2001 – A Space Odyssey

2001:  A Space Odyssey is to me the quintessence of Cinema and visual art!  So much has been written about the fourth best film of all time. (#1 Citizen  Kane #2 Vertigo #3 La Règle du Jeu on the 1000  greatest films list of all time by They Shoot Pictures Don't They?).  Easily the best Science-fiction film of all time, for many critics and  maybe to me too it's considered as the best film of all time! However,  to me Kubrick only made memorable films. And 2001... is one of  the rare films that qualifies as perfect films. The story transcends  Science-fiction and Cinema itself. Every second, every frame, every  image of the film is unforgettable and untouchable. It won't be easy to  rate this film...


The  story told here is about humanity, its past, its near-present and its  future. Having read the book by Arthur C. Clarke and having seen 2001... 5 times, I can say that everytime I rewatch it, I rediscover it and  everytime it impresses me more than the last time. The rythm is so slow  that it feels like the film was shot in slow-motion or like if the time  stands still. Even if in the story there are millions of years of gap  between some scenes. I agree that the story can annoy some viewers and  the unnarrated parts are uncommon to some viewers that need to get  explanations on what is going on the screen. I would recommend to these  picky viewers to read the book to fully understand some of the subtil  elements of the plot.

The classical tunes used in the soundtrack  give so much depth to the images that it feels like a religious  experience to watch an ear. Richard Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra is now considered has a classic and could not be used without being a  direct reference to 2001.... And the Blue Danube ballet  has never been used in a better situation than in this film.

2001... has often been compared to its Soviet follower Andreï Tarkovsky's Solaris and I think that both are equally perfect films. Tarkovsky has always  said he thought Kubrick's film was too cold and unhuman. This is an  interesting argument, because in 2001... Kubrick opposes man  against the machine, an old confrontation that always bothered creators  of all time (Wegener's Der Golem, Shelley's Frankenstein,  etc.). Human's creation becoming envious of its creator and trying to  destroy its fatherhood. "The slave becomes the master"... I think  the cold aspect of 2001... comes from the fact that it is so  near the religious experience that it fells more than human. It's the  story of humanity and its evolution and how it should become god-like.


Starting  on the basis that Man created God to fill his spiritual emptiness. In  the 20th Century, Nietszche exposed the idea that god is dead and that  it is to humanity to take his place and role. His whole theory of Man  accessing the "Superman" state. The grand finale of the film represents  the "Superman" born to protect the planet earth. Kubrick's vision  included the protection from a potential Nuclear war that already  obsessed him as a theme he exploited in his earlier film Dr.  Strangelove: Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb.


Well,  the odyssey of 2001: A Space Odyssey is a journey that takes its  viewer in places that only the mind can go and that only 2001... can bring the mind in these places.

Last updated: 2010-10-19 10:40:20 by MichaelParent

I had a profound thought while watching 2001: A Space Odyssey.  The first time that I watched it and I actually got it was in 2001.  Isn't that weird?  I was in college and I was . . . . well, there's a time and place for everything, and that place is called college.  And that everything helped me discover the true meaning hidden in 2001 and unlocks a piece of the universe.


...


Stanley Kubrick's classic film is not a quick moving film.   In fact, it's damn slow.  Intentionally.  There is nothing that occurs in any Stanley Kubrick movie that has not been excruciatingly poured over and reconsidered and overly analyzed before finally committed to celluloid.  If 2001 is slow, it is supposed to be slow.


The story of humanity's exploration of the universe begins with a tribe of man-apes, not yet master of the Earth.  But after a large black monolith appears to the tribe, the man-ape is inspired to manipulate his environment, to the point that man-ape can explore beyond that which is immediately outside of his cave.  In fact, those explorations outside of the cave ultimately lead to the moon, and then into the rest of the solar system.


The title of the film describes the three forces that interact in 2001:


2001: time

Space: space

Odyssey: humanity -- a description of man traveling through space-time.


The jump cut between man-ape throwing a bone-weapon-tool into the air and a space craft traveling in orbit around the Earth is Kubrick showing the audience how the universe views time.  In the blink of an eye, man-ape becomes star-man.  The next 2 (very slow) hours are told in human time.  In human time, these travels from one orbiting rock to another are significantly long.


Actually, for as dark as a Stanley Kubrick movie can be, 2001 is quite optimistic: mankind has come a long way from the man-ape.  To the point where star-man can lift off of the Earth and predict long travel well enough that she can move through space and time in comfort and still come relatively close to predicting her fate -- barring a random PC error, or explosive bolts.


Kubrick  would seem to keep his narratives relatively buried, and 2001 tends to be cited as having his most buried plot.  In actuality, Kubrick uses all aspects of film technique to tell his relatively simple narrative.  He hits the viewer over the head with strikingly composed shots and fantastically abstract and dramatic classical score.


Mankind continues forward, out from the cave, off of the earth to the moon, and out to Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite.  Man's is an odyssey that will never end.


To exemplify this ceaseless motion, Kubrick, for example, spends time showing large, round, rotating space crafts, using very few edits to break up beautiful elegance of weightless rotation, motion that is sempiternal.  He also uses shots that show great depth of field, or wide shots where the action and model are engulfed by the infinite environs.


2001: A Space Odyssey is of course a classic.  Revolutionary.  In the documentary Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures, one of 2001's producers off-handedly mentions that it played theatrically for several years.  It is heady, and it doesn't pretend to not be, a quality which allows it to transcend from the equivalent of the pop lit to the equivalent of classic lit.


As the years pass, it will continue to be a great film. To keep it immortal, Kubrick does all effects through perspective tricks and rotating sets so that whatever sort of movie pyrotechnics that Hollywood could conjure up in 1967 or 68 do not appear dated to those watching the film 40 years later.


Unfortunately, it will not be a film that will be viewed by the masses as time goes on, and will be reserved for the generations of film students and film critics -- like all great cinema (if I had my way, it would be part of a high schooler's freshman curriculum).  But, as it is, one who appreciates 2001 will have to go through one's lifetime hearing other people talk about how bored they were or how stupid the acting was or how not scary it is or how they didn't get it.


I quote Lo Pan:



    Shut up, Mr. Burton! You are not brought upon this world to get it!

Ruben of the Floating Red Couch<br />
http://www.floatingredcouch.com

BACK COVER SYNOPSIS: 2001: A Space Odyssey is a countdown to tomorrow, a road map to human destiny, a quest for the infinite. It is a dazzling, Academy Award-winning visual achievement, a compelling drama of man vs. machine, a stunning meld of music and motion. It may be the masterwork of director Stanley Kubrick (who co-wrote the screenplay with Arthur C. Clarke)... and it will likely excite, inspire and enthrall for generations. To begin his voyage into the future, Kubrick visits our prehistoric ape-ancestry past, then leaps millenia (via one of the most mind-blowing jump cuts ever conceived) into colonised space, and ultimately whisks astronaut Bowman (Keir Dullea) into uncharted realms of space, perhaps even into immortality. "Open the pod bay doors, HAL" Let the awe and mystery of a journey unlike any other begin.

FILM REVIEW: Stanley Kubrick is undoubtedly one of cinema's true visionaries, having made films for the better part of half a century that have stood out as being some of the most unique films in history: 'A Clockwork Orange', 'Full Metal Jacket', 'The Shining' to name a few. I'm probably not as partial to his style, mainly because I find his films quite frustrating to watch (with the exception of Eyes Wide Shut). Sorry if I've offended the Kubrick purists out there, but although I recognise that he's brilliant, I don't think that necessarily makes his films easy to sit through. He really does take his time, minute by minute with each scene, and he tests an audience's patience.
When I first watched '2001: A Space Odyssey', I came to it having heard the stories of its 'classic' status and was keen to check it out given that I'm quite the sci-fi buff. I'm still not sure what to think. The opening sequence of the Sun coming up over the Earth combined with that now infamous music by Richard Strauss is nothing short of jaw-dropping and left a very strong first impression. When I saw that, it seemed like a perfect opening that captured the grandness of space.
Yet, the film then starts to progress through a rather unformulaic way. There's a story, and there isn't. We follow the progress of man's first step from being an ape to becoming what he is today, but after a few minutes of seeing those monkeys jump around in prehistoric times, I got the picture. I didn't need to see more than that but you do. Then there's the spectacular transition from one of the apes throwing a bone in to the air and it cuts to a spaceship of similar shape orbiting the Earth - a jump cut of a millenia! Then we get to see space ships and space stations dancing to the Blue Danube. It's quite beautiful and very well directed, yet for a lot of people I can imagine them wondering: what the hell is going on here? Then we move to the more straight-forward part of the narrative where we meet the infamous HAL, an artificial intelligence that runs the spaceship Gary Lockwood and his astronauts are running. This part of the film is about man vs machine - the idea that all things being equal, a computer should be perfect, but as is so cleverly demonstrated by Kubrick, HAL is definitely not and by that token we shouldn't put all our trust in a machine. And after the HAL storyline is resolved, we move to an extremely surreal journey through the cosmos where humanity meets its future with the famous image of the Star Child closing out the film, representing humanity's infancy in the universe (a symbolic mirror of the opening when apes became men). It's all very high concept, but you have to dig it out for yourself and I can imagine this might frustrate the casual viewer.
The film is a masterpiece. The film also depicts a very realistic vision of the Earth, the surface of the Moon, and our Solar System - impressive given the film was made before humanity went to the Moon. The images are nothing short of spectacular. What Kubrick does with the form will not be to everyone's taste but at least you can appreciate the man for trying something different. Imagine that happening in Hollywood today...

TECHNICAL REVIEW: Given the film was made in 1968, it looks excellent on DVD; the transfer is of very high quality without much digital artefact. The colours and clarity of picture are superb. The soundtrack is well mastered, with the numerous classic numbers sounding very clear. Dialogue is not an issue as well, although there isn't much of it. Very, very good transfer of an older film.

EXTRAS REVIEW: This DVD doesn't offer much in the way of Extras; pity about that considering this film was a landmark in visual effects history and inspired later films such as Star Wars in depicting a realistic vision of outer space. It wouldn't have hurt to have had a retrospective documentary on what it took to make the film. Instead, there's an interactive menu, scene access, trailer and some subtitles. In this day and age of 2-disc special editions for even the worst films, this is a travesty.

BOTTOM LINE: Worth having in the collection.

FILM RATING: 8/10 -- EXTRAS RATING: 3/10 -- OVERALL DVD RATING: 7/10 

Todd Murphy <br />
http://www.allaboutmovies.net

Last updated: 2010-02-08 21:03:02 by user01

For me, this is the greatest science fiction films ever made. Not one of the greatest or one of the best but the best, period.

The sound it terrific, mesmerizing and hypnotic, almost as you yourself are out there in deep space…

The plot is very good. A team of scientists off to space to investigate a strange black monolith.
The special effects are good and you have to remember I’m talking about 1968 here. The shots look good and so is the cinematography.

There are great scary scenes in the film that even without a background music (and there are some without) are terrifying as hell. If the music makes it more believable to be a film, the scary scenes without the music make you feel it in reality and actually relate to the terror, horror and pain the characters are going through.

Maybe the best character in this film and well remembered up to this day is the all knowing and capable computer Hall 9000. A computer that manages that entire crew and ship, leaving the human scientists to rest and do their work…but like I said, there is a good and scary plot here, so keep your eyes open at all time, you never who can turn on you and when. Here in deep space, no one can hear you screaming…

Although this film is a little long (141 minutes), this is a must see film. It’s a classic and the best science fiction films ever made. It is an inspiration to writers, directors to this date and if you haven’t seen it yet, it’s a hole in your education.

The film is worth every minute of it and every details in it is meaningful and important so pay attention and enjoy this film. It is filmed differently than film these days…but that’s because the director was Kubrick. I think he’s a genius so you actually feel it is you out there investigating in the cold deep space.

Go out on these 141 minute journey…hope to see you safe and sound and I’ll hear all your experiences and stories…it’s launching time…10..9..8…7…6……