So I just finished watching 2001: A Space Odyssey. (yeah I know). So: WTF! Mys am confused.
Is the monolith sort of like that probe in ST:NG that flashes Cmmdr Barkley with the light that makes him into a genius?
It seems like the monolith is there at each important stage of human evomalution...is the Star Child at the end just the next step in our advancement? I understand the need to be poetical and stuff at the end, but that aging sequence was straight out of the David Lynch manual. WTF!!!!
If that be the case it seems similar to Childhood's End.
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And man, talk about arthouse wank cinematography. It was almost as bad as the wedding sequence in Deer Hunter. Don't get me wrong, the photography was gorgeous -- it looks like the reason that Bill Pope got into movies, but DAMN they were enamored of their models.
Mumpsimus will hurt you, you know.
Also, I've only seen this movie once, years ago (didn't appreciate it back then). I'll probably wait until I get a Blu-ray player, and then re-watch it then.
Y, I don't think mumps is reading this blog much - he's the resident expert on 2001.
Obviously -- how could he resist this milky-nosed dialoge?
About 'arthouse wank cinematography' - Kubrick is fond of lingering shots, but I didn't feel any of them were a second too long - as in The Shining, the shots not only create sense of foreboding, they are actually portraying some of the 'non-player characters' in the movie. In The Shining, it was the hotel itself, and perhaps the weather; in 2001, space was definitely a character - not malevolent, but something worse: indifferent. Another character were the machines of man - cold, lonely, but not inhuman - in fact HAL is the most human character in the movie, and the humans more like machines.
Random highlight: Perhaps it takes the cynicism that comes with age, but it wasn't until my last viewing (a few years ago) that I realized Dr. Floyd is an odious man - that little talk he gives to the scientists reveals him to be a company man on par with Burke (in 'Aliens') - especially that little thing he throws in at the end, something like "and uh, oh yes, you'll need to sign these loyalty oaths".
Regarding the aging sequence at the end - my take on it is that they need his human body to die before they can transform him into a being better able to comprehend (or perhaps more suited to interstellar travel) - they don't want to kill him outright, but it would be cruel to force him to live in a fishbowl for another 50 years or whatever - so they sort of leapfrog him forward in time to hasten his death/rebirth.
About the star child... totally symbolic for me - meant to represent the new being mentioned above - still 'him' but embryonic in comparison to the knowledge that lays before him - and his first 'lesson' has something to do with observing (or being a caretaker of?) his own planet of origin.
As for the monoliths - they seem to stimulate thinking at key points in history - either moving things along faster, unsticking ruts in evolution, or perhaps directing/aiding evolution (maybe they already know that the primates are going to 'win' and want to move things along a little bit faster). (The monolith on the moon presumably stimulating a space program capable of getting them to the star gate at Jupiter.)
I have to agree with just about everything you said, but niggle with you on the cinematography score. I hear & appreciate the idea of characterizing space itself...to a point. But the only forbodin' that is going on is due to the fact that you know you're watching a movie and "Realism" is not the prevailing style in our movie-making culture: we've been trained to expect that if you're watching something, it will be somehow relevant, and usually dialing in on some mundane behavior means that something awful is about to happen. I believe that lingering shots CAN give us more information. Some of PT Anderson's more indulgent lingering shots in Magnolia, for example, tell us exactly jack and shit, when the camera lingers on a piece of furniture or the drapes for seconds after everyone has stopped talking. There's no commentary there. The length of the shots in 2001 are gratuitously long and reek of wank. Okay...maybe "lingers" on inanimate objects prematurely trigger my wank-sensors. Perhaps.
But that's me saying this in 2008. I do believe that movies ought to be judged by the standard of the time they were created in. For a society that was new to the idea of people in space, and new to the ability to make it look believable, perhaps the shots weren't CONTEMPTIBLY long. It is a gorgeous movie that could easily pass for mid-70's. And I acknowledge that I have been weened on movies that all have a much faster editing style. (I'm certainly not holding up today's siezure-inducing style as better, just tiresome in a different way.)
As for your take on HAL, I think you're being a bit of a contrarian. HAL is the most visibly flawed, yes. As for the people being more like robots, well okay I sortof agree with you. One's ears do tire of all the dogged performing of social roles and I think the emptiness of the banter has to be some sort of commentary on how we (humans) aren't all clever all the time. (some of this could be some of that residual tinniness from the 40's and 50's -- "Say, friend, could you give a fellow the time?") But the only people we actually get to spend good time with are extremely human. I think Dullea does an awesome job of someone who is frustrated and scared but also super well-trained, and maybe knows that getting angry in space is dangerous.
I give 2001 shit because I CARE about it. The concept of the story is beautiful. Did you get weepy? So what if I got a little weepy. Screw you for judging me! What I find funny is that as heavy as the climax is, no one has ever spoiled it for me, and the movie has been around LONGER THAN I HAVE. All anyone ever references is fucking HAL.
"ruts in evolution" :
Maybe the monlolith helped those pathetic pre-humans, who clearly were in a rut so deep it made them impervious to the forces of natural selection with their JUNGLE HAIR in the middle of Monument Fucking Valley. Someone please tell me why they had long black gorilla hair in a hot dry climate. (besides "to hide the actors" -- hah!)
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