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2001 – A Space Odyssey (1968)
Note: This review contains spoilers!
All screen shots are the sole property of Warner Brothers.
Director – Stanley Kubrick
Starring – Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood
Running time – 143 minutes
Distinctions – IMDB’s Top 250: No. 80, AFI’s Top 100: No. 22
2001 is Stanley Kubrick’s brilliant and bewildering science fiction masterpiece. Upon its release it was panned by critics but loved by audiences. It was co-written by Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke. They based it on a short story written by Clarke called “The Sentinel”. Kubrick and Clarke also co-wrote the novel although Kubrick is not credited for this.
The movie does not seem to be quite as well received by today’s audiences as it was in 1968. 2001 was incredibly visually spectacular for its time and still looks good by today’s standards. However, it may have lost the wow-factor that entranced audiences in the 60’s. Some who saw the film upon its original release might not have had much of a clue what it was about but they loved it for the beauty of its images, the scope of Kubrick’s imagination and its wonderful use of classical music.
Today’s audiences, spoilt with state of the art CGI effects, are perhaps more difficult to impress. They may also prefer more accessible and straightforward movies. This is a movie that requires multiple viewings. Woody Allen, who didn’t enjoy the movie the first time he watched it but loved it the second time around, once commented that 2001 is a case where the artist (Kubrick) was very far ahead of the viewer.
Arthur C. Clarke once said that if you fully understand 2001 then he and Kubrick had failed. You are meant to feel humbled by 2001. You are meant to leave 2001 with more questions than answers.
Let’s let The Guru take us through a few of the most memorable scenes...
Synopsis
The movie starts several million years ago when human beings are no more than primitive ape-men. The film follows a particular group of ape-men who make up one morning to discover a strange perfectly rectangular black monolith.
Millions of years later, modern man discovers a similarly monolith buried on the moon. The monolith sends a strong signal to Jupiter. A secret mission is sent to explore Jupiter. However, on the way the ship’s computer, an advanced artificial intelligence named HAL, starts killing off the crew. Only one crewman survives – Dr David Bowman. Bowman disconnects HAL and proceeds to Jupiter where another monolith is discovered.
Great Scene 1 : “The Dawn of Man” (00:14:00 to 00:16:13)
This scene is set millions of years ago. Modern man has not yet evolved. Instead we are shown two groups of ape-men, fighting over a water source. Their behaviour is far more animal-like than human-like.
One morning, one of the ape-men groups discovers a large black monolith that wasn’t there the previous day. They are attracted to the monolith and start to jump around it and eventually touch it.
We don’t know who put the monolith there or what its purpose is.
Shortly afterwards, Moonwatcher, one of the ape-men, comes across the skeletal remains of a large animal. He looks at the bones and thinks of the tapirs that wander the savannah. Eventually he grabs a large bone and, in a moment of incredible inspiration and played out to moving music (Also Sprach Zarathustra) by Richard Strauss, smashes the animal’s skull with the bone. Moonwatcher uses his new knowledge of tools to hunt and to fight off the rival ape-men.
We have witnessed something really incredible and historic. We have witnessed the exact point at which man has taken the step from animal to human.
It seems that the contact with the monolith must have been the catalyst for this giant leap forward for mankind. But who built the monolith? Why? And what did Moonwatcher experience when he came into contact with the monolith? We find out the answer to the third question in Great Scene 3 by seeing a similar step forward through Dr Bowman’s eyes millions of years later.
Great Scene 2 : “Open the pod bay doors, please, HAL.” (00:56:31 to 01:05:12)
This scene forms the climax of the film’s intriguing subplot. HAL has uncovered Dr Poole and Dr Bowman’s plan to disconnect him. He refuses to let this happen and kills the crewmembers one by one. HAL starts by sending Poole floating into deep space. While Bowman attempts to rescue Poole, HAL kills the hibernating crewmembers. It somehow seems even more disturbing given that these men did not have idea what was going on nor that their lives were in danger.
Upon returning to the ship in the pod, Bowman asks HAL to open the bay doors so that he can re-enter with
At first, HAL does not reply. When he eventually does, he explains to Bowman that he knows that he was going to disconnect HAL and that he cannot allow that to happen. Suddenly, Bowman is very alone. Since HAL controls all the ships operations, including the bay doors, it appears that HAL holds all the cards.
However, Bowman comes up with a daring plan to re-enter the ship. He flies the pod up to the ship and manually opens the emergency doors. He then explodes the door of his pod to create a force to carry him into the ship. He does all of this without a helmet.
This scene is very slow and very patiently filmed. This really helps in building tension. The mood is further enhanced by the lack of music – all we hear is Bowman’s breathing. In the climax, when Bowman makes his move into the ship, Kubrick opts for complete silence. Most directors would have gone for big sound and big music. Kubrick went for the opposite approach and this really conveys the emptiness and desolation of space well. We find ourselves holding our breath just as Bowman is doing.
It is interesting to note that despite being quite far from the end of the movie, this scene contains the last dialogue spoken by a human except for one line spoken by Bowman in the next scene.
Great Scene 3 : “The Star Child” (01:31:45)
This scene is the final one of the movie and it is a suitable climax for such an awe-inspiring movie. To gain some insight into what we are seeing, it is necessary to consider what we have been shown since the Discovery spaceship discovered the third monolith and this scene. We also need to consider this scene in conjunction with Great Scene 1 because what is happening here is very similar to what happened in that scene.
After discovering the third monolith, we observe a number of mind-blowing sequences through Dr Bowman’s eyes. It seems that Bowman is being shown a great deal. It seems that he gains knowledge of distant planets, his own life and death and perhaps even the Big Bang. Man, just as was the case millions of years before, is taking a giant step forward. It is only right that we can only speculate as to what Bowman is experiencing. After all, we are not taking this step forward with Bowman – we are merely observers. Just as the rival ape-men could not have comprehended what sort of consciousness Moonwatcher had achieved, we cannot hope to comprehend what has happened to Bowman. We are as far behind the next step as the ape-men are from us.
It seems that extra-terrestrial beings created the monoliths and placed them deliberately to help and guide mankind’s development. We cannot even to begin to fathom their level of advancement or even their state of being – they presumably built the monoliths and must therefore be advanced beyond our imagination.
They have our interests at heart though. They only allow us to take the next step when we are ready. Just as we are advanced enough to start exploring the universe, we are provided with the next step forward. Their relationship to us is almost that of a parent to a child.
One of the sequences we see is that of Discovery flying into a cluster of stars. The moment reminds one of the moment of conception. Out of this conception, the Star Child is born. It seems that the Star Child is the child of mankind and the cosmos.
The final shot is an inspiring and humbling one of the Star Child and Earth, again set to Also Sprach Zarathustra.
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