[Ominous Music]
Well, here we are!
The last episode of Crash Course Film Criticism.
So to round out this series, it’s time to talk about a movie that’s known for being
both profound and timeless.
Occasionally a film comes along that touches something so deep within the collective human
experience that it seems to exist outside of time.
Often, these films dare us to see things in new and unexpected ways.
In 1968, a movie that’s arguably a modern masterpiece was released.
And it continues to reward multiple viewings and interpretations five decades after it
first hit the screen.
It’s time to travel back to our old future, with 2001: A Space Odyssey.
[Intro Music Plays]
2001: A Space Odyssey was dreamt up by director Stanley Kubrick and science fiction writer
Arthur C. Clarke.
On the heels of his savagely satirical nuclear war comedy, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Stopped
Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb, Kubrick was eager to expand his canvas.
He wanted to tackle a film that would burrow deep into the viewer’s subconscious.
He wanted to make a modern myth.
Or as his collaborator put it, Kubrick hoped “to create a work of art which would arouse
the emotions of wonder, awe ... [and] even, if appropriate, terror".
Years before, Clarke had written a short story called “The Sentinel,” about the discovery
of an alien object buried under the surface of the moon millions of years ago.
This “sentinel” acted as a kind of tripwire.
Once humans had become technologically advanced enough to discover it, the object would warn
distant aliens of our existence.
From that idea, Kubrick saw an opportunity to explore some of the most profound themes
in human history: the limits and consequences of technology, the nature of existence, and
the evolution of humans — past, present, and future.
Working from an outline based on Clarke’s short story, Kubrick and his co-writer developed
a screenplay and a novel simultaneously.
They settled on an unconventional structure that breaks the story into four distinct sections.
The first, called “The Dawn of Man,” follows a group of prehistoric man-apes as they struggle
to survive.
They fight over food with plant-eating tapirs, and spar over a watering hole with a rival
group.
Then one day they discover a mysterious object.
A tall, black, and perfectly rectangular slab of… something, standing on the plains.
A monolith.
Soon after this meeting, the man-apes get the idea to use broken bones as tools to hunt
with and weapons to fight and kill with, conquering their hunger and their rivals.
The chief man-ape then throws the bone into the air and, as it rotates, the film cuts
to a shot of a spaceship mid-flight.
The second section of the film, which has no title card, follows Dr. Heywood Floyd,
played by William Sylvester, an American scientist traveling to the moon.
Once Floyd arrives at the moon base, he reminds his colleagues of the need for secrecy, and
then travels with them to a hidden crater… where they’ve excavated another monolith,
buried eons ago under the lunar surface.
Not long after Floyd approaches the slab and touches it, the alien object emits a loud
and painful sound.
The tripwire has been activated.
Then we move into the film’s third section, titled “Jupiter Mission.”
It’s eighteen months later, and we’ve swapped protagonists again.
This part of the story follows a group of astronauts and their supercomputer HAL – who
may or may not be sentient – on a long-distance mission to Jupiter.
Eventually we’ll learn there’s a connection to the monolith on the moon, but the exact
nature of this mission is never explained.
We follow two of the astronauts, Frank Poole, played by Gary Lockwood, and Dave Bowman,
played by Kier Dullea, as they work with HAL to oversee the space flight.
Meanwhile, their scientist-colleagues hibernate in little pod-beds.
When Dave and Frank uncover what they think may be a dangerous glitch in HAL, they secretly
plan to shut him down and continue the mission on their own.
But HAL finds out.
He kills Frank and the sleeping scientists, forcing Dave to make his way into the heart
of the ship and painstakingly destroy the supercomputer.
Finally, we reach section four.
Dave’s ship arrives in Jupiter’s orbit, where he discovers at least one more monolith
floating in space.
After investigating, Dave finds himself whisked away on a psychedelic, perhaps even inter-dimensional
journey through space and time.
He ends up an old man in the most Kubrick room ever built, with baroque furniture and
a glowing floor.
And when he dies, Dave transcends the material realm and becomes a now-iconic starbaby.
The last shots of the film show the starbaby returning to Earth and turning to the camera,
before the film cuts to black.
Whew!
Lots to chew on here.
One way critics have analyzed 2001 is to look for patterns between the film’s four sections,
to understand what the story could be trying to tell us.
The first clear pattern involves change, or evolution.
You might notice how many times birthdays are referenced.
The film begins with a section called the “Dawn of Man,” basically “The Birth
of Humans.”
Once we jump to our future on the moon, Heywood Floyd calls his daughter to wish her a happy birthday.
Heywood Floyd: Can't you think of anything else you want for your birthday?
Then, once we’re aboard the Jupiter mission, HAL discusses his “birth” as it were.
Then, once we're on board the Jupiter Mission, Frank Poole gets a message from home
wishing him a happy birthday.
Mrs. Poole: Happy birthday, darling. Mr. Poole: Happy birthday, many happy returns!
And Hal discusses his birth, as it were.
HAL: I became operational at the H.A.L. Plant in Urbana, IL on the 12th of January, 1992.
Finally, when we reach the final room with Dave Bowman, he turns into a newborn star-baby.
The film seems intensely interested in when and how things evolve, as well as the consequences
those changes unleash.
Technology clearly plays a vital role in the progress of the film, too.
It’s the man-ape’s discovery of simple tools that paves the way for everything that
follows.
This reading is underlined by one of the most famous cuts in cinema history, when Kubrick
and his editor Ray Lovejoy cut from the man-ape’s spinning bone-tool to the spacecraft flying
among the stars.
This single cut not only carries us tens of thousands of years into the future, but implies
all the technological advancement of those years – the wrong turns, the dead-ends,
and the triumphs Kubrick seems to suggest that humans evolved
not just along with, but because of technology.
And the monoliths present a question of technology, too: Are they there to cause technological
leaps forward?
Or are they there to witness those leaps?
In Roger Ebert’s “Great Films” review, he considers how the monolith could have affected
human evolution in this story.
He says, “I have always felt that the smooth artificial surfaces and right angles of the
monolith, which was obviously made by intelligent beings, triggered the realization ... that
intelligence could be used to shape the objects of the world.”
As we move into the second section, technology surrounds the characters and carries them
into space.
Kubrick stages elaborate set pieces depicting space shuttles docking and space stations
spinning to simulate Earth-like gravity.
And the deliberate pace of all of this stands in stark contrast to the chaos of the man-ape
lives.
To create these gorgeous sequences, both outside and inside the spacecraft, Kubrick relied
on a mix of old and new cinematic technologies.
Front projection and carefully crafted model work created the space flight sequences, as
the ships dance among the stars to Johann Strauss’s “Blue Danube.”
[Blue Danube Plays}
And to create the interior of the spinning station, Kubrick commissioned a giant ferris
wheel-like set that would actually rotate, letting characters appear to be walking or
jogging up the walls.
Perhaps the most impressive aspect of all this technology is that none of it is designed
to draw attention to itself.
Kubrick wasn’t interested in making a fantastical space opera.
Instead, his chief concern seems to be creating, as closely as possible, the ways space travel
might actually happen.
That was stranger and more fascinating than anything he could invent.
Some people have criticized the film for being overly interested in technology at the expense
of fully developed characters.
And it’s true.
We don’t learn much about the inner life of Floyd or Dave or anyone else.
But as the American film scholar Carrol L. Fry argues, that may be the point.
In both the moon and “Jupiter Mission” sections of the film, technology has outstripped
character relationships.
Specifically, he writes, “The film repeatedly invites us to see the contrast between the
sophistication of technology … and the banality of human conversation.”
From Floyd’s empty dialogue with his daughter and his bureaucratic pleasantries on the moon,
to most of the conversations between Dave and Frank on the ship, spoken words reveal
very little about the characters.
Woman: Now, are you sure you won't change your mind about that drink?
Heywood Floyd: Ya, I'm positive. Oh, I really must be going.
Frank: Well, what do you think?
Dave: I'm not sure, what do you think?
On the flip side, there’s so much time and visual attention paid to the elaborate spaceship
docking procedures, their labyrinthine interiors, and the panels of buttons, knobs, and computer
screens that control them.
None of this is an accident on Kubrick’s part.
In fact, it builds his case that technological advances might doom interpersonal relationships.
Fry points out that the film’s most interesting and complex character is the supercomputer
HAL.
And HAL becomes the ultimate extension of this anti-tech argument when he starts killing
the human characters on screen.
This calls attention to another pattern within the movie: territorial disputes that lead
to violence.
Just like the man-ape killing its rival over the watering hole, and Floyd politely sparring
with his Russian counterparts, here we get a battle between Dave and HAL.
Dave: Open the pod-bay doors, HAL. HAL: I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.
And when Dave finally succeeds in shutting down HAL, the computer begs him to stop and
ultimately regresses to a more basic machine.
HAL: I'm afraid... I'm afraid, Dave.
Kubrick seems to be saying that Dave has to destroy this incredibly sophisticated computer
to move into the film’s final transcendent section.
And it’s this last section that invites the widest variety of opinions and readings.
Bowman’s ship arrives at Jupiter to find the planet perfectly in line with another
monolith and several other terrestrial bodies.
The monolith, which is also a recurring pattern in the film, is often presented as a solid
piece of material.
A barrier.
In the “Dawn of Man” section, Kubrick holds a wide shot for several minutes as he
observes the man-apes tentatively approach the monolith, until one dares to touch it.
Once it’s deemed safe, they all crowd around it.
This image echoes the shot of Floyd and his fellow scientists gathered around their
monolith for a photograph.
In the film’s final section, however, Kubrick presents the monolith as a kind of doorway.
And it’s through this doorway that Dave begins his fantastical journey.
The colors flash and strange landscapes whiz by, intercut with shots of Dave’s face inside
his space suit, distorting as he travels through the cosmos.
As the images become more abstract, Kubrick keeps cutting back to extreme close-ups of
Dave’s eye, grounding us in his point of view.
This is Dave’s experience, he seems to remind us.
And once Dave is in the baroque room and the film cuts forward in time, toward his death,
each cut continues to pivot off Dave’s perception.
He looks into the room, and sees himself as an old man with white hair.
That older Dave hoists himself up and walks over to look for the original Dave, but can’t
find him.
Then, when old Dave looks back into the room, he sees a really old Dave lying in bed.
That Dave looks past the foot of the bed to see the monolith, once again appearing
as a kind of doorway.
And then an interesting change happens: We get the monolith’s point of view, looking
back at the bed.
And we see a glowing ball of energy with some kind of baby in it.
This series of cuts seems to suggest that Dave might have become the monolith, or
at least entered it.
Whatever the case, humanity seems to have been called to this room over the eons, through
time and space, so that we – through Dave – might be reborn.
In the film’s last shot, as the Dave-star-baby creature looms over Earth and turns toward
us, its eyes appear older, soulful and intelligent.
And as it looks right into the camera, it seems aware of us.
It also seems to have abandoned technology altogether, able to travel vast distances
without the need for pods, ships, or simulated gravity.
Technology may have been an essential part of human evolution, but perhaps the only way
we can move to this next level is by conquering technology and letting it go… somehow.
Whether we look at it as an examination of the dangers of technology, or a thought experiment
centered on human evolution, there’s no doubt that 2001: A Space Odyssey is a stunning
achievement of visual design and unconventional storytelling.
And on top of all that, it’s an engaging, watchable film made by a director at the peak
of his powers.
Kubrick was able to use cinema to explore some of the deepest questions facing humankind
— in ways only a movie can.
I'm Michael Aranda, and this has been Crash Course Film Criticism.
Crash Course Film Criticism is produced in association with PBS Digital Studios.
You can head over to their channel to check out a playlist of their latest shows, like
It’s Okay to be Smart, Origin of Everything, and Eons.
This episode of Crash Course was filmed in the Doctor Cheryl C. Kinney Crash Course Studio
with the help of these [nice people] and our amazing graphics team is Thought Cafe.