2001 : A Space Odyssey (1968)
The movie that changed it all
Stanley Kubrick is regarded as one of the most influential directors of all time. His work has inspired a whole generation of movie makers with his unique approach towards movies. He is known for maintaining complete artistic control of his movies, from extensive set design to detail oriented camera work( he was a photographer in his early days) and brilliant use of background music. He has made some groundbreaking movies like A Clock Orange, The Shining , Barry Lyndon , Full Metal Jacket and Eyes Wide Shut. His most noted work has been the 1968 sci-fi adventure fantasy 2001: A Space Odyssey which recently celebrated its 50th release anniversary.
His work has been extensively dissected and studied. Directors like Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Wes Anderson, George Lucas and James Cameron have sourced him as an inspiration out of which only Spielberg got a chance to work alongside him (Eyes Wide Shut). It would be pointless really, for me to examine his style or to try to explain the craft behind his work. I would rather suggest a simple youtube search of interviews of him or any other director of his generation. In this piece, I’d like to highlight what makes this movie so pathbreaking and what was that Kubrick embroidered into this near dialogue-less sci-fi thriller in the form of a thematic analysis.
Let me just say one thing right away — Your first experience of any Kubrick film will be perplexing. His complex approach to filmmaking doesn’t allow anyone to comprehend, let alone analyse, what they just saw. It took me a total of three rewatches( two continuous ones) to write this post. The movie is based on Arthur C. Clarke’s story The Sentinel who wrote the screenplay for the movie as well. It is set in 2001 where mankind has made tremendous progress in terms of space travel to the extent where it is able to reach the furthermost planets of our solar system. The film begins with scientist Dr. Heywood Floyd (William Sylvester) travelling to the moon to check out the discovery of a mysterious black monolith. As the sun’s rays strike the stone, it emits a deafening sound that fills the investigators’ headphones and stops them in their path. Cutting ahead 18 months, astronauts David Bowman (Keir Dullea) and Frank Poole (Gary Lockwood) head towards Jupiter on the spaceship Discovery, along with man-made HAL 9000 computer controlling the entire ship, to follow the signals emitted by the monolith. The rest of the film follows the journey of the spacecraft and its crew.
Evolution has always been a seemingly progressive concept. Something which improves our intellect or makes us better. But this has always been just a popular definition. What it really is more of a neutral change. Sure, it is a transformation of simple into complex but what Kubrick shows us in this movie is that evolution is just another layer of paint on an already stained painting. In simple terms, we are here to survive and we need tools for that. And exactly on this note, Kubrick begins the movie with a magical match-cut from a bone to a space ship . This is known as an intellectual montage, in this case the spaceship is a tool just like a bone. The first sequence of scenes establishes that we will kill each other for sustenance even without a need for it. We pass the same thing down to the generations to come. This survival instinct may also enable us to sacrifice and murder of our kind, shown in the very first scene. What really looks like a meaningless banter of screaming apes comes back again towards the later half of the movie when David lets go of his fellow astronaut for his own survival. This idea is even extended to AI. HAL in this movie believe that the ultimate motive of any conscious being should be to put its logical and analytical capacity to the fullest use. But to what purpose? Only to slaughter anyone which comes in its way to keep itself alive and then go on to lie about it (mostly to itself). This ridicules the progress we have made when murder is really the first choice we think of during survival.
“The most important parts of a film are the mysterious parts — beyond the reach of reason and language.”
There are several motifs presented in this movie and all of them point out to the process of evolution and how it has affected us. Starting with the monolith, which gives the early humans a reason, to develop tools. The difference though, is that when the apes approach it, they do so with reverence where as the humans do it with arrogance as if they have conquered it. The astronauts who are supposed to represent humanity here, seem to have lost depth in their character with the advent of technology. Ironically, HAL is more expressive than humans and the only one showing fear or anxiety where as the humans feel robotic and emotionless. They are very benign and have become slaves to technology. There is another side to this in the movie. While HAL is shown as a paragon of reason, the monolith is shown to be what lies beyond reason.
Another remarkable motif presented in the movie is the lack of purpose in individuals. Without purpose, anything can seem like a new step, almost always misconstrued as a step forward. Having control and knowledge is always comforting, and we as human beings have made this notion of staying alive in control as this purpose. The initial excitement and curiosity in the scientists and astronauts is all about this trait. But only towards the end do we come to a breaking point, when the astronaut is stuck in a perennial nowhere without having any control of anything around him. As the astronaut wakes up eventually ,we face the inevitable question : What will make us realize the purpose? When we are not surviving? Maybe when we watch ourselves die. Just experiencing the lack of survival , with nothing to fight and seeing the end coming to us, maybe only then can we really evolve. Kubrick ends the movie on a crushing note, that maybe all of this fight for survival or evolution isn’t the grand undertaking, there might just be more than what we see and understand.
I hope I have piqued a little interest in people reading this to checkout the movie and maybe inspired people who have already watched to rewatch it with the intent of stopping and analysing at every point, because really, each scene has a meaning attached to it. 2001: A Space Odyssey is set to be restored and premiered at this year’s Cannes Festival by Christopher Nolan in its original 70mm print.
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