Stanley Kubrick’s epochal 2001: A Space Odyssey is, visually and structurally, an absolutely stunning achievement, and has long been one of my favorite movies. But it was name-checked in Susan Sontag’s 1975 essay “Fascinating Fascism”, and fits remarkably well, from its opening music onward, into the checklist of themes that the chapter on Hollywood and Fascism discussed in a certain recent bestselling book on Progressive Corporatism, or Totalitarian Sentimentality, or something with a similar title. It’s probably not a coincidence that its director’s planned next project, until the lights went out in Hollywood, was an epic biography of Napoleon.
That’s the topic that I discussed last night in the second half of “The Delivery”, the hour-long weekly podcast hosted by Jimmie Bise of the Sundries Shack blog. Orient your AE-35 antenna here to listen!
Join the conversation as a VIP Member