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2001 - A Space Odyssey
(1968)
by Whitecrow
Editor's note -
Whitecrow was appalled by my harsh criticism of
2001 and sent an alternative view of
this classic movie.
It's hard to think of another film that
splits it's viewers into such diverse camps as with 2001: A Space
Odyssey. Is it a masterpiece or monumental pretentious bore?
I remember reading avidly about it in the 70s Sci Fi magazine,
Starburst, which described it as one of the most realistic sci-fi films
of all time. So when it first showed on BBC1 in the early 80s I was keen
to watch it. The 10 year old me sat through it and went "huh???"
afterwards.
However to the adult me, it is indeed a masterpiece of film, and one I
continue to watch and rewatch. Although of course it is far from
flawless.
It's definitely a challenging film to watch, and the story is carried in
many place visually rather than by dialogue. In fact the film borders on
being a silent movie, and you can almost imagine many segments with a
kind of piano interlude. But in many ways it's this visual element of
storytelling which makes the film feel so rich. You don't have many
things explained to you by the characters or voiceover (yeah I'm talking
to you Theatrical Version of Blade Runner with your Marlowesque
voice-over), and so it's up to you to read things into what's going on.
Hence on rewatching there are often extra bits or subtleties you missed
the first time around and make you see it all a bit differently. Indeed
freeze frame almost anywhere and you have something that deserves being
framed as art - the special effects, the sets, the detail are all
gorgeously realised. It's like looking at life being breathed into so
many NASA proposal sketches, which in many ways isn't too far from the
truth.
This film was of course helmed by master filmmaker Stanley Kubrick, and
it kind of displays all his hallmarks for good and ill. He would always
rather tell story and back story using visual elements, rather than have
characters explain things. But consequently often his dialogue would be
underplayed to the point where the characters in his movies often feel
like you don't really engage with them. He didn't like the idea of
heroes, as he didn't feel there were any. Hence at the end of 2001, it's
easy to feel that the person you most engaged with was Hal over any of
the human characters. For him the characters were there to move on the
story, never really to be developed, and certainly not to be likable.
So what is it about? Well in a nutshell a mysterious alien intelligence
visits early man, helping them on their first steps to tool usage and
survival. In the 21st Century we find the remnants of them, and launch a
mission to investigate and make first contact, but it goes horribly
wrong. This is told in four chapters; 'The Dawn of Man', 'TMA-1',
'Jupiter Mission' and 'Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite'.
It's no doubt the 'Jupiter Mission' that the film is most famous for. It
sees the two astronauts Poole and Bowman on a collision course with
their artificially intelligent computer HAL onboard the Discovery
Jupiter mission. Far removed from their ape descendants, Poole and
Bowman seem to lack personality, almost interchangable. They are to some
respects automatons aboard Discovery carrying their tasks out without
error. However it's their computer HAL who seems to be developing human
fallibility, caught up in the deceit of his secret mission, even trying
to talk to Bowman about it in an early scene.
However when HAL feels threatened, he acts to attempt to protect
himself, killing his crewmates. [Oh those Asmiove rules of robotics
could have come in handy here]. More than the first contact with aliens,
this is the big 'what if' ideas of the movie. Could we live with
intelligent computers? Up until this point in science fiction we'd had
computers and robots running amok. But here was one doing so because it
was intelligent, self-aware, but all too human, as can be seen in it's
slow pleading as it's mind is shut down a piece at a time.
The irony of the movie is mankind is on the way in the Jupiter mission
to meet with the alien intelligence that guided it's early steps, whilst
being completely unable to communicate successfully with it's own
artificial intelligence in HAL that it's created.
And so onto 'Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite' - the special effects
masterpiece. But with effects now moved on, this is probably the let
down of the movie. Lone survivor Bowman goes through the stargate, and
encounters a dreamlike and surreal reality, where he lives out his life
in chilling and clinical solitude, until the alien intelligence,
represented by the monoliths is ready to allow him to be reborn. The
terrifying idea there that we are still as far removed from these aliens
as our ape ancestors. The intelligence of the monoliths being something
still a considerable gulf away from ourselves. Thanks to this, many a
science fiction film has felt it needs to amp up the surrealness when
characters meet aliens - esp Godlike aliens (Scientologists must love
2001) - just think the wormhole aliens in Star Trek Deep Space 9, or the
ones Jodie Foster meets in Contact.
Yes this is a film without a single explosion or ray-gun. And yet it
takes you on a journey, it's packed with ideas, and it's beautifully
realised. It is a shame though some masterpieces can't be a bit more
accessible.
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