Steven Spielberg

And 2001 was the perfect film for it.

And also, 2001 also does something with suspense.

The middle part of that film is as suspenseful as anything Alfred Hitchcock ever made.

I feel that film is the most suspenseful movie Stanley ever made.

The whole section with Bowman and Poole going out to replace the AE-35 antenna unit.

And what happens to Poole and then what Bowman has to do when Hal decides that the human beings are too flawed to really successfully carry this mission through to completion and has to take over command of that ship.

To say the least.

Absolutely repeated viewings.

I mean, I've seen 2001 countless times.

I can't tell you how many times I've sat there beginning to end.

I finally saw it for the first time in 70mm in New York City in 2001 when it was reissued on that special year.

But I can watch it over and over again, and I don't claim to have understood it metaphysically or philosophically enough.

or even completely when I first saw it.

But it kept bringing me back, and the layers continued to expose themselves to me.

And then when I got to meet Stanley, I got to talk to Stanley about the film, I knew enough about it at that point that I didn't sound like a clown talking to him about his own work.

But the thing about the picture is,

It's an anti-emotional film that's truly a deeply empathic picture, but it's kind of anti-emotional.

Poole and Bowman, you know, Gary Lockwood and Caridulia play it like, you know, they don't laugh, they don't smile, there's nothing, you know.

you know, pool is getting a little, he's on a sun deck, you know, in an adjustable kind of bed.

And he's getting some rays, good vitamin C. And a recording comes from his mother and father wishing him happy birthday.