2001: A Space Odyssey, so its fans will tell you, is awe­some, amaz­ing, aston­ish­ing, astound­ing — and that does­n’t even exhaust their list of “A” adjec­tives. But how­ev­er emphat­i­cal­ly they’re spo­ken, those words don’t tell you much. I fear they some­times even put off poten­tial 2001-lovers — or at least those who would enjoy a screen­ing or three — who fear them­selves unequal to the impos­ing labor of appre­ci­a­tion ahead. You’ll learn more mean­ing­ful things about Kubrick­’s film in 2001: The Mak­ing of a Myth (made in 2001), a 45-minute doc­u­men­tary on its con­cep­tion, its pro­duc­tion, and its undi­min­ished res­o­nance in our cul­tur­al imag­i­na­tion.

Intro­duced by film­mak­er James Cameron — he of The Ter­mi­na­tor, Avatar, and Aliens, sci­ence-fic­tion spec­ta­cles of an entire­ly dif­fer­ent nature — the pro­gram brings in a host of the orig­i­nal con­trib­u­tors to 2001’s look, feel, and psy­cho­log­i­cal and tech­no­log­i­cal verisimil­i­tude. We hear from those involved in the pho­tog­ra­phy, design, edit­ing, and even tech­ni­cal con­sul­tan­cy. Actor Keir Dul­lea, still best known for his role as astro­naut Dave Bow­man, has much to say about work­ing with his co-star HAL, and even the fel­lows in the ape suits offer insights into their non-ver­bal craft. Crit­i­cal minds such as Elvis Mitchell and Camille Paglia weigh in on the pic­ture’s simul­ta­ne­ous vis­cer­al and intel­lec­tu­al impact, but Arthur C. Clarke, who wrote 2001 the book while Kubrick shot 2001 the film, puts it most sharply when describ­ing the intent of his direc­tor coun­ter­part: “He want­ed to make the prover­bial good sci­ence-fic­tion movie.” Mis­sion accom­plished.

H/T Maria Popo­va (aka Brain­Pick­er)

Relat­ed con­tent:

Rare 1960s Audio: Stan­ley Kubrick’s Inter­view with The New York­er

Dark Side of the Moon: A Mock­u­men­tary on Stan­ley Kubrick and the Moon Land­ing Hoax

Arthur C. Clarke Pre­dicts the Inter­net & PC in 1974

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

Dur­ing the 1940s, Warn­er Broth­ers bought the rights to Robert Lind­ner’s book, Rebel With­out a Cause: The Hyp­no­analy­sis of a Crim­i­nal Psy­chopath, and began turn­ing it into a film. A par­tial script was writ­ten, and a 23-year old Mar­lon Bran­do was asked to do a five-minute screen test in 1947. For what­ev­er rea­son, the stu­dio aban­doned the orig­i­nal project, and even­tu­al­ly revived it eight years lat­er with a new script and a new actor — James Dean, of course. Dean’s own screen test for Rebel With­out a Cause appears here.

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

The God­fa­ther With­out Bran­do?: It Almost Hap­pened

The James Dean Sto­ry by Robert Alt­man (Com­plete Film)

Paul New­man and James Dean Screen­test for East of Eden

Cha­cun son ciné­ma (To Each His Own Cin­e­ma) is a 2007 French anthol­o­gy film that brings togeth­er short films by 36 acclaimed direc­tors. Lars von Tri­er, Jane Cam­pi­on, Gus Van Sant, and Abbas Kiarosta­mi all con­tributed to the project. Meant to com­mem­o­rate the 60th anniver­sary of the Cannes Film Fes­ti­val, the film orig­i­nal­ly aired on Canal+ in France. And, for rea­sons that remain unknown to us, that broad­cast did­n’t include the short film con­tributed by Joel and Ethan Coen, World Cin­e­ma. Nor did it appear on a lat­er DVD release. If you wait long enough, these kinds of films even­tu­al­ly sur­face on YouTube. And, as luck would have it, you can watch World Cin­e­ma above. Fans of the Coen Broth­ers will imme­di­ate­ly rec­og­nize Josh Brolin, who played a very sim­i­lar char­ac­ter in their Acad­e­my Award-win­ning film, No Coun­try for Old Men. Grant Heslov and Brooke Smith also make appear­ances. H/T Bib­liok­lept

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Tui­leries: A Short, Slight­ly Twist­ed Film by Joel and Ethan Coen

40 Great Film­mak­ers Go Old School, Shoot Short Films with 100 Year Old Cam­era