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12 Out-of-This-World Facts About 2001: A Space Odyssey
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Re #1:
“Per Kubrick, ‘The novel came about after we did a 130-page prose treatment of the film at the very outset. This initial treatment was subsequently changed in the screenplay, and the screenplay in turn was altered during the making of the film. But Arthur took all the existing material, plus an impression of some of the rushes, and wrote the novel.’ ”
Kubrick is playfully parsing when he says Arthur C. Clarke used an “impression of some of the rushes.” Kubrick purposely kept Clarke from seeing rushes of scenes that he did not want Clarke to see, and let Clarke go on believing that the film would have scenes that Kubrick already had decided against.
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Re: the broom being tossed in the air:
Clarke claims he was walking with Kubrick, who tossed the broomstick into the air.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgNyCluIRhA
(14:24)
Did you know that the movie was not actually filmed in space?
Couldn’t be, the Earth is flat and the heavens only painted on a celestial dome.
There is a story, (probably apocryphal) that Kubrick or the studio tried to get the film nominated for best costumes (the Dawn of Man section) but too many in the Academy really believed those were real apes and not costumes. True or false, I don’t know, but it makes a cool story.