The collaboration between Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke gave birth to one of
the greatest films in the history of cinema—2001: A Space Odyssey. But how did this brilliant
collaboration come to pass? Well, we begin in New York City…
In February of 1964, right around the time Dr. Strangelove came out, Stanley Kubrick
was having lunch with Roger Caras when esteemed science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke’s
name came up. Roger Caras worked as the Columbia Pictures publicist for Dr. Strangelove and
later, the vice president of Kubrick’s production company, Hawk Films, during the making of 2001.
During their lunch together, Caras asked Kubrick what he had in mind for his next film,
to which Kubrick responded, “I’m going to do something on extraterrestrials” (Odyssey
of a Visionary). Kubrick mentioned he was reading “everything by everybody” to find
a writer and story that suited his interests on the subject and Caras replied, “Why not
just start with the best?” This man was Arthur C. Clarke whom Kubrick thought was
a recluse, postulating that he was [quote], “a nut who lives in a tree in India some
place.” At this time Clarke was living in Ceylon (now known as Sri Lanka).
Caras sent a cable out to Clarke saying:
STANLEY KUBRICK—“DR STRANGELOVE,” “PATHS OF GLORY,” ET CETERA, INTERESTED IN DOING
FILM ON ET’S. INTERESTED IN YOU. ARE YOU INTERESTED? THOUGHT YOU WERE RECLUSE.
And Clarke responded:
FRIGHTFULLY INTERESTED IN WORKING WITH ENFANT TERRIBLE STOP CONTACT MY AGENT STOP WHAT MAKES
KUBRICK THINK I’M A RECLUSE?
On March 31st, 1964, Stanley Kubrick wrote a letter to Clark in the hopes of a potential
collaboration. The letter reads:
Dear Mr Clarke:
It’s a very interesting coincidence that our mutual friend Caras mentioned you in a
conversation we were having about a Questar telescope. I had been a great admirer of your
books for quite a time and had always wanted to discuss with you the possibility of doing
the proverbial “really good” science-fiction movie.
My main interest lies along these broad areas, naturally assuming great plot and character:
1. The reasons for believing in the existence of intelligent extra-terrestrial life.
2. The impact (and perhaps even lack of impact in some quarters) such discovery would have
on Earth in the near future. 3. A space probe with a landing and exploration
of the Moon and Mars.
Roger tells me you are planning to come to New York this summer. Do you have an inflexible schedule?
If not, would you consider coming sooner with a view to a meeting, the purpose
of which would be to determine whether an idea might exist or arise which could sufficiently
interest both of us enough to want to collaborate on a screenplay?
In that most agreeable event, I feel reasonably certain that further agreement for your services
could then be reached with your agent.
Incidentally, “Sky & Telescope” advertise a number of scopes. If one has the room for
a medium size scope on a pedestal, say the size of a camera tripod, is there any particular
model in a class by itself, as the Questar is for small portable scopes?
Best regards, Stanley Kubrick
In 2001italia’s post on the letter (you can find the link in description) he notes
that Kubrick was interested in astronomy and was known to purchase “every new gadget
he could,” so it is likely that his question about the Questar was sincere. Here you can
see a picture of Clarke during the 70s on a beach in Sri Lanka with a Questar telescope.
Along with Clarke, Marlon Brando, Johnny Carson, and Nazi turned NASA engineer Werner Von Braun
also reportedly owned Questar telescopes.
The following month, on April 22nd Kubrick and Clarke met at New York’s Plaza Hotel
at a restaurant called Trader Vic’s. Trader Vic’s was a Tiki themed restaurant featuring
“an exciting and tremendous assortment of Polynesian, Chinese and East Indian delicacies
served in authentic style and tropical atmosphere.” A fun bit of trivia is that the 54 foot long
outrigger canoe displayed in the lobby was featured in the movie, “Mutiny on the Bounty.”
Allegedly, Kubrick and Clarke talked about science fiction th ere for eight hours straight (Letters of Note).
Clarke described Kubrick’s appearance when they first met as a “rather quiet, average-height
New Yorker” and that he hadn’t yet grown the beard that we see in many of 2001’s
set photos (McAleer 178). He looked more like this:
Clarke also described Kubrick as being a night person, which affected their working schedule (McAleer 178).
On his first conversation with Kubrick, Clarke was quoted saying:
“Even from the beginning, he had a very clear idea of his ultimate goal. He wanted
to make a movie about man’s relation to the universe—something which had never been
attempted, much less achieved, in the history of motion pictures. Stanley was determined
to create a work of art which would arouse the emotions of wonder, awe, even, if appropriate,
terror”(McAleer 178).
Their conversations would last well through the spring of 1964 and carried them all over
New York City—including the Guggenheim, Central Park, and a variety of movie houses.
Clarke thoroughly enjoyed all of what would be considered B-grade (or worse) science fiction
movies and suggested that Kubrick watch Things to Come based on the H.G. Welles novel—Kubrick
decided shortly after that he would never take another movie suggestion from Clarke
again. According to technical advisor Fred Ordway, Kubrick found it incredible that someone
as knowledgeable as Clarke would [quote], “go see a horrible black-and-white science
fiction film and just sit there like a school kid” (McAleer 178).
In his book, The Lost Worlds of 2001, Clarke said:
"Of course, there had been innumerable ‘space’ movies, most of them trash. Even the few that
had been made with some skill and accuracy had been rather simpleminded, concerned more
with the schoolboy excitement of space flight than its profound implications to society,
philosophy, and religion” (The Lost Worlds 29).
This picture shows Kubrick and Clarke in one of their early sessions at Kubrick’s apartment
on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
Arthur C Clarke: “I was hold up in the Hotel Chelsea most of the time during the early
stages. I went through my short stories and dug out six which seemed appropriate to- ideas
and I sold them all to Stanley. And one by one he threw them away and I bought them back
and they’re still available. And Stanley decided the best way to produce the film was
to write a novel—or at least the outline of a novel first.”
“That way,” Clarke was quoted saying, “before embarking on the drudgery of the
script, we [could] let our imaginations soar freely by developing the story as a novel
upon which the screenplay would eventually be based. We would generate more ideas this
way, Stanley thought, and give the project more body and depth, though I had never collaborated
with anyone before in this way, but the idea suited me fine… In theory, therefore, the
novel would be written (with an eye on the screen) and the script would be derived from
this. In practice the result was far more complex; toward the end, novel and screenplay
were being written simultaneously, with feedback in both directions. Some parts of the novel
had their final revisions after we had seen the rushes based on the screenplay based on
earlier versions of the novel… and so on.’” (McAleer 178).
Around May 1964, after endless discussions and brainstorming, Kubrick and Clarke decided
to base the story of 2001 around Clarke’s short story titled “The Sentinel”— about
the discovery of an artifact of unknown origin.
When asked why he and Kubrick chose “The Sentinel” as their jumping off point, Clarke
said this:
Arthur C Clarke: “Well this idea is a kind of an open-ended one—you can develop it
in almost any direction, you see? In fact, we develop it not only into the future, but
into the past because there is a flashback to three million years ago showing how this…
how, in the past, visitors to earth affected our destiny. So, there’s this longest flashback
in the history of movies to the dawn of man and then, on to the future, to what this all leads to.”
However, this was originally meant to be the climax of both the book and the film. It was
after they agreed to move this plot point closer to the beginning of their story that
Clarke brought forth more of his early novels and short stories to inspire the “six additional
building blocks for the novel and the screenplay” (McAleer 178). These were: “‘Breaking
Strain,’ ‘Out of the Cradle,’ ‘Endlessly Orbiting…,’ ‘Who’s There,’ ‘Into
the Comet,’ and ‘Before Eden’” (McAleer 178).
“Breaking Strain” is a short story about freighter stranded in space after a meteor
collision. It soon becomes clear that there won’t be enough oxygen for the two surviving
crew members to survive. According to its Wikipedia article, the Discovery One spaceship
from 2001: A Space Odyssey is very similar to the ship in ‘Breaking Strain’ in that
both “ships have a spherical command module which is located a great distance away from
the nuclear powered engines of the ship, connected by a long spine” (Breaking Strain Wiki).
Kubrick and Clarke started writing the story that would become 2001: A Space Odyssey, using
the working title “How the Solar System Was Won.” Kubrick had a penthouse near Lexington
Avenue in New York. On the night they finalized their deal—May 17th 1964 to be exact—they
went out on Kubrick’s balcony and saw a UFO. Now, it is highly likely that after all
this talk of extraterrestrials they were just seeing things. However, despite Clarke’s
insistence that it wasn’t aliens coming to stop them from making the movie, he couldn’t
offer an explanation.
Clarke thought it looked like a satellite, but there was no mention of a satellite passing
at that time of night in the New York Times listing (McAleer). Clarke’s friends at the
Hayden Planetarium had an explanation—what Kubrick and Clarke had seen was the Echo I
satellite, which was a “hundred-foot balloon [with a] highly reflective aluminum surface” (McAleer).
Clarke kept a log during this time and noted various breakthroughs in the writing of 2001.
Including such entries as:
March 8th: Fighting Hard to Stop Stan from bringing Dr. Poole back from the dead. I’m
afraid his obsession with immortality has overcome his artistic instincts.
April 19th: Went up to the office with about three thousand words Stanley hasn't read.
The place is really humming now -- about ten people working there, including two production
staff from England. The walls are getting covered with impressive pictures and I already
feel quite a minor cog in the works. Some psychotic who insists that Stanley must hire
him has been sitting on a park bench outside the office for a couple of weeks, and occasionally
comes to the building. In self-defense, Stan has secreted a large hunting knife in his briefcase.
The entries extend on into the production of the film after Kubrick moved the team to
England and Clarke spent a year back in Ceylon. On November 10th, he wrote this after visiting
one of the sets: Accompanied Stan and the design staff into the Earth-orbit ship and
happened to remark that the cockpit looked like a Chinese restaurant. Stan said that
killed it instantly for him and called for revisions. Must keep away from the Art Department
for a few days (Cinephilia & Beyond).
It would be that December that Kubrick would shoot his first images of 2001, which were
of Floyd’s encounter with the monolith at the TMA-1 excavation site. The scene was shot
at Shepperton Studios instead of MGM Borehamwood like the rest of the film, because Shepperton
was the only facility that could fit the massive excavation set. Because of this, Kubrick had
a hard deadline to shoot that scene because another film was coming in to use the space.
So, Kubrick was forced to shoot such an important scene in only a week (Cinephilia & Beyond).
After all of the production and post production ended, and the public was about to experience
the fruits of this beautiful collaboration, Clarke looked back on his relationship with
Kubrick at a press reception shortly before the film’s premiere.
Arthur C Clarke: “I would like to begin by a number of tributes. First of all, colleague
for the last four years, Stanley Kubrick. It’s over four years that we started work
on this and it has been an extraordinary and exhilarating experience. I think I can safely
say that in all that time, we never came to blows, we had no major disagreements, we had
all sorts of arguments about the best way of doing things—all these arguments were
amicably resolved and looking back on it now it seems incredible to me that such a complex
and lengthy collaboration has gone so smoothly. This is really Stanley Kubrick’s movie.
I acted as the first stage booster and provided occasional guidance.
Thanks for watching! This is a new series devoted to all things Kubrick and won’t
be limited to just things about 2001. Let me know in the comments what you think and
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now because there are plenty more videos on the way for cinephiles like you!
I talked to the concierge at The Plaza Hotel and he said that Trader Vic’s was located
in the Plaza Food Hall on the 59th Street side. This is what it looks like today.
Thanks again for watching!