Watching 2001: A
SPACE ODYSSEY (1968) today, with a few exceptions, one would be hard-pressed to
realize it was first released to theaters fifty years ago. The year 1968 has
been called everything from The Year that Changed the World to The
Year America Unraveled. For science fiction on the big screen, Stanley
Kubrick’s (THE SHINING, 1980, A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, 1971) and sci-fi author
Sir Arthur C. Clarke’s classic (and polarizing) sci-fi opus was a paradigm
shift in this particular cinematic genre. The film was both hailed and derided
by critics and myself when I first
watched it with my Mom on TV (my issue was with the film's ending). I didn't
fully appreciate this masterpiece until seeing it on the big screen years later at a
twenty-four hour movie marathon with my friend Scott. Fifty years later, after so many references in modern
culture and my own film reviews, it feels like a good time to give 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY its own entry in
my humble canon. I might have gotten a wee bit carried away, as the
following discussion has turned into a three-part opus where we unpack what makes this movie so special, to me at least. I should make one disclaimer before beginning: with the exception of eldest son Andrew, most of
my family hates this film. They call
it “the slow movie” because, well, it is.
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY
opens with the dawn of man four million years ago, and ends in the year 2001 as
humans have developed (or been given) the ability for space flight, and the
chance to evolve into something more (we'll get into that much later). The film
only covers three points in time. The Dawn of Man, 1999, and 2001. The third
section could be divided into "2001" and "Beyond" but who's
to quibble? It’s a small but passionate group of fans that even cares. Each
section is a connected vignette revealing how a mysterious alien intelligence affects
the evolution of humanity from its animalistic beginnings to modern day, then
finally to Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite which is where this
magnificent, if not dry tale of plausible future science takes a sharp right
turn so mind-boggling deep that as a fifteen year old boy I scrambled to find a
paperback of Arthur C. Clarke’s novel, written in conjunction with Kubrick’s
screenplay. I was relieved to discover that ending made a lot more sense. Again,
more on that in a bit. First, let’s go back to the beginning, of
everything.
THE DAWN OF MAN
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY
opens on a grandiose note: the opening chords of Strauss’ Also sprach Zarathustra. These few stanzas have become synonymous
with the film over the decades. The sun, moon and Earth align with each other
in the first of three moments in the film where heavenly bodies align with the
large black obelisk we'll meet in a moment.
Once the opening score is complete, brief as it is, we are
staring at a vast landscape to which the cinematographer often returns as a way
of implying the slow passage of time. Living on these plains are boars
and pigs, humanoid ape-like creatures and the occasional predator. Apes
(calling them hairy proto-humans irritates my spellchecker) live their quiet
lives foraging for plants and berries alongside the pigs and spend their nights
huddled together against the incursion of any potential enemy. Their leader,
known in the credits as Moon-Watcher (Daniel Richter, THE REVOLUTIONARY, 1970, THE
U.S. VS JOHN LENNON, 2002) because of his habit of staring at the moon at
night, watches over his clan. There are other clusters of apes living in other areas,
and they occasionally clash over a source of water or
better foraging ground. These "fights" are mostly screaming and
physical posturing without actually touching each other.
The makeup for these early
humans is much different than another film from the same year, THE PLANET OF THE APES (1968). The
makeup, especially the facial prosthetics, use a similar approach of attaching
to the face at key points so the "mask" moves with the actors’
expressions and speech. Here, the design is less to mirror actual apes than
early humans. Nose and mouth are flatter, more caveman than monkey. The overall
effect, when actors just as Richter snarl or scream in close-up, is
frightening. These aren’t B-movie characters with elongated foreheads and
leopard skin costumes, but a view into how actual prehistoric humans might
have looked. Interestingly, children are represented using actual chimpanzees.
Like all of the movie, this section of the film takes its
time progressing the story, illustrating the extended routine of life before
anything is introduced to shake everyone up. Five minutes of ennui to
illustrate years or centuries of halted evolution and, perhaps, the slow dying
of a species. These human creatures are no more significant than the rest of their
compatriots on the plain. And I just used "ennui" in a sentence for
the first time. This means I'm cool.
All of that changes in one of the most brilliant scenes in
cinema. Moon Watcher and his clan open their eyes one morning to discover
something utterly alien in their midst. A black, twenty-foot rectangular
obelisk standing in the clearing of their rocky home. A dozen apes
scurry out from the rocks, circle the object. It stands starkly against its
surroundings, the arrival having occurred so silently everyone simply woke at
their usual time with nothing triggering their deer-like skittishness. One
moment it is not there, then next it simply is.
The ape-creatures scream and circle it, tossing handfuls of dirt
as a show of bravery. All the while a beautiful and terrifying chorus of men’s
voices serenades the viewer, growing louder and louder, the voice of heaven and
hell combined then screaming, reaching a crescendo where it is not simply music
but the obelisk itself, communicating in some ethereal way inside the
creatures' minds. This adds an overall eeriness, even terror, to the scene. The
chorus is used by Kubrick to good
effect, whenever the obelisk makes its appearance.
As the early humans touch the obelisk, tentatively at first then
holding their hands longer upon, they’re soon caressing it like penitent
worshipers at an altar, and the screaming chorus swells.
As if this was too much excitement for one movie, everything goes suddenly back to normal. The obelisk is
gone and things are the same for a couple more scenes until Moon-Watcher discovers the use of bones as a weapon. In flashes we discover the intelligence behind the
object has implanted the knowledge into his mind, or is perhaps communicating
directly with him in the moment. He learns – is taught – how to use the jawbone of a dead boar as a weapon. Eventually, this is used to kill the leader of an invading clan. When this happens, he and his small group have become the predators. Everything
has changed.
ACT TWO: 1999
One thing I appreciate about this film – final scene
excluded, because that seriously needed a little
more explanation for first-time viewers – is that it expects you to have a
brain and figure things out. We go from an ape man throwing a bone into the air,
to a satellite orbiting the Earth and political fixer / scientist Heywood Floyd
(William Sylvester, who later appeared as character actor in a myriad of TV shows)
being carried in a space shuttle on an uneventful trip into orbit to rendezvous
with a space station.
The space station is one aspect which has always fascinated
me. The attention to detail is amazing here, from the unfiltered sunlight
slamming against its surface, to incomplete sections of the spinning ring exposed to
space because they are under construction. Not to mention the spinning itself, creating
artificial gravity by centrifugal force. Outside and in, with its curved floors,
a brilliant and scientifically-accurate set. Granted, we haven't
proven that a spinning ring would create artificial gravity,
but it’s a decent assumption.
Product placement is rampant here, but not for profit. In
fact, it was not until much later that director Steven Spielberg realized how
much money could be made showing company products in movies. Here, Kubrick probably
got permission, but received no compensation for using corporate names. Pan
Am’s orbiter (the space shuttle) carries Dr. Floyd from Earth to the station. There,
he uses a Bell Atlantic video phone to call home, while guests can stay at a Howard
Johnson’s hotel. The director wanted realism but, ironically, by the actual 1999
all companies depicted here were gone.
There is an aspect of Act Two which has often pushes viewers away, enticing them to find a movie with more action. Kubrick did not want to show space
travel as unrealistically exciting, with glowing engines and whooshing rockets.
He understood the entire experience would be ninety-eight percent monotony.
Most filmmakers would choose the remaining two percent for their films. Not
Kubrick. Played out to the tune of an uncut Blue
Danube Waltz by Johann Strauss II, the majority of the second act is Dr. Floyd sleeping, then reading
instructions on how to use the toilet, eating through a straw, reading papers
and talking to the captain. Most of the action comes from the flight attendants
walking around in zero gravity with their magnetic shoes. Everything, the trip
to the station, the quietly tense exchange onboard with some Soviet scientists
asking why the American moon base has cut off communication, to the flight from
the station in a round, spherical shuttle to the moon base - is an exercise in
bringing the viewer as close as possible to experiencing the grand majesty of a
future traveling through the stars, including a taste of its mundane sameness. This near future is not space-opera sleek. There is distance between things out there, and
it takes time. The director's goal is to intrigue us with speculation about
what our existence could be if only we kept reaching, but not do so unrealisitically. Science fact, not
fiction. This near-future is attainable. And, at times, dull and uneventful.
Even so, Kubrick and Clarke’s optimism is contagious, as
long as one is still watching the movie at this point and not angry because after a
rather uneventful (aside from the obelisk scene) bit with the cavemen, one has
to watch the uneventful flight of a boring politician across the vastness of
space. I wasn’t. I knew as a teen it was probably the closest I’d come to being
there. (A bit of a pessimistic view, but ultimately right, so far.)
Detractors of the film aside (they would have stopped
reading this review long before this point), the world was ready for SPACE
ODYSSEY in April of 1968. The Apollo space program had been going full steam. People
were tacking up close-up photographs of the moon with vistas hitherto seen only
from Earth. In eight months, Apollo 8 was going to orbit the moon. Men wouldn’t
walk its surface until the following year but suddenly, on the big screen, we see the inevitable fruits of a burgeoning space program. The glory of humanity moving
into space. Not just Americans, either, but the entire world.
It was a nice thought. Fifty years later there are renewed
inklings it might still happen (we have an International Space Station, cramped
as it is). The new path to Kubrick and Clarke's vision may be the direction
implied in the film: private corporations, making money in space like Pan Am
and Howard Johnson's. As of this writing some companies are in the early stages
of a corporate space race.
From the stark plains of the previous act, the ballet of
space flight from Earth to station, then station to moon, to the eventual third
act's stark emptiness of deep space, 2001:
A SPACE ODYSSEY is a beautiful cinematic experience, and made for the big
screen. If you have a chance to see this in a theater, even if that means a
friend’s home theater, give it a try. Its true nature will come to life. The
rotating space station is set against the massive shining globe of Earth, then during
its waltz with the Pan Am shuttle the scale of the satellite on a human level
is revealed. Everything is relative, scene to scene. Majestic in scope, but
never larger than life could one day be.
There is no musical director listed in the film’s credits,
because aside from Kubrick himself there is none. He had originally
commissioned popular composer Alex North (SPARTACUS,
1960) for the score, but eventually decided to use existing, classical
compositions like the opening’s Also
sprach Zarathustra and this part's Blue Danube Waltz, editing the shots to
fit the music, rather than the other way around.