One Man’s Marketing Odyssey: Helping Kubrick Explain ‘2001’

Rock Hudson may have walked out of the Los Angeles premiere of “2001: A Space Odyssey” in confusion but Stanley Kubrick wasn’t there to witness it, as Deborah Hornblow contends in “Kubrick’s ‘2001’ Still Holds Lofty Spot in Film Universe” (Jan. 5). The director was actually in New York trimming 19 minutes from his epic, surrounded by the critical and distribution whirlwind that accompanied its opening.

A few days earlier, at the film’s New York premiere, we were introduced in the projection booth of the Capitol Theater, where he was supervising the showing of his secret, five-years-in-the-making film to the well-heeled charity audience.

I was a young MGM publicist, brought in by Roger Caras, Kubrick’s publicity director, to propose an alternative marketing strategy (although “marketing” was a term yet to infiltrate the film business), certain that the mystifying, mostly antagonistic response from most of the critics and media was due to his having created a revolutionary, nonlinear, practically nonverbal movie that challenged traditional thinking. I then became the point man for the campaign, beginning a five-year association with Kubrick that lasted through “A Clockwork Orange.”

Hornblow’s mixed feelings about “2001” parallel those of the establishment press of the period, who were unable or reluctant to accept a work that subverts verbal narrative structure. She calls it “visually brilliant” but with “vague intellectual underpinnings” where “ideas float and turn but never quite engage.”

“2001” is filled with ideas and images that profoundly engage, if one looks with eyes wide open. This may not be easy if one is unprepared, as much of the audience was in 1968, when many expected a modern “Flash Gordon” (which George Lucas later delivered in “Star Wars”) instead of the metaphysical encounter that shows us the wonder of space while arousing mythic feelings that stir the soul.

A similar situation occurred last year with “Eyes Wide Shut,” Kubrick’s exploration of the dangers of sleepwalking through life (and his least linear film since “2001”), which suffered from a misguided campaign promising unprecedented eroticism.

From evolution to reincarnation, “2001” is intellectually stimulating and viscerally moving. Its 22 minutes of dialogue may seem simplistic, but not one word is wasted. Yet the clear, expository information can throw one off when mesmerized by the striking visuals that propel the story.

Hornblow also bemoans the lack of a dramatic relationship. Yet what is more dramatic than the discovery that HAL, the elegant computer, is sabotaging the mission? Kubrick’s relationships are never presented in conventional terms. He expects the audience to bring something to the table, to do some work in watching his films.

As “2001” was building to a phenomenon, there were discussions about releasing a single inspired by the film. Kubrick, learning that I composed, prodded me into writing something. The lyric he was taken with was “a garden of personal mirrors.” “2001” allows us the opportunity to confront our relationship with the universe, to reflect on the infinite.

Hornblow concludes her commentary by writing that “the film’s best legacy seems to be the thinking it inspires.” Yes indeed! “2001” is the most successful and influential avant-garde film in history.