Well after first watching this movie I wasn't sure if I loved it or completely hated it. Although I am an avid fan of Kubrick's work I found this movie to be overly long and pretentious for a Kubrick film. I quickly realised that the pretentiousness and the bizarre plot were what made me like the movie. I have since stopped thinking aobut the movie, but after a dsicussion with Nick (whom I tried to defend the movie against his bitter hatred) he began to like it. So as I sit here I will try to maybe crack some of the finer if not quite possibly irrelevent interpretations I have formed. The first thing I have noticed is that the human characters, especially Bowman show no emotions, fears or anxieties. The minimal dialogue in the film is often irrelevent compared to the actual plot. The only instace where a character speaks about their fears is the line "I am scared" (so simple I know) spoken by ironically none other than HAL the computer. Possible scholarly theories I have looked up upon have noted this as a way to show how man has become so used to their enviornment they no longer feel.
Another interesting thing I noticed was the monolith itself. This monolith appears 3 times in the movie. Once on earth, once on the moon, and once floating in space. Each time it appears an eerie music plays that gets louder and louder (instantly recognizable). Given the shape of this monolith (rectangular) standing up it appears to just be an object, more on this seemingly irrelevent fact later. The eerie music I previously mentioned appears only one other time. An intermission like black screen. Upon looking closely at the monolith you will see that when turned on its side it resembles... yes the movie screen itself. So Kubrick tries to imply that we are apart of the movie by staring at the monolith itself. Now in the book the monoliths purpose is to give knowledge and casue evolution. So is it possibly that Kubrick himself is trying to tell us to evolve and become enlightened? During the Stargate sequence (those who have not seen the movie will get completely lost in this discussion aobut now) we see the lights coming towards us at a vertical angle, but suddenly in the middle of the sequence they switch to vertical, possibly a reference to the monolith.
As an avid Kubrick fan I am well aware of Kubrick's fascination with sex. In fact in any given kubrick film you will find some overexemplified sexual reference. Yet as I sat through 2001 I found none, and as the credits rolled I felt in a way cheated, but upon my second viewing I was wrong. Immediatly at the star of the stargate sequence it hit me like a brick. A long slendar ship sailing through space into the monolith floating on an angle through space erupting into flashing lights and an actual scene of an embryo being formed, and then the epic ending showing the star child floating through outer space. Wow how could I have missed that!
In the end I am left to wonder, Is the merit of 2001 based only on the ways of interpreting Kubricks superior technique? or does the story and plot actually hold merrit? I believe that it is both. The movie is so dense that if watched in class we would spend months on it. I highly recomend the film not becasue it is good, just so you can join the debate, and lastly if I missed anything let me know.
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It was very ironic that the human characters were more machine-like than HAL, and I have no doubt in my mind that Kubrick did it on purpose. I watched some special features on the DVD and Keir Dullea did say that Kubrick made them underplay the entire movie.
ReplyDeleteThe monolith actually appears one more time, and that is in Bowman's dream room after his voyage through space.
It is asbolutely impossible to talk about this movie in depth and keep it under a month. There is soooooo much going on and there are so many different conclusions you can draw from it. As I said in my post, Arthur Clarke once said something like "If you understood 2001, then we failed. We wanted to raise more questions than we answered". That's exactly what they did.
I also wanted to point out something that i forgot to include in my post. 2001 was rated G, even though there were a total of 5 on screen murders.
Yea i did realise the monolith in the room after i had written it, now the intermession is it actually labeled intermission i forgot?
ReplyDeleteMinor change the verticle stargate switches to horizontal
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ReplyDeletedunno fellas. I like my analysis to be fairly accessible. When stuff gets too obscure, I start to wonder if anyone really knows what's going on. At that point it all starts to look like a Jackson Pollack painting.
ReplyDeleteI think the idea of the film was to be as INACCESSIBLE as possible. After watching citizen Kane I came up with a certain comparative theory. While Citizen Kane shows paradoxes through imagery such as a large painting and a small Kane, 2001 does not show paradoxes through imagery, it IS the paradox in itself. By being so obscure it creates feelings of hate and love from viewers, making them go. What the hell did I just watch?
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