2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Directed by: Stanley Kubrick

Cast: Keir Dullea [David Bowman], Gary Lockwood [Frank Poole], Douglas Rain [HAL 9000]

HAL 9000, Dr Dave Bowman’s ship’s computer system, begins displaying increasingly strange behaviour when sent with other astronauts on a mysterious mission. This leads up to a tense clash between man and machine that results in a mind-bending trek through space and time.

Based on: “2001: A Space Odyssey”, written by Arthur C. Clarke

My rating: 8.5/10

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Narrative aspects

Stanley Kubrick’s ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ tells the story through four divided sections of different time frames, all with a significant purpose of deepening the meaning of the plot’s purpose:

The Dawn of Man – with primates living and thriving early in time
Unnamed section 2 – revolving around Dr Frank Poole investigating the moon excavation
Jupiter Mission (18 months later) – Dave Bowman and his team on the mission to Jupiter
Jupiter (and beyond the infinite) – The foreign entity takes Bowman into custody

These four divisions act as a passage of time, marked by a sleek black three-dimensional object called a Monolith, that sort of advances the characters on-screen as well as the story to the next stage of advancement, according to alien beings. The significance of starting with the apes interacting and learning could signify some sort of foreshadowing at first, to a maybe darker future humankind are headed for after the apes learn to use bones as weapons. Though however it only foreshadows to the fact that humans first used bones as a tool but now, literally jump-cutting to a million years into the future, they use technology and systems that could never be conjured up before in the mind. Besides the film being faintly about physical evolution, it is about the mental evolution where we have become beings of high intelligence of knowledge and emotion.

Kubrick touches upon topics that are apt for reality as well as current time, even though the film is fifty years old. Other than evolution, the concept of AI (artificial intelligence) is till date one that has been on the minds of many. This film captures the capabilities of such a technological advancement brilliantly, with having virtually no errors and sort of being an omniscient creation. It is interesting to note that in the film HAL 9000, which is the computer installed into the system of Dave Bowman’s spacecraft, is in fact much more emotionally aware and responsive than the humans on board, with showing signs of guilt, remorse and anger. It is as if there’s an underlying message of technology being so advanced that they are more human than the actual humans themselves. Looking at the way in which AI is being developed and researched on, that idea may not be far from reality.

In a film criticism video created by Crash Course, the educational YouTube channel, on ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’, they noted a key detail in the film that again addresses the point of evolution and advancement. Every section has some sort of symbol for ‘birth’ whether through dialogue or a physically obvious sign, or even through some abstract concept. In the first section, ‘The Dawn of Man’ in itself is another way of expressing ‘the birth of mankind’. Section two involves Dr Poole wishing his daughter, who is back on Earth, a happy birthday on a video call, while section three has Bowman’s birthday with his parents sending him a recorded message. The last section has an overall battle between ageing, life and death through the film ends with a large fetus-like creature growing closer towards Earth, which is, of course, a symbol for birth once again.

Below the overall themes in the film, Kubrick uses smaller details towards manipulating audio, visual and demonstration of scenes to capture a certain plot point, mood or message. The film includes many prolonged moments of silence where there is either no sound at all or the atmospheric white noise and breathing. These moments heighten the tension and anticipation in the viewer because they expect something to appear or happen which would excite them at any following moment, thus waiting and watching the scenes intently. Music plays an important role in this effect too as Kubrick has arranged a score that is captivating, rich and perfect for the theme and style of the film. The music acts as a trigger and if there is any to be heard, an audience knows that the scene is important. Moreover, the realism of space is shown through music and even the lack of it where when showing scenes out in space, there is a complete mute and at times music stops abruptly. The serenity of space and slowness of its pace is captured through audio alone and visuals keep the audience interested, enthralled and curious.

Infer & Deduce: To figure out the meaning of the film’s title, its literal definition can be examined. With 2001 being the year in which the film is set (being a distant future for when it was made), Odyssey means “a long wandering or voyage usually marked by many changes of fortune” or “an intellectual or spiritual wandering or quest”. Both these definitions apply to the film as it is a long journey the characters and the audience go through, from as early as the dawn of man till the close-to-peak of technology thousands of years into the future. Moreover, the second definition clearly applies to the evolutionary concept the film sheds light on as well as how there is a celestial touch brought on to Dave Bowman at the end of the film.

Technical Aspects

Kubrick’s film may comprise of a simple storyline, with a few characters and lightly developed characters but to counter, his film is extremely intricate in its visual appeal and techniques. The limitations of technology in the 1960s did not stop Kubrick from achieving his visions for the look of the film, going to lengths of having multiple sets built or mechanisms created just to get a specific shot. One example of this is during ‘The Dawn of Man’ scene that took place in a desert environment. The immediate set was built to the best accuracy of real-life conditions although the far background stretch was actually a projection of desert stock shots that the crew team had gathered to avoid the harsh conditions the cast and crew would have to work in.

Other aspects of set design include the consistency of keeping the space atmosphere and the centrifugal motion of the ship in mind, with backdrops outside the windows rotating depending on what kind of ship it is and where. To add on, the entire mise-en-scène is apt for the locations as well as in the realistic terms, which could have deceived the audience of the 1960s that the actors actually did go to space.

Another point about the film conveying meaning through mediums other than the characters is through the music score, which is a compilation of different temporary tracks along with compositions by Alex North. There are two sequences, the beginning and after the intermission, which are rather confusing moments in the film where there is no visual input and just music playing in the background for two to three minutes. Music from Strauss, “Sprach Zarathustra”, was the theme for the film and is now used in many productions to depict a sense of triumph. The music in the film speaks much more than the characters do, for sure.

In the post-production aspect of the film, brilliant visual effects are used, for instance, the colour filters during the scene of Dave Bowman travelling through time and space in the fourth section of the film, which gives the sequence a very eerie and frightening look that portrays Bowman’s own horror of the unknown. When thinking of ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ one does not forget about the most iconic jump-cut in the history of film, where an ape throws a bone into the air which twirls around and as it is falling the scene cuts to a ship flying in space, that closely resembles the shape of the bone. It implies on the time skip from being the most basic of beings till creating these magnificent machines we call spaceships, while also signifying on the reason for showing the scene with the apes as being important since Kubrick could have just started with the film set in space.

Similarly, HAL 9000 has many interactions with the crew aboard the spacecraft and it is interesting to observe the way in which Kubrick depicted the point of view of this supercomputer, with having a fish-eye sort of filter or lens that gives it a spherical and convex appearance. This gives the audience a direct dive into seeing the world from HAL’s view and could also be used to show how he thinks, while based on the way he sees. Moreover, when Bowman and his partner are discussing HAL in a space pod with him unable to hear, while HAL is lip reading there is a rounded mask that fills the screen with softened edges, again emphasising on the narrow and directed viewing field of this AI program.

Favourite Scene

This is a masterpiece of a scene, like the entirety of the film, but what strikes out for me is the lack of a physical character HAL 9000 is although is the most developed and self-aware than any of the others. Dave Bowman, in search for his partner that seems to have lost communication with the ship after heading outside to make a repair, is in the middle of a heated argument with the computer on-board who has supposedly gone rogue. Amidst the frustration and disbelief felt by Bowman, HAL objects his every attempt to convince him of opening the doors, giving him an idea to eventually use the emergency hatch.

This scene puts HAL and Dave into the spotlight, verbally battling it out against each other. The brilliant thing about this scene is the broader presentation of mankind and how at times, even though we are superior and intellectual beings, we lose power against something we have created: technology and machines. This shift in power further develops when Bowman enters back into the ship and starts removing HAL’s memory cards, where outside Bowman could only ask and talk HAL out of not following orders while now HAL can do nothing but talk.

HAL is a well-portrayed character who feels in details that other characters don’t like the emotions felt towards the mission and its weight and in fact any emotion in general, which is something quite alien to a machine. HAL has no physical body, no ability to use facial expressions and has a close to monotone voice in any given situation, yet he is one of the most fascinating characters. Kubrick has presented HAL in an intimidating way, with an extreme close-up of his red ‘eye’ watching eternally at the humans aboard the ship. The lack of expression gives him a personality, and that is the least we can expect from a computer system. Without a doubt, Kubrick created a character with mystery and suspicion, though perhaps the schema of someone watching, especially from modern days, would influence the perception of HAL, with the paranoia of technology and camera place everywhere with who knows watching an individual at any given moment.

What would I do differently?

Stanley Kubrick, being a brilliant auteur, intended on every single ambiguous moment in the film industry’s most iconic science fiction film 2001: A Space Odyssey. The lack of dialogue and the presence in scenes where most appropriate do not overpower the film and yet do not take away from the plot. Viewers focus on the visuals in front of them and feel involved by interpreting the cues without characters directly indicating a certain viewpoint or plot direction. His method of presentation of such a timeless idea is phenomenal for the time in which it was made. Personally, I would really not change anything about it since as it is, it is a creation of a man with an idea in his mind done one particular way. With that being said, however, if I were making my own version of the novel, with Kubrick completely out of the picture, I would have added more dialogue to the film with a greater emphasis on how human beings are impacted by evolution and the harm that could be caused by technology, along with the effects of wider existence in the universe.