Quick notes on 2001: Space Odyssey for class

I had a difficult time writing about Dr. Strangelove because I was so fascinated by the movie and had so much to say about it.  This time I am having a difficult time with what to write because I really was not very impressed with the movie at all. 

Certain aspects of the movie were quite interesting.  Usually watching old science fiction movies, like Alien, for example, one can cannot help but feel that the “future” seemed so retro.  In 2001, I still saw it as modern in its ability to create the futuristic world and not appear very out of date (except the “stewardesses).  In other words, I felt the graphics, the scope of he world created, was incredibly well done.  This movie was put together in the mid ‘60s and came out in 1968!

After watching the movie, one of my first thoughts was that I could have edited about 45 minutes out of it and the movie would not have lost much.  It seemed incredibly slow to me.  Webster noted in his book that many of the early critics mentioned how slow the movie was.  He also indicated that Kubrick went in and cut out 15 minutes because of it dragging.  He could have gone in and cut out a lot more in my opinion.

Definitely Kubrick was playing with much more than the standard 3 act film. He varied that, even creating a circular story as opposed to a truly linear one.  In that light, the lack of meaty dialogue and gratuitous imaging with no real storyline can be seen as furthering that war against convention.

Still, for me the artistry of it could not make up for my lack of concern for the narrative and not really caring that I don’t know with clarity what actually happened to Dave at the end.

As far as continuing themes, we see ourselves continuously destroyed by our own inventions.  We find something that should make life easier, which it does for a time, then it destroys us.  We see that with the apes where learning how to kill paved the way to the apes beginning to eat meat, but eventually it just showed us how to kill each other.  It would seem then that the move so far ahead into the future shows that it took that amount of time for humanity to acquire the skills to reach a point in their evolution where we have advanced enough that our conveniences have again reached the level where they could do us in.  Enter the HAL computer.  

On a side note, I appreciated the discussion in Webster regarding the possible reasons for the name HAL, and how one possible reason was about HAL being one letter off each to IBM.  Kubrick once again before his time showing us how our need to create the more perfect technology could in fact do us in.  We saw this theme in Dr. Strangelove and especially his discussions in the War Room about Soviet and American politics.

Eventually, as has started happening today, people rely completely on machines for functioning, stabilizing, communicating.  In fact, HAL seems to be the only one capable of fully seeing everything that is going on.  No one can really hide from him.  Interesting to note that as the voice in the machine, HAL comes complete with all human foibles—including petty jealousy, duplicity, betrayal, fear.  Where does the machine end and humanity begin?  With HAL killing off everyone in the ship, who would repair him if something went wrong?  In that sense, HAL showed the same lack of planning as humans do in that he failed to see how his furtherance of the agenda could lead to his own destruction.  

I also enjoyed Webster’s discussion on food and the movie.  We see an awful lot of eating.  The food they eat in the future does look like baby food.  They are also entirely dependent on HAL to do much of anything.  HAL tells them about any problems with the ship, HAL can read all communications to and from the ship as well as on the ship.  All the people sleeping on the ship waiting for them to reach their destination around Jupiter relied completely on HAL to keep their life support systems operational.

        Anyways, in class on Tuesday we will watch A Clockwork Orange--which I have already watched, but will watch it with an eye for the themes and cinematography this time!

        The book mentioned is Love and Death in Kubrick:  A Critical Study of the Films from Lolita through Eyes Wide Shut by Patrick Webster.