Director's Series: Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY

Of all the films that Stanley Kubrick has Directed, 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY is the one that I have seen the most (by far). Why is that? Quite simply it is because it is one of the films that was a touchstone in my movie-going upbringing and is, in my opinion, a Masterpiece.

Inspired by Arthur C. Clarke’s short story THE SENTINEL, Kubrick put his filmmaking abilities - and extreme attention to detail - to bear to make a “good” (in his words) Science Fiction film. Kubrick achieved his desire goal…and much, much more… by creating Special Effects heretofore not seen on the movie screen and to put the SCIENCE in Science Fiction.

Eschewing conventional cinematic techniques, Kubrick crafted 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY as a near silent film that utilized classical music (instead of a Musical Score) with an ambiguous, psychedelic ending that propelled the hippie culture so prevalent in the late 1960’s into the Cineplex in record numbers.

Kubrick breaks this film into 4 parts: The first part, THE DAWN OF MAN has no dialogue (unless you count grunts) for it’s 23 minute length. In this sequence, the evolution of primitive hominins to a more intelligent species is sped along by the appearance of a mysterious monolith. This evolution is portrayed as the peace-loving apes begin to use bones as tools that lead to, eventually, one ape killing another.

The film jumps millions of years (in an all-time great transition) to the TMA-1 section set in the year 2001, where a group of scientists uncover another of these monoliths on the moon (TMA-1 is the designation of the monolith that is discovered). This is the “technology” portion of the film and is where Kubrick is at his finest showcasing cutting edge special effects (that, once you found out how they were accomplished, is surprisingly simple) with classical music to give the film a visual and auditory quality that is one for the ages.

The films third section is entitled JUPITER MISSION and follow 2 astronauts, Dave Bowman (Keir Dullea) and Frank Poole (Gary Lockwood) as they travel from Earth to Jupiter to check out the source of the Monolith. This section of the film is the one that features one of the greatest villains in movie history, the sentient computer HAL (voiced in an almost-monotone by Douglas Raines). This stationary character is made all the more chilling by the fact that HAL is represented by a red monitor light…and that’s it. It’s a simple effect made all the more chilling by Raines’ line readings as HAL.

And then there is the 4th section - another silent portion of this film - entitled JUPITER AND BEYOND THE INFINITE. To call this section psychedelic is to lessen the effect of the word psychedelic. It is a visual representation of man’s evolution to another type of being all-together and will either fascinate - or bore - the audience. I was (and continue to be) fascinated.

Kubrick is at the heights of his film-making powers in this movie and fills every frame with stunning visuals, sound and a creativity never-before seen on the screen.

If you get a chance (like I did a few years ago) check out 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY in a movie theater on a big screen. You’ll be glad you did.

Letter Grade: A+

10 stars (out of 10) and you can take that to theBank (ofMarquis)