Log24

When HAL says, “I know I’ve made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal,” Mr. Rain somehow manages to sound both sincere and not reassuring. And his delivery of the line “I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do” has the sarcastic drip of a drawing-room melodrama and also carries the disinterested vibe of a polite sociopath.

Kubrick had Mr. Rain sing the 1892 love song “Daisy Bell” (“I’m half crazy, all for the love of you”) almost 50 times, in uneven tempos, in monotone, at different pitches and even just by humming it. In the end, he used the very first take. Sung as HAL’s brain is being disconnected, it’s from his early programming days, his computer childhood. It brings to an end the most affecting scene in the entire film.

— Gerry Flahive in the online New York Times , 
     Friday, March 30, 2018 

"A version of this article appears in print on April 1, 2018, on Page AR13 of the New York edition with the headline: HAL 9000 Wasn’t Always So Eerily Calm."