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2001: A Space Odyssey
“The debates about the ‘meaning’ of this film still go on. Surely the whole point of the film is that it is beyond meaning, that it takes its character to a place he is so incapable of understanding that a special room—sort of a hotel room—has to be prepared for him there, so that he will not go mad.” –Roger Ebert Ebert is right, of course, about the endless debates about the meaning of 2001: A Space Odyssey, which, even in the age of all six Star Wars pictures and endless CGI wonders, remains probably the greatest modern science fiction film (“modern” meaning post-Metropolis, I guess). After nearly forty years, the film is as elusive as it ever was, conjuring up images that force us to ask questions and endlessly argue over key plot points and imagery. There was a sequel that attempted to answer the questions—the underrated 2010: The Year We Make Contact, but that film is best considered as an interpretation of the events, not an official explanation. After all, if we listened to all sequels to the classics, the shark in Jaws would roar like a lion and have personal vendettas against the family members of its previous destroyers, the little girl from The Exorcist would be a metaphysical demon-slayer with a psychic link to a toga-wearing James Earl Jones, and the Immortal warriors of Highlander would be banished aliens from the dreaded planet Zeist. The point: Not all follow-ups are canon, nor should they be. There are questions that have no business being answered; what captivates us about 2001 is that it dares to ask the greatest question of all, and one that we might not have even deemed important until we are standing on its brink: Even if we did have all the answers to the secrets of life available to us, would we really want them? Of course not, director/co-writer Stanley Kubrick argues, and he has no intention of divulging answers that he does not have. The very presence of the questions, in this case, is enough: 2001 is best left a mystery—open-ended, vague, and leaving us weaving together interpretations of our own. How, after all, could a filmmaker tackle the enigmas of the universe and claim to have the answer without being completely arrogant and, frankly, wrong? Just as the universe will always be an impenetrable void to human existence, hanging above us and reminding us that we are indeed very, very small, 2001 is a film that cannot—will not—be penetrated. That is its power. That is its greatness. It is also, I think, its madness: Cinema tackling no less than the universe has a weight on its shoulders that cannot be calculated, and as we finally peer into the fantastic light show at the film’s conclusion, leading us into a sort of bleached-white hotel room in which the imagery only grows more surreal and confusing, we indeed ask ourselves, Did Kubrick go a little mad as he made 2001? This question, of course, is as alluring as the other questions surrounding the film. And yet, in the same way that a scientist will peer into vast space and draw theories and hypotheses, so too are we required to interpret the events that Kubrick gives to us. What follows in this review is simply that—my interpretation of the images and ideas that Kubrick delivers to us. In the following paragraphs, I’m going to mention events and characters in the film under the assumption that my reader is familiar with them. Therefore, if you haven’t seen the film, wait to read the following until you have. If you have, I am certainly not naïve enough to suggest that this interpretation is entirely new, but it will hopefully create an interest to rewatch, analyze and discuss the film to see if my ideas hold any water at all. I think that the first important question to ask when viewing 2001 is not concerning its ideas, but its narrative. Who is the main character? Which of the many people who factor into the plot is, in fact, the protagonist? It is nearly impossible to pinpoint a specific human character as the hero: The film, which certainly takes its time to further along its elaborate story, seems to place the human being into a general category of his own without developing any particular individual character. There are three major story arcs, all of which feature a new cast of characters led by a different “protagonist” who is more elusive and underdeveloped than the previous: An early man, still practically an ape, named Moonwatcher (Daniel Richter), and, in the year 2001, first the leader of an expedition to Jupiter named Dr. Floyd (William Sylvester), and finally, Dr. Dave Bowman (Keir Dullea), the captain of the ship Discovery. History has revealed that the most memorable character is the deadly computer HAL-9000 (voiced by Douglas Rain), who inexplicably goes haywire in film’s third act. Yet even he is a plot device, representing a far larger metaphor that, the more we think about it, reveals the computer to be only a minor player in 2001’s overall themes. Allow me a hypothesis: The true protagonist of 2001 is neither human nor machine, but the smooth, stone monoliths that appear from nowhere and yet seem to contain the secrets of the universe. Where did they come from? What (or who) is their true origin? We will never know, but we can certainly ascertain that in these monoliths are a key provided by some sort of omnipresence—if they are not entities themselves. When they arrive, their reality unquestionably issues in the next major step in human evolution: Moonwatcher and the other apes see the monolith; they touch it and prod it, and in the next scene, Moonwatcher picks up a bone and sees it as a weapon to destroy his enemies. It is the single most important event in the history of humanity. Millions of years later, when another monolith appears on one of Jupiter’s moons, we are shown the HAL-9000, a computer so advanced that it grows self-aware and, ultimately, deadly. The monolith, whatever it is, knows the secrets to humanity, and it is capable of changing our world into the direction it wants us to go by its very existence. Its presence is enough to intervene on our behalf, lest we stay apes forever. Another key question, wherein lies the heart of the matter: Is the monolith’s motivations altogether pure? Certainly we evolve when we behold it, yet there is a disturbing underline of violence that comes with its advancements: Moonwatcher’s new weapon created a means to kill the enemy, and HAL-9000 murders several innocents throughout the course of the film. Perhaps the monolith exists to issue in our inevitable destruction? I think that this question can be answered in the moments before the first monolith appears to the apes. They are already fighting one another, and the bone that Moonwatcher picks up is simply a means to win what is essentially a screaming match between two ape tribes. War and violence, it seems is in our inherent nature. I believe that the monolith is there to channel that nature and control it, so that we will at least advance to the next level and become less and less warlike. Its goal seems to be our innocence, but it has first got to guide us through a process in which war slowly works its way out of our instincts. Case in point: In the Dawn of Man, we use the bones to cruelly defeat one another. In the year 2001, we create machines that, against our best intentions, bring about death. Our violent nature remains the same, but at least our motives have changed. Perhaps the next monolith is one that will get rid of war and pain altogether, to shape us into a being of true innocence—a notion certainly supported by the childlike purity of the Star Baby who dominates the film’s final moments, representing the new change in human evolution that the monolith’s latest appearance will bring. We cannot know what that change is, and indeed we are never told—it is something that we must discover for ourselves. But I believe that it is just another step closer to rendering human nature more like the peaceful universe that it inhabits. If the monoliths are truly the universe itself, attempting to shape us more into its image, then I would speculate that the first of the monoliths seen with Moonwatcher and the final monolith in the film are not the only two that ever existed. Certainly the great mysteries of the earth—the ones that brought about true change on the planet, both technologically and metaphysically—can be brought back to the idea of a great, stone monolith, coming out of nowhere and existing to show us the way to correctly evolve. Were the great pyramids of Egypt a result of the monolith? What of the two slabs containing the Ten Commandments, or the great rocks of Stonehenge, or the moai of Easter Island? Was Christ crucified not on a cross, but on a gigantic, sharp-edged stone? The possiblities are endless and tantilizing. The crucial key for me to interpreting 2001 in this manner—indeed, the crucial key for any interpretation—is in the long pauses that Kubrick inserts throughout the picture. We watch the ships float through space as Richard Strauss' "Also Sprach Zarathustra" plays on the soundtrack, and for a great deal of the film, this is essentially all that happens. We see movement, but little else takes place. Characters walk about the sets, spectacular light shows reveal the Power behind the monoliths, yet in the film’s 148 minutes of running time, only about 40 minutes contain dialogue of any kind. For a film with such philosophical ideas, it doesn’t contain a single formulated line of dialogue that pushes these ideas forward. All of its observations are contained in its snail-paced images that move only on Kubrick’s time. I think that Kubrick uses these moments of tranquility for two reasons: A) To demonstrate the overall stillness and peacefulness of the universe as it moves and exists, and B) to allow the viewer an opportunity to regurgitate and ponder on the information that they have been given. Kubrick is not in a hurry—he takes as much time as he needs to create his film, reveal his questions, and allow the viewer to contemplate. Most films leave you with simply its ideas and asks you to consider them after you have finished viewing the picture. 2001 is no exception, but is also allows you to have a complete cinematic experience without ever getting out of your seat. There is room for viewing, assessing, and contemplating within the boundaries of the film itself. Just as the universe is a large vacuum that contains everything it needs to exist, so does 2001. In that fact might be the film’s greatest power—and mystery—of all. Cast: MGM presents a film by Polaris
Productions. Directed by Stanley Kubrick. Written by Kubrick and
Arthur C. Clarke, from a short story by Clarke. Rated G. Running
time: 148 minutes. Original United States theatrical release date:
April 2, 1968. |
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