Week 31 : 2001: A Space Odyssey
I frequently catch myself looking up at the stars at night. I will sit quietly on my porch and look up at the sky, soaking in its beauty. Sometimes if there is a tree or something obstructing my view I will get out of my seat and walk until I come to a position where I can look up at the sky from all directions and see nothing but stars, clouds and the moon. I think of those stars dotting the landscape of space. I realize that each star is another solar system's sun, and each solar system could have an earth. I sit begin to contemplate things on a metaphysical level. To me, looking at the stars is a type of prayer. I ask- "what is my place in this universe?” Cosmically speaking, I am a ant among ants. I look at the sky and I wonder what's up there. I have never seen a painting, film, or photograph that is more beautiful than the Kansas night sky I have looked upon so frequently since I was a child. It is a thing of beauty. I get the impression that Stanley Kubrick may have felt the same way.
Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey is a film that understands the questions that drive us and explores them in a manner that is unparalleled in the history of the cinema. It is not a movie as much as a full blown experience. In fact, as millions of people (my significant other included) can attest, even trying to watch 2001 in a way one watches any other movie will simply lead to frustration and annoyance. People expect dialogue, plot, humor and resolution in their movies. The want a narrative that they are familiar with and that they understand. Kubrick's film is an experience more like watching a ballet or opera than actually sitting down and watching a movie. It is a movie that takes work, concentration, and patience. You soak in its images in all of their beauty and think about what is on the screen. Eventually the picture grips you on a subconscious level and speaks to you in the same way any great art does- personally. Once you get the message that Kubrick is trying to give, you can't necessarily verbalize it- you just feel it and are in awe.
I have referred this film to countless friends and loved ones. The first question I get any time I recommend a movie is almost always the same.
"What is it about?"
Most of the time I can give a pretty simple synopsis of what a movie is about and why they should watch it. I can't do this with 2001. I simply smile and say “it's about everything.”
A lot of people don't like 2001. Hell, a lot of people flat out hate it. I get it. People expect easy entertainment that they can watch while playing on their laptops or texting their friends. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. I know that if I was expecting one kind of movie and I popped it in and it began with 20 minutes of silence and monkey's screaming, I might get upset too. This is a two and a half hour movie with less than 40 minutes of dialogue. There are a lot of moments where viewers may scream “what the hell is going on?” Other moments are so slow and deliberate that they may put some to sleep. These are not criticisms of the film but an observation of how viewers handle it. In my opinion this observation best explains why Stanley Kubrick is arguably the greatest filmmaker of all time. He was bold and uncompromising in his vision. He told stories in ways that were unique and completely 100% his own. All of his work does nothing short of examining the very nature of our humanity. He was a genius that, with a legendary partnership with the studio's that financed him from Dr. Strangelove on, had complete and total creative control of his pictures. Executive's did not edit Kubrick's work, they didn't suggest the scripts be rewritten or alter the content of the film just because of the feedback of test audiences. The studio executive's understood that Kubrick was not a commercial filmmaker, but an artist painting masterpieces using film as canvas. Stanley Kubrick never gave a flying shit whether or not you “got” his work and for that he deserves a lot of credit.
Before writing this review I thought a lot about what I wanted to say in it. In some of my prior reviews great amounts of time were spent discussing the plot of the movie. I am not going to give you a report of what happens in the movie, you can watch it yourself. I will only say that the film begins with humankind's first step of evolution and ends with an artistic expression of what our next step is. It features one of the greatest villains in screen history with HAL 9000 (brilliantly voiced by Douglas Rain) and possibly the most influential and technically accurate special effects in the history of the movies. I will point out that when real astronauts have been asked what the moon looked liked several have responded with “like in 2001” even though this picture was released a full year before Neil Armstrong's landing on the moon. I suppose I will also say that in true spaceflight actions are slow, deliberate and taken with great caution, therefore several long scenes of silence (such as the pod sequences) are slow for a reason.
I refuse to mention anything about the end of the movie, which may be one of the most dazzling and spectacular experiences of my film going life, because I simply cannot put those experiences into words. Nor will I comment on the concluding appearances of astronaut Dave Bowman (Keir Dullea) as he evolves in the bedroom at the end of the proverbial rainbow, or the star child that forms thereafter. I shall not explain the black vertical monolith that appears at key moments of the film.
The final line of dialogue in 2001 (which comes about 30 minutes prior to the end of the picture) tells you all you need to know:
“Except for a single, very powerful radio emission aimed at Jupiter, the four million-year-old black monolith has remained completely inert, its origin and purpose still a total mystery.”
In Arthur C. Clarke's strongly inferior novel he explains the monolith to be extraterrestrial in nature, but this commonly known fact does not matter in relationship to the film. The film acts on its own. It shows what it shows and nothing more. Kubrick rejects Clarke's cookie cutter explanations and intentionally leaves the monolith ambiguous. Maybe to you, the monolith is the coming of God. Maybe it is simply a symbol of intelligence, or the driving force of the universe. The beauty of the picture- the transcendent quality that makes it perhaps the greatest film ever made, comes from it's ambiguity. The monolith is whatever you want it to be.
Asking for an explanation to the monolith (or the entirety of 2001 for that matter) is the equivalent of asking why the Mona Lisa appears to be smiling. I take comfort in the fact that Da Vinci never showed us what was off in the distance because it makes the possibilities endless. I don't need to know what she is smiling at, or what Kubrick was really trying to say with the monolith. I know what my interpretation of the film is. That's all that matters. In my opinion, the message is a positive one- a prayer for humanity and a hope, even a call, for evolution. As the star child approaches our earth it looks at us from above with a sense of wonder. The star child questions our planet's place in the universe and asks: what is next? I stand on my lawn quietly at night, gazing up at the stars and their unimaginable beauty, and question the same thing.
Review and Analysis by Shaun Henisey
Cast and Credits:
Dave Bowman: Keir Dullea
Frank Poole: Gary Lockwood
Dr. Haywood Floyd: William Sylvester
Hal 9000 (voice): Douglas Rain
Metro-Goldwyn Mayer presents a film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick. Based on the story "The Sentinel" by Arthur C. Clarke
Screenplay by Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke.
Photographed in 70mm Cinerama by Geoffrey Unsworth.
Featuring Special Photographic Effects by Douglas Trumbull and Stanley Kubrick
Running Time: 141 minutes. Rated G. This film is acceptable for all audiences.