back to movies

= 5 stars

Starring Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, Douglas Rain
Directed by Stanley Kubrick

Amazon Link

The film 2001: A Space Odyssey is a perfect film, in that the viewpoint of director Stanley Kubrick is communicated in a visionary and uncompromising way. Whether or not it’s a perfect film for the audience is another matter. However, when one views the film with an open mind and with full attention, it comes across as a powerful and revolutionary film in terms of story, film techniques, and sound.

The story of 2001: A Space Odyssey was written by science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke in collaboration with Kubrick, penning the screenplay in parallel with Clarke’s novel. Much of this creative collaboration is detailed in the book Lost Worlds of 2001, which serves as a fascinating insight into the creative process. Kubrick efficiently acted as an uncompormising editor, tossing out plot elements and shaving things down to their essence of importance. One notable difference between the film and early story drafts is that although both contain aliens, in the film they are wisely never shown. All we have is an enigmatic monolith, a perfect 1′ x 4′ x 9′ onyx slab representing the unknown. It appears four times: once 4 million years ago, again on the moon, next around Jupiter, and lastly in Dave Bowman’s bedroom. Each time it’s a cold, uncompromising imposition, stating its presence plainly and revealing nothing. The movie doesn’t rely on contemporary notions of what an alien would look like and therefore - although the film was made in 1967 - it still feels contemporary. The neutral monolith can be seen as a metaphor for “the unknowable” - perhaps even God.

The film outlines the ascent of man as a species rising from animals because the development of tools. The film’s first act, Dawn of Man, documents this. Brilliantly, Kubrick eliminates everything from this achievement 4 million years ago to the year 2001 with a masterful cut from a leg bone toss to a spaceship falling. We’re now in the year 2001, where the tools have become so complex that man is completely dependent on them.

One of these tools is the HAL 9000 supercomputer (voiced by Douglas Rain) that maintains the spaceship Discovery enroute to Jupiter. HAL displays the film’s strongest character arc. Many have wondered exactly why HAL seemingly goes insane and murders the Discovery crew; the answer is made clear in the novel: it’s because he’s been put into a contradictory situation, told to hide information about the monolith from the crew in the name of security. By doing so, the computer is told to lie, which contradicts HAL’s claim to fame of being a computer that never distorts information. The computer becomes trapped in its own attempts resolve this paradox and fears it will be shut down, or “killed.” After this realization, HAL decides it must kill the crew in order to preserve its own life and complete the mission.

In a larger sense, the plot requires HAL to be destroyed as the plot requires mankind to be stripped of its tools, reducing us as represented by Dave Bowman to helplessness. Eventually Bowman survives HAL’s rampage and encounters a third monolith around Jupiter which takes mankind to the next stage of evolution.

My interpretation of the final bedroom scene with three Bowmans is likely my own, but I see it as a human learning to transcend time, hence the multiple “selves” at different stages of life. To say this scene is confusing and unfathomable is part of its point. Imagine xplaning a space ship to an ape and you’d get much the same response of “huh?”

Film techniques are expertly used in 2001. Notice how at key points of the monolith’s transforming powers, there’s a quick visual reference to the alignment of planets and sun over the monolith. Notice how this same visual cue is quickly repeated as one of the apes “discovers” the use of a bone as a club. Notice again how this same reference occurs on the moon and in orbit around Jupiter.

Another effective film technique is the close up on the unblinking eye of HAL that represents only what interpretations we apply to it. The exact same image means many different things depending its context. It also begs us to think about what HAL might be thinking. Notice how the shot of HAL’s eye, combined with a silent, back and forth pan from Dave Bowman and Frank Poole talking conveys simply, HAL’s ability to read lips. This revelation, crucial to the plot and what transpires next, is conveyed masterfully through simple film techniques. Kubrick doesn’t have to explain anything more, he trusts that we can put two and two together, and knows exactly how much effort he needs to exert as a director to get his point across.

The influence of 2001 on science fiction is far reaching. Many aspects of Star Wars, from the opening shot of a Star Destroyer passing overhead, talking robots, the breathing of Darth Vader’s maske, to the beep-beep of Luke’s X-Wing targeting computer find their roots in 2001.

On reviewing the film, the last bit of credit goes to the fact the film still feels futuristic. The only elements that place it in the late sixties is a bit of modernist furniture on board the space station. Or perhaps it’s likely due to the fact that it’s 2006 and we’re nowhere near building a base on the moon and creating intelligent artificial life.

IMDB: 2001: A Space Odyssey
Wikipedia: 2001: A Space Odyssey
Rotten Tomatoes: 2001: A Space Odyssey 95%