The Smoldering Screen

Dave Bowman having his mind Louis-XVI-ified by aliens at the end of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. «— Retroactive Spoiler Alert | Prospective Spoiler Alert —» Between the sudden furniture changes, the murder of his colleagues, having to kill his spaceship’s cantor, having to face his own cosmic insignificance and imminent mortality, and being forced to undergo rapid eye-color changes, the man has been having a rough few days.

I’m a sucker for anachronism. Yes, that means I like Titus. No, that doesn’t mean I like A Knight’s Tale.* This anachronophilia of mine means that I’m thrilled to see a spacesuit juxtaposed against a candelabra. And there’s also a textural collage at play — the glossy neon hardness of the spacesuit set against the soft matte pastel of the wall.

The 2001 sequence in which Bowman wanders around that immaculate antique apartment is one of the most mystical and enigmatic in all of cinema, and one of my all-time favorite things to watch and re-watch, because it never becomes comprehensible, it never settles down neatly in your mind. I love it to death, right up until the Star Child appears. I’ve just never been particularly fond of the Star Child. But I’ll save that discussion for another post, wherein I shall pretentiously psychoanalyze my aversion to space-fetuses.

Until then, dear readers, I wish you a happy Thanksgiving, and I sincerely hope that none of you get trampled in a Black Friday stampede. (The only exception is if your will explicitly states that your next of kin must start following The Smoldering Screen in your absence.)

* Well actually, I shouldn’t lie: I do like A Knight’s Tale, but in a guilty pleasure sort of way. And if that movie succeeds — and I’m not saying it does — it succeeds despite its irritating anachronism, not because of it.