2001: A Space odyssey

Only a few years ago, my movie watching habits were excessively resistant to anything new. It was simply a combination of good fortune and the guidance of the movie lovers online that I would come upon the films that would change my life. But as I began to branch out, how did I form my watchlist? Why did I watch any of these movies that I did in the first place? I attribute most of my early watchlist inspiration to the abundance of “Top 100” or “Greatest Movies” lists on the internet. Each list, from the AFI to Rotten Tomatoes, consisted of roughly the same group of admittedly great movies (The Godfather, Citizen Kane, etc) which I would attempt to view at some point or another. While I could now ramble for hours about my criticisms of these lists and the various approaches to making them, I must credit them for their judgements and high rankings of Stanley Kubrick's magnum opus 2001: A Space Odyssey, ratings that would lead me to my first viewing and, years later, a thrilling theater experience. 

At the risk of sounding trite or cliche, Kubrick's creative vision for the film remains uncannily prescient. His foundational sci fi visual work with miniatures and camera work spoke in unison with an unnervingly insightful and aware tale of humanity and our future. As an astronaut named David Bowman sets off for Jupiter on the Discovery One, his mission is thrown off by the ship’s conscious AI computer, HAL 9000. It is shockingly revealed that they have been sent to Jupiter in search of an otherworldly monolith, a sign of another presence in our universe that is embedded in the origins of human life. Bowman is taken and observed by the aliens before transforming as a colossal floating fetus and returning to the Earth. Kubrick, with Geoffrey Unsworth at the helm of the film’s cinematography, tells the story mostly through incomparable visuals.

The film’s exterior and interior scenes must be treated as two wholly separate visual journeys. The sleek TWA-meets-futuristic interiors are superb, particularly in terms of design and lighting. With the technologically advanced and stylish looking hallways, control rooms and other features of 2001: A Space Odyssey’s starships, Kubrick satirically depicts a future in which space travel is a luxury accessible not only for astronauts but also diplomats and researchers. While all of the scenes in the Space Station are good examples, the lengthy sequence in which Bowman shuts down the HAL computer remains unparalleled in both the design of the Logic Memory Center, and the framing of Bowman as he navigates its controls. 

This all being said, the visual splendor of 2001: A Space Odyssey’s interiors is dwarfed by the exteriors in the lengthy ape conflict sequence and, more importantly, by the sheer immensity of its depictions of outer space. The early scene that shows as PAN-AM luxury space shuttle docking at the Space Station (famously featuring Johan Strauss II’s “The Blue Danube” waltz) and the later sequence in which Bowman arrives at “Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite” are perfect opposites. Both breathtaking scenes of space travel, the former exists in a region under human control, placing the focus on space technology as opposed to space itself, and is shown with a civilized waltz. The latter, shown with the unnerving choral music of György Ligeti, sees humanity (more specifically, Bowman) enter the cosmic unknown. His ship, the Discovery One, is now nothing more than a dot approaching the gargantuan Jupiter and its moons, aligned in a visually majestic syzygy.  Moments such as these, ones in which Kubrick pushed the boundaries of the filmmaking of his time, became the most spectacular.

2001: A Space Odyssey is visual storytelling in its highest form. Its images evoke wonder, terror, with philosophical and existential thought. It does not propose any answers for this world’s questions over extraterrestrial life or human advancement, but it insists that you experience them, that you, if only for a moment, watch in awe of the expanse of the cosmos and its infinite potentiality.