The news that Russia has beaten Tom Cruise and NASA in the latest bout of the space race – by sending actress Yulia Peresild and director Klim Shipenko to the International Space Station to film a movie – almost certainly heralds a pointless new low in cinema.
Just like the difference between erotica and pornography, we all know that you don’t need to go in to space to shoot a film about it. In fact, it’s almost certainly better if you don’t.
I’m all in favour of method acting – whether it’s Timothy Spall sporting a paintbrush for his role in Mr Turner or Adrien Brody getting to grips with Chopin for The Pianist – but propelling actors into space defies the principal purpose of the space movie. There’s artistry to be found in the gap between our idea of space and its reality. Think of the opening sequence of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey – it’s pure poetry.
In the same way that P.D.
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