Subject: Retrospective: 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

From: "Dragan Antulov" <[email-masked]>
Date: 9 Dec 1998 06:31:46 GMT

2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY
A Film Review
Copyright Dragan Antulov 1998

Few days ago people of the world had some opportunity to
rest from the usual depressive news about coups, wars,
disasters and presidential adulteries because world media
finally turned their attention to more serene and heavenly
subjects. One of those subjects is U.S. space shuttle
"Endeavour" and its mission with the aim of connecting space
modules - building blocks of the International Space
Station. This news story invigorated many Space Age
enthusiasts, but also filled their hearts with sadness.
Their beloved Space Station, even when becomes finally built
and fully operational in few years, would be far from
fulfilling their dreams. Most of those dreams were inspired
by a future envisioned in 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY by Stanley
Kubrick, the most influential and unique work ever made in
the history of seventh art.

In the small world of cult cinema, 2001 is somewhat shadowed
by other cinematic giants which are either more popular or
pleasing to the audience, either general or cult, or simply
more "earthly" to the mainstream critics and film scholar
who dictate what should be artistic summit or not. Another
thing that makes 2001 overlooked is the fact that its time
might be somewhat pass‚. Thirty years ago, space exploration
was a novelty able to catch people's imagination and inspire
idealistic visions of the bright future for entire mankind.
These days, almost nobody pays attention to space shuttles
and satellites unless they crash, and materialistic
considerations impede any ambitious plans for the human
presence in space. To the casual observer, 2001 might really
be discarded as the relict of age long gone, product of the
idealistic and naÔve minds, something that can't be
understood by today's cynical and nihilistic viewers,
especially those of Generation X.

Misunderstanding, however, isn't new problem for 2001. Even
during its premiere the movie was generally misunderstood -
critics panned it, because they didn't understand it, and
audience, inspired by contemporary psychedelic trend loved
it for the entirely wrong reasons. Even one of the movie
authors - screenwriter and famous science fiction novelist
Arthur C. Clarke - admitted that even he couldn't know what
the movie was all about. In the next thirty years countless
articles, essays, books, documentaries and scientific
studies would be written with the sole intent of trying to
answer those questions; despite their best efforts, the
audience would still remained confused as during the
premiere. However, the deliberate leaving of unanswered
questions benefited the movie and helped it to survive as
cult favourite for three decades. Mostly because 2001,
unlike most of other movies, has a unique ability to affect
its audience - whether they like the movie or not, or
whether they understand it or not, they can feel they are
experiencing something grand and magnificent, even if they
can't find the proper words to describe it or explain it.

The only thing that can be explained more or less coherently
is plot. The movie begins with the prologue set roughly
4,000,000 years ago in East Africa. Small band of
prehistoric ape-men, including Moonwatcher (Daniel Richter)
lives a poor, short and brutal life, plagued by famine and
under constant danger of predators. One day Moonwatcher
discovers big, black shining monolith. The artefact of
supposedly alien intelligence inspires Moonwatcher to use
intelligence of his own - he discovers the bone as weapon,
which leads to water buffalos as a new source of food for
his tribe. After defeating the rival tribe in a war for
water, Moonwatcher symbolically throws the bone in the air.
In the next shot - often regarded as the most spectacular
transition in the history of cinema - bone transforms in the
space satellite that roams the Earth's orbit 4,000,000 years
later. It is only one of the objects in Earth's orbit, full
of different spaceships, including one that carries Doctor
Heywood Floyd (William Sylvester), American space bureacrat,
to the Moon. Floyd is set to oversee the investigation of
monolith found on the Moon's surface. The monolith emits
signals to Jupiter, and 18 months later, US space ship
Discovery is sent to investigate the fourth planet of our
solar system. The spaceship is manned by two astronauts -
Frank Pool (Gary Lockwood) and Dave Bowman (Keir Dullea),
but actually controlled by HAL 9000, computer equipped with
artificial intelligence (voice by Douglas Rain). During the
voyage, allegedly infallible computer begins to make
mistakes, which forces the human crew to think about
disconnecting it.

Even those who don't like the lack of clarity in 2001 are
forced to admit that, on the technical side, this film
really deserves to praised as one of the milestones in the
history of cinema. Its director, Stanley Kubrick, made great
movies before (LOLITA) and after (A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, filmed
three years later, is actually preferred by mainstream
critics), but in this film he used all his talent to make
something really remarkable. First of all, 10 million US$
budget - something that looked like a fortune and was almost
unimaginable for science fiction at the time - was used to
create very detailed world of future supertechnology. Along
the professional production and costume designers, Kubrick
employed the talents of futurologists and real-life
scientists and  space vehicle designers, which resulted in
the high level of plausibility and authenticity for a
futuristic movie (the real life instruction for a zero
gravity toilet is just the most common example). Another
important element were the groundbreaking special effects;
Kubrick, together with legendary Douglas Trumbull,
introduced many revolutionary techniques that helped the
audience to suspend its disbelief and make studio-recreated
space, including zero gravity look also authentic. Thanks to
those effects, 2001 looks as convincing now as it looked for
the unsuspecting audience thirty years ago (and despite the
fact that we couldn't see such level of technology in
real-life 2001). Finally, Kubrick was also revolutionary in
using non-original music; his choice was superb and some
themes - especially those by Johann Strauss ("An der
schoenen blauen Donau") and Richard Strauss ("Also Spracht
Zarathustra") - would stay forever associated with his
powerful imagery.

The actors of the movie remained mostly forgotten and that
shouldn't surprise anyone, because this is the movie of the
sights, sounds and ideas and not of the great memorable
characters. Most of those characters are either hidden
behind ape-like costumes (Moonwatcher), or presented like
boring bureacrats (Floyd) or astronauts turned emotionally
numb by the boredom of their job (Pool, Bowman). Ironically,
it is the non-human character, HAL, that brings real human
dimension to the events of the movie by expressing genuine
emotions. Furthermore, there are relatively few words spoken
in the entire movie - and most of the lines are trivial and
serve only to illustrate banality and boredom of the life in
the Space Age. The only lines that entered movie lovers'
collective memory are the HAL's famous last words.

2001 is a movie as close to perfection as one movie can be.
Those who deny it such status are probably those who
question its plausibility. We are less than three (one, if
you consider the 1999 segment) years away from the world
presented in the movie, and most of the movie looks dated or
overoptimistic now. Our space technology seems decades, if
not centuries behind those presented in Kubrick's vision.
Our fashions and social customs changed drastically compared
with the late 1960s; the Cold War, that provided material
for one of the more banal conversations in the movie, is
thing of the past. Our computers didn't develop artificial
intelligence. But are all those false predictions reasons
enough for us to downgrade 2001? Is the Orwellian vision
moot because the world in 1984 lacked Big Brother? Should we
discard BLADE RUNNER when November 2019 comes without
replicants in sight? The answer should be no. The movie was
authentic by 1968 standards, and it was very plausible,
taking into consideration contemporary trends. 2001 is a
movie that presents future that probably won't happen, but
also the future that might have happened. Even as false
vision, 2001 remains powerful one, able to inspire us to ask
questions about our existence, our true nature as human
beings and, finally, our future.

RATING: 10/10

Review written on December 8th 1998

--
Dragan Antulov a.k.a. Drax
Fido: 2:381/100
E-mail: [email-masked]
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