Some facts and tidbits about Stanley Kubrick’s ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’

Regarded as one of the greatest and most influential films ever made, Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968) remains revered by critics and film fans six decades after its release. 

In 2022, “2001: A Space Odyssey” placed in the Top 10 of the decennial critics’ poll by the British Film Institute’s magazine Sight & Sound and topped the magazine’s directors’ poll. In 1991, “2001” was selected by the United States Library of Congress for preservation in its National Film Registry.

No less than Steven Spielberg has said of the film: “The way the story is told is antithetical to the way we were accustomed to seeing stories,” pointing out how the film’s narrative structure does not follow the typical three-act arc of most movies.

Before the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, under André de Ritter, present "2001: A Space Odyssey in two live-to-picture performances Jan. 9-10, here are some facts and trivia about the movie to consider.

The Odyssey: To set his film apart from what he termed the “monsters-and-sex” type of science-fiction films of the era, Stanley Kubrick, who produced, directed and co-wrote “2001,” used Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey as his inspiration for the title: “It occurred to us that for the Greeks the vast stretches of the sea must have had the same sort of mystery and remoteness that space has for our generation.”

“How the Solar System Was Won”: Riffing on the epic 1962 Western directed by John Ford, Henry Hathaway and George Marshall, Kubrick jokingly used this phrase as the film’s working title; it reflected his original idea for “2001” — a series of short stories spanning decades, showing explorations on many planets and moons, ending with “The Sentinel” depicting the discovery of the Monolith on the moon. More seriously, Kubrick suggested a working title of “Voyage Beyond the Stars.” But when “Fantastic Voyage” (1966) was released, Kubrick changed course. He reportedly so disliked that film that he did not want his movie to sound anything like it. In the end, he settled on “2001” because it designates the first year of both the 21st century and the third millennium.

Thus Spoke Kubrick: In the film’s opening shot, the sun and a crescent moon align with each other, evoking a symbol of Zoroastrianism, an ancient Persian religion based on the teachings of the prophet Zoroaster (also known as Zarathustra). This alignment also symbolizes the eternal struggle between light and darkness. Appropriately, the famous “2001: A Space Odyssey Theme” is from Also sprach Zarathustra (Thus Spoke Zarathustra), the symphonic tone poem by Richard Strauss, inspired by a book by Friedrich Nietzsche, which contained his famous declaration “God is dead.”

A soundtrack from scratch: After rejecting a score written by Oscar-nominated composer Alex North, Kubrick decided to go with snippets from classical-music works, which he had used for the film’s scratch (temporary) track. Along with the Strauss, Kubrick chose “The Blue Danube” by Johann Strauss II and four works by Romanian-born Hungarian-Austrian composer György Ligeti: Aventures, Requiem, Atmosphères and Lux Aeterna. Ligeti, who claimed the works were used without his permission, claimed he did not know about the use until he attended the film’s Vienna premiere.

The rest is silence: Explaining why large stretches of the film lack dialogue, Kubrick told the New York Times: “There are certain areas of feeling and reality — or unreality or innermost yearning, whatever you want to call it — which are notably inaccessible to words.”