Saturday, September 8, 2012

2001

As this summer drew to a close I found myself going through my father's old record collection. I wasn't surprised by anything I found until I got to the bottom of the second box and found the soundtrack to 2001: A Space Odyssey. I couldn't wait to listen to the soundtrack, but I had to wait until I got to school and set up my record player, seeing as how it had already been packed away. After the craze that was the first week back at school I found myself with some downtime, so I decided that it was finally time for me to watch 2001: A Space Odyssey for the first time after seeing the LP that I had packed away. I was struck by this movie. Each shot was perfectly composed, I found myself in awe of each new successive shot. The soundtrack impressed me just as much, every piece of music that was used drew upon all of the visual information and mood from the scene and amplified it perfectly. The most intense scene in the film was devoid of music, it was filled with the silence that is space. "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that." The absence of sound in that scene is what, for me at least, cemented it as one of the greatest scenes in film that I have ever seen. After the film finished, all I could think about was how glad I was that I stumbled across that record. If I hadn't, I would have most likely never taken the time to watch one of the greatest films.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARJ8cAGm6JE

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