A Space Odyssey , where a shot of a spinning bone, tossed up by an ape, cuts to the shot of an elongated orbital station, weightless in its orbital free fall. If anything, this forward-thrusting motion, crossing temporal, thematic, and visual boundaries, can be taken to represent what Stanley Kubrick did to the art of cinema. His legacy is mindbending. From the delicious nuclear black comedy of Dr. Strangelove to the soundless outer space of 2001 to the bloody corridors of the hotel in The Shining , Kubrick consistently redefined cinema, fusing the old elements in unexpected combinations and introducing the new ones. Even when stripped clear from the barnacles of commerce, it's anybody's guess if the art of cinema will soar, or if it will crash and burn.
Nobody knows where it is going.
Kubrick, it seems, did. This story was published on Friday, March 12, 1999. Read other stories in this issue. Return to our home page .