2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY
US, 1968,150 minutes, Colour.
Keir Duties, Gary Lockwood, Robert Beatty, Margaret Tyckzak.
Directed by Stanley Kubriak.
2001: A Space Odyssey 1s one of the greatest films of the 60's. Stanley Kubrfck satirically blew up the world at the end of Dr. Strangelove. Here he grapples with the realities of our universe and does not come up with completely pessimistic answers.
2001 is a cinema poem, relying on images and on very few words. Its scope is enormous, the whole history of our universe and the transcendent influences on it. Thus it opens with a poem on evolution, the dawn of man, where primitive apes are influenced by a mysterious artifact and learn to use tools and to kill. There is immediate transition to 2001 and the Blue Danube in space, space-craft gliding through the luminous vastness. The human race has progressed. Again, on the moon, the astronaut encounters the mysterious artifact, the monolith. The scene advances eighteen months to a mission to Jupiter. It is here that the astronaut encounters the malice of the machine, the computer, Hal, and is almost destroyed. But the monolith is here also. Finally, he relives his life, grows old and dies reaching out to the monolith. An embryo appears. This space odyssey of the human race still goes on.
Mmuch has been written on the film. It was not very popular on first release, so very few people saw it in the original Cinerama beauty. However, it has become almost a fashion and quite a talking point on science, philosophy, poetry, cinema, religion.
1. What are the full implications of the title of the film and how do they throw light on the themes of the film?
- 2000 - a new millennium, sense of prophetic achievement, new era.
- 2001 - the first year of the new millennium, when the era settles down to ordinary living.
- space - as the environment for technological progress and for human frowth, self-exploration and knowledge.
- odyssey - like Ulysses (Odysseus), an epic hero, man, wandering the seas (of space) in strange adventures, but eventually wandering home?
2. The film has been described as a cinema-poem - so little verbal dialogue or commentary, so much emphasis on images, colour, space and music. How successful a cinema-poem is the film?
3. The theme of the film is humanity, history, life and destiny. An individual man is presented in the last segment of the film who represents the history, life, destiny process in himself. Are these adequate summaries of the film?
4. Kubrick sees the film as religious. The monolith is not said to be divine, but it is, at least, extra-terrestrial, superhuman and the product of intelligent and skilled craftsmanship. What is the religious symbolism of the monolith - affecting the apes' lives, work and attitudes to each other, as present in all times and on earth, and in apace, mysterious on the moon, flying beyond Jupiter, present to the man as he dies and reaches out to be united with it?
5. The film is also a film of this world, especially the world of present and future technology. Was this convincingly presented? What vision of technology did the film present?
6. How did the music contribute to the words of the film? HSow did Strauss' Thus Spake Zarathustra add to the dignity and symbolism of the opening and to the evolution of the apes?
7. What was the significance of the prologue on the dawn of the human race? How well was it done? Some have seen it as good poetic science as well as a visual version of an evolutionary interpretation of Genesis 1. Do you agree?
8. How did the monolith affect the life of the apes? What did this segment teach you about human nature?
9. What was the significance of the famous transition from prehistory to the present, to primitive murder to scientific technique and achievement in luminous space and the place and harmony of The Blue Danube Waltz? (Despite murder, we can still transcend evil and achieve.)
10. What is the quality of life in our space future - travel, Hiltons, telephones, yet lack of communication, fear, international briefings?
11. What is the significance of the monolith on the moon, the search for it, the encounter and the effect of the electronic music) ?
12. 2001 - why was the mission to Jupiter organised? What connection had it with the monolith? How impressive was the space-craft and the technique and technology behind it?
13. What was the quality of life of the astronauts? How personal were they, despite their degrees and cleverness? The mundane things done on the craft - meals, drawings, exercise, chess, birthdays?
14. What role did HAL play in the film? What was the significance of his strong personality (the B.B.C. interview and HAL's patronising friendship with Dave and Frank) and the fact that his brain knew more than the astronauts and could plot against them?
15. Why did HAL murder?
16. When Dave dismantled HAL (who had no emotional instinct for self-preservation), what victory was there for the human race?
17. What was the point behind the "Beyond Jupiter and the Infinite" segment? Where did Dave go? What could he do? Why the psychedelia landscapes and the monolith there?
18. Where did Dave arrive? Why the classical decor? Why the swift phases of ageing and death? How did Dave, the Everyman wander, die? Why did he reach out for the monolith?
19. What was the significance of the "star-child" at the end?
20. Was the film pessimistic or optimistic? Does the space odyssey of the human race go on after 2001? What possibilities of success and achievement are there?
