1. 2001: A Space Odyssey

8 Jul

Gary Lockwood talks to Keir Dullea in a scene from the film '2001: A Space Odyssey', 1968. (Photo by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/Getty Images)

dir. Stanley Kubrick

What is there to say about 2001: A Space Odyssey that hasn’t already been said about the classic in the almost five decades since its release? The fact that a film so hard to qualify (IMDB categorizes its genres as “Adventure, Mystery, Sci-Fi, all of which are – oddly – simultaneously accurate and misnomers) has a lasting legacy of prestige is quite curious. Kubrick used the film to make grandiose observations and insights about mankind’s origins and existence, but made arguably the most esoteric and inaccessible studio film ever. Additionally, great amount of work and innovation went into creating the Oscar-winning visual effects, yet frequency of long, static takes and infrequency of cuts results in a minimalism that is actually deceptively meticulous. It’s hard to find a point at which to start when it comes to talking about 2001because it does so much in such a remarkably controlled way that it’s completely understandable if you walked away thinking either (or both) “that was brilliant” or “that was pretentious.” That was on purpose – Kubrick and co-writer Arthur C. Clarke admitted to wanting to raise more questions than answers and when it comes to such philosophical dense questions of mankind’s design, existence and (after)life, then how could anyone ever possibly offer anything satisfyingly concrete? Kubrick’s approach to tackling the ambiguous is by employing the most evocative tools of Art, the one way in which we experience and interpret life that still seems to hint at our intangible Otherness from the rest of creation. Juxtaposition through cuts, detailed geometric set design, and the marriage of music with image all allude to – without explicitly concluding anything about – the Force (for lack of a better word) that allows us to create, to change, and, perhaps most importantly, to contemplate it all. Kubrick’s meticulous nature has always elicited criticism of emotional coldness and while 2001 does not indulge in sentiment, its ambiguity hints at a mysticism or spirituality  that is equally as difficult to define in our real life, while the fusion of classical orchestrations with depictions of scientific discoveries imply that order and objectivity need not undermine art and subjectivity (classic compositions – indeed, most songs that you can think of – follow a meter and pattern, after all). Kubrick just happened to be brilliant enough to be aware enough of that to visualize it with a space station docking set to “Blue Danube.”

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