Online MoMI talk will explore relationship between the Apollo 11 lunar landing and Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey
Who: Todd Douglas Miller, Barry Miller, Bert Ulrich, Eric Hynes, Sonia Epstein
What: Illustrated online discussion
Where: Museum of the Moving Image online
When: Thursday, July 23, free with RSVP (suggested donation $10), 7:00
Why: In Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 adaptation of Stephen King’s horror novel The Shining, young Danny is seen riding his Big Wheel through the hallways of the Overlook Hotel wearing an Apollo 11 sweater. According to Rodney Ascher’s terrific documentary Room 237, that is only one piece of evidence confirming the conspiracy theory that Kubrick was involved in faking the footage of the moon landing. Look for that to come up in the Museum of the Moving Image program “Apollo and the Odyssey: The Shared Orbit of NASA’s Lunar Mission and Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey,” which airs live online on July 23 at 7:00. Held in conjunction with the exhibition “Envisioning 2001: Stanley Kubrick’s Space Odyssey,” which has been closed during the pandemic lockdown, the talk features Apollo 11 director Todd Douglas Miller, NASA chief historian Barry Miller, NASA multimedia liaison Bert Ulrich, MoMI curator Eric Hynes, and associate curator Sonia Epstein. Written by Kubrick and sci-fi legend Arthur C. Clarke, the mindbending 1968 film was a game changer; the discussion will include rare archival footage as it explores elements of the U.S. space program, which has added relevance as President Trump gets Space Force under way.