2001:  A Space Odyssey

Well, as I move into the final days of Sci-Fi Month, I can't help but include at least one really, really well-known title.

2001:  A Space Odyssey is referred to not just as one of the greatest sci-fi movies ever made, but as one of the greatest movies ever made, period.  But, it had its critics at the time of release, and it still has its critics now.  Like many of Kubrick's films, it's extremelly polarizing in critical and public opinion, and it's not hard to see why.





For starters, the theatrical release clocked in at almost two and a half HOURS.  Dialogue takes up, at BEST, 20% of that time.  I'm not exaggerating.  The entire first act of the movie focuses on a tribe of subhumans that don't talk.  The second act has a docking scene that takes upwards of five minutes, where just shy of nothing happens.  The third act - the act much more universally acclaimed - has by comparison some of the most memorable lines in any movie, so often quoted and misquoted that you might not even know where they came from.  BUT...then it ends, yet again, with an epically long, silent sequence with a lone protagonist.

A teacher in my high school English class once tried to play this for her students over the course of three classes (as I said, it's a loooong movie).  She gave up on the second day.  People were falling asleep, drawing, goofing off...in the words of one of my classmates, "it was like pulling teeth."

So why, given all of this negative feedback, do people LOVE it so much, myself included?  Even people who regularly lampoon this movie, or haven't even seen it in its entirety, are aware of it.  It's a keystone of science fiction.  How can that be, when it seems so mind-numblingly BORING?

Well, I have my own theory about that.  Stanley Kubrick was never a director who made movies that people exactly "enjoyed."  Even at his most popular - in my opinion, the black comedy Doctor Strangelove, or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb - Kubrick's films aren't "popcorn movies."  You don't just pop it in and sit down with friends and laugh until your sides hurt or sit riveted by crazy action sequences.

I honestly think that 2001, like Kubrick's other work, is meant to be watched alone.

Not necessarily physically alone, but emotionally and mentally.  I can imagine that, on the big screen, this movie would be spectacular to behold, but in the company of my friends, I wouldn't enjoy it.  I sincerely mean that.  Every time I've watched 2001 with other people, I'm not able to concentrate on the visuals, I'm not able to let the movie suck me into its strange, enigmatic presence.  Alone, however, in the comfort of my own home, 2001 is one of the few movies I can honestly say made me change how I look at the universe.

No other film, past or present, has so profoundly captured the vast, mysterious quality of space exploration and the consequences thereof.  I'm not just referring to the immense amount of research and effort that went into realistically portraying the effects of micro-gravity, or the physics of vehicles and stations (though again, all of that contributes in a meaningful way).  I'm talking about the way Kubrick so thoroughly sought to create not just a movie, but an EXPERIENCE.

I can honestly say, without hyperbole, that the sound and images of this movie (the orchestral score as well as the effects, the spoken lines as well as the facial expressions, the models of spacecraft and the actors within) are completely inseperable.  Everyone recognizes the sensational, powerhouse, opening notes of this movie, and they've been used for everything from commercials to political soundbites, but once you've seen this movie you will think of nothing else.

To attempt to describe the plot would be futile, not because it is incomprehensible, but because it deserves only to be seen and witnessed firsthand.  This is not a criticism of the book; the movie has completely and thoroughly become its own entity outside of Arthur C. Clarke's genre-changing novel.  The two works stand on their own, a testament to the limitless potential of human creativity and ingenuity.



It's meant to provoke you, to change you, to shape your perception.  2001 looks at humanity as a whole, daring us to look within at our mutual role in the universe.  To properly do that, you must remove the external around you - your friends, your family, your job, your love life.  Once left alone, what remains?  How do you perceive yourself, and your role, in solitary contemplation?  2001:  A Space Odyssey gives a bold, daring look at these questions, and while it may not necessarily answer them, it has the potential to move us forward to that final destination.