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2001 Filming the Future
This is a beautiful, large format book filled with photography, essays, interviews and more related to the making of Stanley Kubrick's famous film, "2001: A Space Odyssey". Considering there are many books devoted to the films of Kubrick and particularly this film, this is quite possibly the best place to start if you are interested in the more visual aspects of the film: special effects, film making, and behind the scenes. The photographs are stunning, the articles are incredibly well researched, and the overall scope of the book is broad and thorough.
176 pages, Paperback
First published May 27, 1998
65 people want to read
About the author
Piers Bizony
39 books25 followersPiers Bizony is a science journalist and space historian who writes for magazines such as Focus and Wired as well as the Independent. His award-winning book on Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey was described as 'full of sparkling enthusiasm' by the New Scientist and 'excellent, in every way worthy of Kubrick's original precision-crafted vision' by the Evening Standard.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
September 19, 2011
A seminal tribute to Kubrick's larger-than-life motion picture, 2001: A Space Odyssey.
I felt the author could have delved deeper into the cinema of Stanley Kubrick, better explaining the context of his vision and reasons for making such a trippy movie. According to producer Norman Kagan, 2001 contains the four tenents Kubrick applied to every movie he made: futility of intelligence, homicide-suicide, triumph of obsessive hero, and journey to freedom. Still, it's a book glimmering with the workings behind the art of movie-making, like holding the 70 millimetre celluloid itself in your hands. So satisfying... (I'm proud to say I have an autographed copy.)
We must also be grateful to Piers Bizony for writing it when he did, as many of the contributors are no longer with us. Filming the Future stands the test of time as a source of answers to questions about why and how this movie so thoroughly wowed us all.
I felt the author could have delved deeper into the cinema of Stanley Kubrick, better explaining the context of his vision and reasons for making such a trippy movie. According to producer Norman Kagan, 2001 contains the four tenents Kubrick applied to every movie he made: futility of intelligence, homicide-suicide, triumph of obsessive hero, and journey to freedom. Still, it's a book glimmering with the workings behind the art of movie-making, like holding the 70 millimetre celluloid itself in your hands. So satisfying... (I'm proud to say I have an autographed copy.)
We must also be grateful to Piers Bizony for writing it when he did, as many of the contributors are no longer with us. Filming the Future stands the test of time as a source of answers to questions about why and how this movie so thoroughly wowed us all.
October 27, 2015
A truly phenomenal, enlightening book.
I checked this out of the library after I read the surprisingly disappointing reviews of the newly released Taschen updated version of this book. It is a slim volume, but you’d be hard pressed to have any unanswered questions after reading it. Obviously, it’s not going into the film theory of the movie, it sticks to the origins of how the film project came about, the collaboration between Clarke and Kubrick, and details on so many of the technical aspects of the film. It also touches on the cultural impact it had at the time. There were so many anecdotes about how they achieved certain shots and the absolute focus Kubrick had filming each frame. It also touched on his role as a stern, demanding, yet encouraging collaborator to virtually everyone on set. His reclusive legend will always be out there, however the more insightful books you read about him, you hear how cool it must have been to work for/with him, as long as you had the temperment.
This book really hammers home what an amazing achievement this film is. It reminds you that we hadn’t even reached the moon by the time they started filming, and that so many of the choices they made had to be researched as much as they could from NASA and other expert sources in order to get it as right as they could. We take space movies for granted now but this certainly changed the game forever. This book really describes what an experience the entire process of putting this film together was and makes you appreciate it even more.
The only very slight drawback to this book is so many of the images are in black in white. However, if you want books of color stills from this, there are many out there.
I checked this out of the library after I read the surprisingly disappointing reviews of the newly released Taschen updated version of this book. It is a slim volume, but you’d be hard pressed to have any unanswered questions after reading it. Obviously, it’s not going into the film theory of the movie, it sticks to the origins of how the film project came about, the collaboration between Clarke and Kubrick, and details on so many of the technical aspects of the film. It also touches on the cultural impact it had at the time. There were so many anecdotes about how they achieved certain shots and the absolute focus Kubrick had filming each frame. It also touched on his role as a stern, demanding, yet encouraging collaborator to virtually everyone on set. His reclusive legend will always be out there, however the more insightful books you read about him, you hear how cool it must have been to work for/with him, as long as you had the temperment.
This book really hammers home what an amazing achievement this film is. It reminds you that we hadn’t even reached the moon by the time they started filming, and that so many of the choices they made had to be researched as much as they could from NASA and other expert sources in order to get it as right as they could. We take space movies for granted now but this certainly changed the game forever. This book really describes what an experience the entire process of putting this film together was and makes you appreciate it even more.
The only very slight drawback to this book is so many of the images are in black in white. However, if you want books of color stills from this, there are many out there.
May 3, 2020
Far closer to those “Making Of” cash in texts that try and milk a movie of every last penny than I imagine the author ever intended it to be. It’s written in this deeply annoying faux-chummy style and is riddled with cliches (it reminds me of the old film brochures for a nearby art cinema whose old curator used to use the phrase “dead eyed killer” at least once a month), and tellingly is full of impressive reproductions of the space ships and ephemera and with scant interest in the actual innovations of the movie: little on the score and very little on the star gate and beyond. It’s a weirdly conservative little book on a very non conformist film
May 28, 2025
My favorite segment was chapter 7,on set construction and special effects.
January 16, 2016
Un ampio dossier che racconta tutti gli aspetti del film: la trama e le reazioni critiche, ma soprattutto la collaborazione tra Kubrick e Clarke, il design delle astronavi (con eccellenti riproduzioni dei bozzetti preparatori con le varie strategie esplorate), la creazione degli effetti ottici, le riprese delle sequenze nella preistoria, la costruzione della centrifuga e un profilo su Kubrick. Un imponente apparato iconografico con stampe di ottima qualità completa l'avvincente racconto della genesi del film. Con una nota di A. C. Clarke.
August 1, 2014
The Book to read about one of the best films of the late 20th century.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews