The one movie that left Tom Hanks in “awe” and changed his life forever: “I’ve seen that movie 22 times”
In the life of every creative individual, whether they’re a painter, actor, or musician, there are moments that stand out as pivotal in shaping their path. While these incidents may seem insignificant at the time, the true impact of being exposed to a particular piece of art often becomes apparent only in hindsight, as Tom Hanks came to realise.
Talk to anybody who truly loves making things, and there’s a good chance you will be able to trace that love of craft to a single lightning bolt moment. The moment that they were struck by inspiration and left, usually as a young person, with a head full of dreams of what might be. It was certainly the case for Hanks.
From a young age, Hanks was obsessed with cinema. He could escape into a different world for a few hours and be absorbed by whatever motion picture was projected onto the screen. At first, Hanks gravitated towards stars rather than stories and would watch anything that involved Robert Duvall, Steve McQueen, and Jason Robards.
Hanks’ childhood wasn’t straight out of a Hollywood movie script and presented many challenges. During a conversation with Playboy in 1989, the actor explained how he left alongside two of his siblings with his father when his parents divorced, and they moved to Reno, where his father remarried to a woman who already had five children.
For a period, eight children were living under one roof, which was a chaotic mess. However, after they split and a brief stint at his aunt’s house, Hanks finally found solace once he shared an apartment exclusively with his father and siblings. One constant that remained throughout the many changes was his adoration for film.
At 12 years old, Hanks’ life changed forever when he saw Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece, 2001: A Space Odyssey. Within one viewing, his belief system on storytelling was turned on its head, and the actor couldn’t resist returning to the cinemas to see it as many times as he could afford.
2001: A Space Odyssey is a hypnotic cinematic journey truly like no other, and is, on a technical level, a pioneering masterpiece of its form. Superlatives barely justify just how impressive the spaceship-docking scene remains, despite being over 50 years old; its ability to baffle and inspire is seemingly effortless.
As narratively ambitious as it is visually breathtaking, Kubrick attempts to tackle themes of artificial intelligence, life, death, rebirth and the journey of humankind and does so with playful artistry; it’s a bewildering achievement.
He told David Sheff for Playboy: “Stanley Kubrick was a huge thing for me; 2001: A Space Odyssey was probably the most influential film, movie, story, artistic package, whatever, that I ever saw. It was just bigger. It affected me much, much more than anything I had ever seen. There was just awe.”
Hanks continued: “I’ve seen that movie 22 times. In theaters, not on video tape. Every time I saw it, I saw something new, something else that Kubrick had put in. He was able to suspend my disbelief. I just felt, We are in space.”
Furthermore, during an interview with The Guardian, Hanks was able to precisely recite the exact day that 2001: A Space Odyssey entered his life: “It was a Sunday, it was kind of rainy and it was cold. It was the day the Oakland Raiders beat the Kansas City Chiefs, November of 1968.”
“It presented this romantic notion of a human being in this place void of life. I had paid attention to the space programme prior to that, but I was not hooked by the artistry or the romance of it until I saw that movie,” Hanks added.
After seeing 2001: A Space Odyssey for the 22nd time, it was clear to Hanks that he wanted to devote his life to delivering stories that left others feeling as profoundly impacted as he was by Kubrick’s film. He had felt first-hand the power of filmmaking, which made his worries feel small in comparison, and become drunk on the euphoria of escapism that can only be attained through cinema.
