Review: 2001 A Space Odyssey

Dir. Stanley Kubrick (1968)

The film has a monolithic reputation, yet relatively few people seem to have seen the whole thing. Of those who have viewed the film in it’s entirety, opinions seem to be binary. One camp hails the experience as an unparalleled masterpiece and the other claims it to be a colossal bore. 

2001 was MADE for artists or art appreciators. The composition, camera movement, lighting, and sound for every frame of film is constructed as though the filmmaker’s career hangs off that frame alone. The image is meticulous to the point of nearly transcending human creation, serving as the perfect visual counterpoint to the film’s narrative themes exploring sentience, the essence of humanity, and the link between spatial exploration and introspection.

This aesthetic integrity is made even more impressive when the historic context of the film is taken into account before viewing. 2001: A Space Odyssey was released in 1968. It predates Star Wars, Alien, Blade Runner, practically any science fiction classic on film that still maintains pop-culture relevance. As an extension of this context, 2001 also predates any semblance of digital effects, what you see is what you get. All images are occurring, albeit through masterful sleight of hand, on camera. There’s a scene with a pen floating in midair. Nowadays we would just have the actress work around an imaginary pen and create a digital object, animate it, render it and perfectly blend it into the shot with compositing tricks. There’s nothing wrong with that and it would have looked just fine. But in 1968, they had to be a bit more creative. What we see on screen in 2001 is a pen stuck to a piece of glass in front of the camera, the camera/lights carefully arranged to eliminate giveaway reflections. There is a shot of our hero exercising in a seemingly zero-g environment. There are no wires to paint out, no green screen wizardry to key. The entire set is a giant drum with the actor always at the bottom, behaving normally. The camera itself is on a rig, rotating with the set to give the illusion of the actor being the one moving.

The entire film, on a technical level, is both groundbreaking and fascinating.

The narrative will be pretty familiar to most viewers as an uncountable number of films, TV shows, and video-games have either paid homage to or straight-up ripped off 2001 A Space Odyssey in the many years between 1968 and today. Because of this familiarity, very little within the story will come as a surprise to modern audiences. That said, the story is engaging and interesting. We never get to know the characters very well, yet this impersonal nature feels intentional as a counterpoint to the narrative theme of human nature vs artificial nature. For viewers who need something to connect with emotionally, this might be a difficult watch as neither the characters nor the narrative arcs are meant to be connected to. The film very purposefully looks at it’s players from above. It is intentionally impersonal, direct, and cold. 

Given the lack of subtlety in the film’s point of view, the story doesn’t unfold in your standard blockbuster manner. It builds themes visually, layering ideas using scenes that don’t directly tie into the main story to convey the narrative rather than the usual plot point by plot point exposition typically used in major motion pictures. Some viewers may not appreciate this approach and will spend their time being confused about how a given sequence fits INTO the story rather than thinking about what the sequence ADDS to the story’s themes and overall narrative layers.

You cannot watch 2001 A Space Odyssey from a purely literal standpoint and get much enjoyment from it. Most films are constructed around this conceit, yet 2001 plays with the concept of a visual format, leveraging thematic juice from image rather than constant exposition. Though it must be said, when the film, albeit infrequently, dips into exposition mode, the overall narrative does take a stumble.

One of the biggest complaints about 2001 is that IT IS SLOW. There’s nothing snappy or quick about this movie. For many people this may be a deal-breaker. Once again though, Kubrick directed many films, some with a very brisk pace, so this is a deliberate choice by the filmmaker to work hand in hand with the subject matter. He uses time itself to leverage a sense of scale or grandeur. 

While not all the effects may look photo-realistic by today's standards, these long slow-moving takes, accompanied by the grand music really sell the physicality of these ships and space stations while underscoring the isolation and danger of space exploration.

2001 A Space Odyssey is not a film that can be watched, it must be experienced. I can think of no other film that makes such demands of it’s audience. There is nothing passive about watching it, the viewer must succumb to it’s hypnotism in order to fully appreciate it. Modern audiences will have to resist the urge to fiddle with phones or talk during the film, to reach the state of paranoid-zen the film demands, watch it on the largest screen possible, with the sound as loud as possible, in a dark environment with a quiet and respectful group.

This is not a movie. This is an Art Experience and, frankly, that’s not for most people. Mass modern audiences may not have the patience for such things, but if you are willing the approach the film on it’s own terms, you just might love it.

-Josh Evans