SO, today in Dublin watched once again that phantasmagorical epic 2001: a Space Odyssey, in – Lo! - its original 70mm (so, genuine widescreen). Made in 1968 and directed by the reclusive but iconic Stanley Kubrick, the film has all the hallmarks of a ’60s project – Hardy Amies fashion, idealism, psychedelia etc. – but (as always with intelligent science fiction) foreshadows many things to come, including a not so distant relative of the iPad. On its release 2001 attracted mixed reviews, partly due to an opaque plot, but also its Great Length (even the trimmed version is 141 minutes; the original weighed in at a restroom-beckoning 160). Now, 2001 is widely acknowledged as one of the best 100 films ever made.
And no wonder; WHAT a film! Divided into three parts, 2001 traces the development of humankind, from our earliest ape-like ancestors 4 million years ago, through our first attempts at space exploration, and finally our (well, the protagonist’s anyway) transformation into a gigantic Star Child, hovering between our Earth and the moon, and ready to shepherd our species into an uncertain future. Overseeing all of this are some nameless aliens, represented by a mysterious 
monolith (looking strangely like the UN building in New York – well, this is the ’60s).
The plot? Well, first the monolith rescues the apes from near-extinction, ‘training’ them to use bones as clubs so turning them from herbivores into hunter-gatherers, and paving the way for evolution to produce homo-sapiens. Then, in the 20thC, we find another monolith on the moon, which subsequently signals Alien HQ on Jupiter that “the humans are here and they’re not grunting anymore”.
Finally, a monolith the size of Venus takes the hero David Bowman from his spaceship (called ‘Discovery’, and sent to see where the signal actually went), through a star-gate to metamorphose into humanity’s next stage of development – Super Being. The star of the show is HAL, the spaceship’s mixed up super-computer, who gradually descends to a level of existential angst making Hamlet look, well, cheerful. HAL, sadly, believes the mission is under threat because Bowman and his colleague start to doubt his abilities. So, he enters cyber-psychosis, and kills all the crew except Bowman (including three in suspended animation). Bowman is forced to pull HAL’s plug.
When I first saw the film in 1971, it terrified and awed me. Its a startlingly original project, released at a time when most other films were bonnet dramas, war films, really silly Hammer Horrors, or risqué comedies like Carry on up the Khyber (though that was a fun film). The visual effects in 2001 – such as Bowman being taken through the star-gate – won Kubrick an Oscar, but it was Bowman’s sheer loneliness, being 100 million miles from earth orbiting Jupiter, isolated in the deafening silence of space, that got to me as a teen-ager.
That and the eerie music. Much of th
e soundtrack is from the music of Hungarian György Ligeti, a fiercely contemporary composer (he died only in 2006). Through an extensive use of microtones (those spaces between the notes on a piano), Ligeti creates a musical landscape that really does seem ‘not of this world’ – the effect Kubrick of course wanted (check out Lux Aeterna when you have time; and keep the light on).
I came out of the theatre today stunned (and looking for a restroom). As an adult, I couldn’t help seeing the film in a different light to my first viewing (good grief) 39 years ago. Its message is as strong as 40 years ago…but what do I think now in 2010? Well, first, 2001’s technological prescience. Credit cards to make phone/video calls! Space travel to the moon! A space station orbiting the Earth! Digital newspapers! Personal screens for in-flight entertainment! Computers that talk! Flat screen monitors! (yes, they were unknown in 1968).
Second, the film also reminded me that now, at the beginning of the third millennium, our arrogance as a species knows no bounds – see the mess we’re making of our planet – so superior beings may be just the thing to bring us into line (!). Its also a shame that when the apes learn to use clubs for killing animals for food, their NEXT target is the other ape-tribe down the valley. Whilst I have no truck with Golden-Ageists (see a previous post), it did remind me of human development’s Janus-face.
And the death of HAL still feels odd. ‘He’ was a machine of course, just programmed to be a ‘person’, but ‘killing’ HAL did seem uncomfortably close to ending the life of a living being that didn’t want to die. HAL was just a little mixed up, and his deteriorating mental health was (as revealed later) a by-product of internal conflict. HAL knew something Bowman didn’t – that the true reason for the mission was to find the aliens. HAL killing the crew was just cyber-teleology (the end – a successful mission – justifies the means – killing the crew). During the scene where Bowman slowly removes HAL’s processors to stop him doing more damage, the computer’s regression to ‘childhood’ then silicon death still feels genuinely unsettling. What defines a person? Is HAL different to a human? Why?
Kubrick kept the dialogue in 2001 intentionally sparse or bland (much to the chagrin of writer Arthur C Clarke, on whose short story The Sentinel the film is based), so as to give the audience free reign to construct their own interpretations of what is going on. So, go see the film next time it shows (the DVD doesn’t really do the cinematography any justice).
What do YOU think it all means?
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