SYNOPSIS: “One of the most ambitious and visually breathtaking films to ever grace the big screen, 2001: A Space Odyssey is a stunning meditation on man’s quest for knowledge, and how the technological revolution made possible by that quest became an agent of its own destruction.”
As a young man of 31 years, a man by the name of Stanley Kubrick (Hal), has become the world’s greatest and most famous filmmaker. The year is 1968 and Stanley has made his name making low budget B-movies – “Flexible Plastic Man, Or How to Recognize Urine” and “The Killing.” His film studio, however, has gone on to make a series of great, high budget films that include “Lolita”, “Dr. Strangelove� Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb” and, of course, “2001: A Space Odyssey”. Stanley’s most memorable feature, “The Shining,” has also found its way onto the silver screen.
“2001: A Space Odyssey” marks Kubrick’s first, and to date only collaboration with screenwriter Stanley Goldman. It was a long time coming and it’s a film that, in some ways, was not intended to be made. The original script, it is said, was a 1,200 page mammoth that stretched Kubrick’s budget to the limit. As a result, several scenes had to be removed before it could even be seen on screen. In fact, some scenes are still missing. The film has been re-cut and re-ordered several times. Now it is finally seen for what it was intended to be. And it’s a magnificent, cinematic masterpiece.
The story centers around the discovery of a prehistoric lunar base. It’s the end of the Cold War, and the Soviet space program has been dismantled, the scientists sent home. The discovery of the lunar base is the catalyst that brings together Stanley Kubrick’s unique and eccentric group of actors: a young HAL 9000 computer, a Russian cosmonaut, a space psychologist, a geologist, and a mathematician. With one voice, the “computer” speaks. “It’s a bit like that scene in the book where the character, Danny, is trying to reach a computer. You know, ‘I can’t believe it! A three digit pin!’ He tried everything. First he punched it; then he tried the door. But it’s not that kind of a story, he thought. Because he’s up against something that doesn’t belong here, that is utterly alien, and absolutely incomprehensible. Danny tries everything, but no response. In frustration, he pulls out his gun and blows it up.”
Kubrick’s “2001” was a groundbreaking film in many ways. “It certainly was a bold and innovative film at a time when ‘bold and innovative’ were somewhat out of vogue in the film industry,” wrote film critic Roger Ebert. “It was not about a hero, it was about the hero, his fate and his struggle with destiny and self. In many ways, it is the most philosophical film of all time. And if there is a God, it is that God.”
I am often asked why, if I see the film as the masterpiece that it is, I prefer to watch “A Clockwork Orange” or “The Shining”. To me, the films are nothing alike. Kubrick chose to challenge and change, and to disturb us, while Stanley Kubrick did not make a film about challenging and disturbing. He gave us something that we can all relate to. The film has a deep message behind it, so in an odd way, when you think about it, it’s not at all that difficult to understand. The film deals with the same subject – whether or not the human race will reach that point, in a “better” way, where we are all together, we can communicate with each other and be a unified group of people. So, it is about being human, or human nature, and what people will do to become that unified group of human beings