odyssey”, performances di live painting, incontri e la proiezione del documentario “2001 secondi” di Gian Luca Margheriti e Monica Contessa Diani.

Mercoledì 5 dicembre La mostra “2001: a tribute to Odyssey” si sposta allo Spazio 36, gli studi fotografici nel cuore di Milano inseriti in un contesto post-industriale di loft recuperati in Viale Umbria 36. Dalle 18.30 a mezzanotte gli autori delle opere esposte incontreranno il pubblico e li ammalieranno con le loro performances dal vivo.

Venerdì 7 e sabato 8 dicembre It-Space, l'agorà creativa, spazio di produzione e formazione professionale rivolto al fumetto e redazione della casa editrice It Comics, sito in Via Pestalozzi 10 loft 14/1, propone dalle 10.30 alle 19.30 la mostra UNO SGUARDO SUL FUTURO, galleria di omaggi e analisi visive di '2001'.

Il 12 dicembre '2001 Tribute' si chiude, a 50 anni esatti dalla “prima” italiana, con la proiezione del film alle 20,30 presso il Cinema Arcadia di Melzo (in anteprima il venerdì 7 alle ore 17).

mercoledì 29 agosto 2018

Nothing good on TV tonight?

On July 22 I took part in the Kubrick symposium event at the Deutsches Filmmuseum in Frankfurt, a series of lectures organized during the official 2001: A Space Odyssey 50th anniversary exhibition, with a presentation titled 'I am certain it will all come out right in the end': The Kubrick-Clarke collaboration on “2001: A Space Odyssey” and beyond.

Enjoy! All the other videos of the symposium are available here.


(By the way, as the presentation does not feature slides for copyright reasons, you might find interesting to check the original paper I based the presentation on)

lunedì 16 luglio 2018

“Dear Arthur, what do you think?” The Kubrick-Clarke collaboration on '2001' (and beyond)


Why Stanley Kubrick chose to work with Arthur C. Clarke on 2001: A Space Odyssey?
How did they collaborate on the creation of the 'paranoid' Hal 9000?
To what extent was Kubrick involved in writing the book that came out in May 1968?
Why was their next collaboration - the development of Brian Aldiss' Supertoys last all summer long in 1992 - not as succesful as the first? 

Read about it in my essay “Dear Arthur, what do you think?” The Kubrick-Clarke collaboration in their correspondence from the Smithsonian and London Archives, just published in the latest issue of Essais, the scientific journal of the Université Bordeaux Montaigne (along with others very interesting works from Filippo Ulivieri, Rod Munday, Matthew Melia, Vincent Jaunas, Dijana Metlic, Manka Perko, Loig Le Bihan, etc.).

lunedì 7 maggio 2018

Understanding Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey


The book Understanding Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey - Representation and Interpretation (edited by James Fenwick and published by Intellect Books) for which I wrote the first chapter, is finally out next week! Here it is, featured in the last essay of Sight And Sound magazine.

In my chapter, titled "God, it’ll be hard topping the H-bomb": Kubrick’s search for a new obsession in the path from 'Dr. Strangelove' to '2001' I used both textual analysis and archival evidence to explore the genesis of the movie, and the search of what Stanley Kubrick called "his new obsession" after the release of Dr. Strangelove - or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb in January 1964. By analyzing three lesser-known projects the director was associated with before his involvement with Arthur C. Clarke, I documented the methods behind the sometimes-uneasy development of a new Kubrick project, and the various science-fiction ideas that were muted along the way to the eventual creation of 2001

I've read all the other chapters and they are extremely interesting; drawing inspiration from the introduction, they "offer new and interpretative approaches that examine aesthetics, performance, technological design, philosophical discourse, genre and authorial agency in 2001. Each chapter is linked by the exploration of Kubrick’s intellectual concerns as an auteur and the historicism and aesthetic representation of 2001, with the ultimate aim of bringing together a range of new scholarly perspectives from the full spectrum of Kubrick Studies. [...] Taken together, this volume represents a wide-ranging examination from a number of standpoints about one of the most important and influential films in cinema history".

Preorder the book now, at a special price, from Amazon UK.

UPDATE 15/5: Sadly, the release has been postponed to June 12.