One particularly notable fact about '2001: A Space Odyssey' is that, apart from a brief exception, none of the characters is having much fun. The ape-men at the beginning of the film live in fear of predators, the spacecraft air-hostess struggles in zero g, life aboard Discovery One is strikingly solemn, and Bowman ends up in a sterile zoo - an alien's misconceived idea of home comfort. Bowman plays a game onboard Discovery One, chess, but we see him resigning. And remember that comically garguantuan list of instructions on the zero-grav toilet? Dr Heywood cannot even enjoy a good dump.
To pursue the idea of man limited by his bodily functions, you have to exclude all those real instances when the body is a source of pleasure, such as sex and sport. You also have to make all the meals look rather unsavoury.
This theme of man's biological inheritance as hindrance is followed through to the point where the film almost becomes, with the ageing Bowman dining in his white room, a meditation on anhedonia.
That one moment of 'fun'? When an ape-man
2. Guided evolution
discovers that he can use a bone as a weapon. This discovery that needs no external inspiration is inspired by the monolith, a piece of Catholic wish-fulfillment that Pauline Kael described as the "the most gloriously redundant plot of all time." We are in the sort of anti-historical territory that calls to my mind Inglourious Basterds, and as with that film I start to wonder if any allegory can be applied to our world, or whether we are committed purely to entertainment.
3. Technology will turn against us
From where comes the idea of the evil computer? I think it is a natural progression of the "technology is dehumanizing" trope, which itself stems from the fact that we all use technology we don't know how to fix. A decade past the year 2001 and technology is perhaps becoming more transparent, and at least one product of technology, the internet, is something that we the public see as "ours", such that we (or at least the younger generations) may be moving away from the old trope. Not that I don't appreciate HAL as a classic old-fashioned villain and, as it often goes with old-fashioned villains, the most sympathetic character in the piece.
Beyond the parts
For all its flaws, 2001 is a beautiful visual poem, and remains a unique cinematic experience. It manages to be philosophical while containing hardly any dialogue, and there is something numinous about the whole. Much parodied, it is perhaps impossible to sincerely emulate, although you can see its influence in such diverse films as Star Wars and Tarkovsky's Solaris (which lifts some of the psychedelic visuals from the denouement to depict its own alien intelligence). 2001, with its cleverly composed visuals that, with few exceptions, still hold up today, inspired a new grandeur in science fiction films, both realistic and poetic.
If you haven't seen the movie and would like to read a full-length review, see Roger Ebert's review of 2001: A Space Odyssey
Funny, I've never finished this movie. For one reason or another, something has always interupted me while watching it. This review makes me want to go back and finish it. It's going back on the list!
ReplyDeleteI actually watched it about a week ago - having a sort out at home and found it amongst an old box of VHS.
ReplyDeleteOne of those films that should of never had a sequel.
I always enjoyed the message presented at the beginning of the film, when one monkey kills the other with a bone that is then thrown into the air becoming the space ship. Technology was first created and inspired for violence and it has not changed at all. No matter if you call it a bone or HAL the were all made for the same end: violence and death.
ReplyDeleteBut we now watch a film written by a cynical Luddite through cyborg eyes. Humans and technology merged quite a while ago and if technology were to suddenly disappear the human race would go crazy and most of us would die. We can't live without the machines. We are cyborgs. Maybe that is why you find HAL relatable.