The movie Ridley Scott called the “threshold” for filmmaking
The medium of cinema would not be what it is today without the brilliant works of Ridley Scott. Sure enough, not every Scott movie has hit the artistic heights of excellence, but when the English director pulls his talent together, he usually delivers a genuine feat of cinematic purity.
The genres of science fiction, horror, crime and historical epic have all profited greatly from Scott’s prowess as a director. For instance, his Gladiator and Kingdom of Heaven films have tapped into the rich eras of the past, while Blade Runner is considered one of the greatest sci-fi movies ever made.
Of course, one cannot disregard Scott’s contribution and practical creation of science fiction-horror, too, as a result of his 1979 masterpiece Alien, which doused the sci-fi genre in an unbridled sense of fear and claustrophobia as Ripley and her crewmates try to evade the terror of the deadly Xenomorph aboard the Nostromo.
In an interview with Deadline, Scott once spoke of how he was first brought to make Alien. Without a doubt, Scott knew that he simply had to turn his attention to the world of science fiction after seeing George Lucas’ Star Wars for the first time, but there was another sci-fi classic that he already held in high esteem.
“Thanks to Star Wars, and to Stanley Kubrick for the way he influenced George and definitely influenced me, with 2001,” Scott noted. 2001: A Space Odyssey isn’t only held as one of the best science fiction movies ever made, but one of the best pieces of cinema of all time, period. It tells of the evolutionary journey of humankind, from prehistoric bone-wielding apes to space-faring astronauts.
What was most impressive about 2001 for Scott, though, was the sheer production that Kubrick managed to deliver. “The design on 2001… that’s the threshold for everything being real,” the director admitted. “You look at 2001, and you look at Star Wars. Stanley’s design influenced everybody.”
According to Scott, he’s never been able to “shake off” the influence of Kubrick and even as late as Scott’s 2012 Alien prequel Prometheus, he could feel the spirit and artistic vision of the 2001 and A Clockwork Orange filmmaker coursing through him. “Stanley really got it right,” Scott said. “Stanley was like the Big Daddy, so I never got jealous of him.”
In fact, Scott had already been inspired by Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon when he came to make his debut feature film, The Duellists, as he admired the way that Kubrick could put everything together in just one shot. Still, it was 2001 that seemed to leave the deepest impression on Scott, especially as he thought about making his first venture into the world of science fiction.
Signing off his thoughts of Kubrick and admitting to his widespread and almost universal admiration amongst filmmakers, Scott noted, “Stanley was like the godfather. There’s a certain level of director where we all feed off each other. It’s like a painter who looks at the work of a peer and goes, ‘damn’.”
Kubrick had, of course, tried and succeeding in bringing his talent to a wide variety of movie genres, from horror to historical epic to war film, but it was science fiction that seemed to mark the highest signifier of his excellence as a director, with his masterful cinematic work 2001: A Space Odyssey.
