I know I watched this film almost 47 years after its release, and despite
some of my friends' constant imploring me to watch this film as soon as
possible, I’m glad I did so last week.
This is probably the greatest experience I've ever had while watching a
movie.
2001: A Space Odyssey is an prophetic film of epic proportions. To say
that this is one of the greatest science fiction films made is an
understatement. Questions of psychology, machine intelligence, human
exploration, and their raw animalistic ethos intrigue the subconscious, along
with fascinating, yet dark visuals and spectacular sequences set in space and
on land. Apart from its appreciable scientific accuracy, the film is a
profoundly visceral experience that cannot be found anywhere else. It's amazing how close to real life director Stanley Kubrick made the film
seem. The film released in 1968, in the heat of the space race, and just one
year before the giant leap of mankind. Since there weren't enough space-related
imagery and definitive physical or metaphysical boundaries to the realities of
space, there was a very thin line, but a line nonetheless, dividing Kubrick's
titanic imagination and the physics of space, and devising a believable
storyline that would remain oblivious to the numerous imminent space endeavors
and stand the test of time was challenging. Kubrick teamed up with science
fiction pioneer Arthur Clarke to help publish a novel of the same name that
many say was loosely based on a previous short of his, 'The Sentinel', although
Clarke vehemently opposed this in a foreword to the special edition of the book
published in the eponymous year of 2001. According to Clarke, Kubrick had
already ‘devoured entire libraries’ and had become an ‘expert’ in science
fiction before they had first met. A screenplay was later derived from the
novel and the film was released a few months before the book.
Let me delve into some of the many aspects of this film that have deeply
moved me.
Firstly, the accuracy with which Kubrick has showcased space, an esoteric
subject at the time, is admirable. Kubrick’s pedantic nature is visible in
every aspect of the film. He makes use of Strauss’ Blue Danube to paint an
elegant picture of space, right after the ‘Dawn of Man’ sequence, and the scene
wherein the Pan Am jet docks into the space station is majestic. The lunar
surface depicted in the film is dry and dusty, and a generally jagged
landscape, not even close to a departure from the actual lunar surface. Even
the real astronauts that landed on the moon a year later concurred with the
film’s depiction. The gaseous forms of Jupiter’s clouds are stunningly close to
the real one. And arguably, the star gate sequence could probably be a product
of anyone’s imagination, given that space researchers aren’t close to
deciphering the physics of these space and time bending portals. The sound
design is also impeccable. The scene in which Dave re-enters the Discovery is testament to this. The
silence is formidably deafening when Dave ejects himself from the space pod and
enters the ship, and the sound that follows of the emergency doors closing is
equally startling. The production and costume design in the scenes inside the
space stations naturally suffer from a hyperbolic and optimistic envisioning of
the future of space from the perspective of a naiveté generation, but it still remains
believable nonetheless. The same follows with the birth of the star child. Even
the dull dialogues between the astronauts reflect the way of life in space.
Kubrick’s awareness of the importance of grounding space travel to its physical
conformities, in contrast to allowing artistic imagination getting the better
of the subject, makes this picture relevant even today.
HAL 9000 is the artificial intelligence system that controls the Discovery One spacecraft headed for
Jupiter that claims to have never failed in its short history. Douglas Rain,
who provided its dry, scathing voice, has probably created the most memorable nefarious
character of its time. The scenes in which HAL is a part of provide a cautionary
tale about the infiltration of technology into human endeavors. Masterful
camera tricks transform this quasi-innocuous machine into a passive but
ruthless monster. HAL seems miffed with humans performing even the simplest of
endeavors. The shot in which the astronaut Frank Poole streaks across space
when HAL snaps the cord connecting Poole to the Discovery is deeply inflicting, just like the subtle murdering of
the hibernating scientists.
A recurring character in the film is the enigmatic black monolith. The
novel gives away too many details, I’m told, and I haven’t read the book yet,
but the film prefers to mask it with ambiguity. Classic Kubrick. The monolith
appears to change the course of human history every time it appears, although
where it appears from and how it does so is unclear, and rightly so. A
particular scene I loved was in the ‘Dawn of Man’ sequence. How those agitated
apes start screeching in cacophonous tones, and jump about at a slight distance
around the monolith at the break of dawn, knowing very well that there was an
inexplicable air of authority around it. How that dissonant howling in the
background adds to the hysteria. And how, after a while, the apes curiously
approach the object, feel it, and mellow down. I read that there seems to be
some sort of religious significance in this scene, when the sunlight hits the
monolith, something signifying Zarathusthra.
Regardless, this scene was amazingly captured in one shot, and from one camera
angle, and is probably the most impactful scene in the history of cinema. At
second place is a similar scene on the moon, wherein the astronauts discover the monolith
and attempt to touch it, setting off a deafening screech that probably opened
up the star gate vortex near Jupiter. The terrifying howling in the background,
mentioned previously, adds to the aura of the monolith, and strikes the mind
with a hammer whenever it’s heard in the monolith scenes.
This Kafkaesque journey into the mysterious depths of space assures me that if there ever was a God
of cinema that walked this earth, it was Stanley Kubrick. The subject that this
story dives into is a serious matter, and it was dutifully narrated by a
scrupulous Kubrick. I only wish he were alive in the year 2001, to appreciate the
film’s far-reaching influence on space travel, and cinema.
