2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Directed by: Stanley Kubrick | 143 minutes | adventure, science fiction | Actors: Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester, Daniel Richter, Leonard Rossiter, Margaret Tyzack, Robert Beatty, Sean Sullivan, Douglas Rain, Frank Miller, Bill Weston, Ed Bishop, Glenn Beck, Alan Gifford, Ann Gillis, Edwina Carroll, Penny Brahms, Heather Downham

2001: A Space Odyssey. The title alone brings with it associations of film greatness. Many are familiar with the film, that is, its reputation, but few have actually seen it. And those who finally see the film are often disappointed that the film is ‘boring’ or ‘incomprehensible’, and that they don’t understand how the film got its classic status.

The reaction is understandable. Because while the film has served as a model for later science-fiction films like Star Wars, the film is like nothing else you’ve ever seen. It is particularly unconventional in form and content. For example, there is only about forty minutes of dialogue in the film, and the first spoken words only take place after about thirty minutes. This dialogue isn’t really enlightening either. It mainly comes down to business formalities and small talk, with comments like “Did you have a good trip?” or “What’s on my plate? It tastes like chicken…”. This was done for a reason. Kubrick wanted to let the images and the sound do the work and determine the story. The use of dialogue shows how banal the words one uses (in film and everyday life) are and that they have become superfluous.

The film is divided into four major segments, which constantly say something about man’s relationship to the universe (and himself). In the first segment, entitled ‘Dawn of Man’, we see how man started out as ape. We see how mildly fought, or at least fought between two rival groups, for a piece of territory. Without an eventual winner. The next day, an unnatural and large piece of stone suddenly appears in the landscape, a so-called monolith. The monkeys are fascinated by it and touch it. This brings about a change in the consciousness of the beasts. They evolve and discover tools, as well as a grander method of aggression. One of the monkeys picks up a bone and hits his rival in the head with it. Later he throws it in the air and follows the most famous and biggest “jump cut” in cinema history. The bone “turns” in the next shot into a similarly shaped spaceship millions of years (and meters) later. This spaceship is man’s new kind of tool; a person who goes on and on in his attempt to subjugate the world around him. The culmination of this is the HAL 9000 computer that controls a spaceship halfway through the film. This artificial intelligence is the pinnacle of human creation. However, it turns out that this tool is not so easy to subdue and makes the people on the ship its tools. Man still has a lot to learn.

This is just a brief, and fairly basic, start to an explanation of the movie’s content. One of the greatest joys of the film is that the film raises so many provocative questions and carries so much symbolism, and meaningful themes, that the film never gets boring. Not that the shape allows this, by the way. Apart from the content, the film is an audiovisual masterpiece. The film can only be called boring according to a conventional standard, which requires a dramatic turn or big action every few minutes. This is a film that you really have to sit down for, with an open mind, and then let it work on you in all its audiovisual splendor. The wonderful, colorful and overwhelming “”Star gate”” sequence, the beautiful compositions, the classical music ideally suited to the images: it makes ‘2001’ an unparalleled film that cannot be done justice with words. You have to experience it. An absolute masterpiece.