2001: the odyssey of space

Summary

the paddle of humanity. “Homo” is only one animal among others. The hunger taps a tribe of prehistoric men taken refuge in caves. Without defense against the predatory ones, they are about to disappear. One morning, they discover in front of their refuge imposing and intrigant black monolith. Under its influence, they have the idea to make use of bone as weapons and acquire a superiority on their enemies. They use them to put in escape rivals who disputed a water point to them, thus accelerating the process of the evolution.

Four million years later. In 1999 or 2000, of the spaceships travels in space. The American scientist Dr. Heywood Floyd goes on the moon where it is charged to recommend to the scientists to maintain the secrecy on fantastic discovered. He then will contemplate the discovery in question: a black monolith (see: Magnetic Anomalie of Tycho No 1), buried voluntarily according to the scientists four million years ago. When the sun is aligned over him, it emits a powerful magnetic field which parasitizes the radio signals of the astronauts until the pain.

Eighteen months later, Jupiter mission. In 2001: A vessel (the Discovery One ) made to road towards Jupiter with like crew two astronauts (Dave Bowman and Frank Poole), three scientists in hibernation and the computer HALL 9000. This last, to the point of technology, directs all the operations of the voyage. During a conversation which it started and which becomes embarrassing, HALL announces an imminent breakdown. The allegedly defective part is inspected by the two astronauts who, not finding anything abnormal, worry about the error of the computer, and even think of disconnecting it… HALL is defended by causing death of Poole and the scientists in hibernation. The survivor, Bowman, succeed in disconnecting the computer and taking note of a message recorded bound for the crew: this one indicates the discovery of a extraterrestrial artefact on the lunar ground (the monolith). Except for a radio wave emitted in direction of Jupiter (from where the destination of the mission), any remainder, according to the communication, mysterious about it…

Jupiter and beyond… Aspired in the space time after having left Discovery thanks to Pod, vessel spherical in a place, one observes once again the monolith floating now in space (in the novel, it is located on Japet, one of the Saturn satellites), Bowman is found then in a room of the type Louis XVI, is seen aging prematurely and, dying, sees there the black monolith with its bedside. It reappears in the shape of an astral fetus vis-a-vis the Earth.

Turning

A long and gigantic turning

Kubrick had thought of the idea to conceive Doctor Folamour like documentary carried out by the extraterrestrial ones. This idea, abandoned for Doctor Folamour, pushed it to be tested with a new kind: the Science fiction. It lute the news of Arthur C. Clarke and met its author in 1964. The team joined together by Kubrick was made up of a great number of specialists. Thus 25 specialists in the special effects (whose Harry Lange and Frederick Ordway, two specialists in space industry), 35 decorators of plate and 70 other technicians were employed for film. The control room of Discovery required a strong financial investment. Indeed the team of film had to build a gigantic centrifugal machine weighing nearly 30 tons, of a cost of: 750000 $. Turning began on December 29th, 1965. Turning proceeded over 7 months and the post-production took two more years. Whereas the initial budget was of 6 million $, it exceeded at the end the 10 million $ this being partly due to the special effects used in 205 plans of film and accounting for 60% of the total budget. The director of the MGM, Robert O' Brien, envisaged an exit of film to the end of the year 1966 or spring 1967; but the preview took place only in April 1968 in New York.

Interpretation

Preamble

It is never possible for us to approach all the components of 2001, the odyssey of space , all its richness, to exhaust all interpretations of them. Impalpable, this film is detected in the field of the abstraction, the Esthétique, and symbolism.

I tried to create a visual experiment, which circumvents the understanding and its verbal constructions, to directly penetrate the unconscious one with his emotional and philosophical contents. I wanted that the film is an experiment intensely subjective which reaches the spectator on a major level of conscience, just like the music; " expliquer" a symphony of Beethoven, it would be the émasculer by setting up an artificial barrier between the design and the appreciation. You are free to speculate for your liking in the philosophical and allegorical significance of film, but I do not want to establish a verbal road map for 2001 that any spectator would feel obliged to follow under penalty of passing beside essence| Stanley Kubrick

When a film has substance or subtlety, one can never speak about it in a complete way. It is often beside the plate and inevitably simplistic. The truth has too many facets to summarize itself in five lines. Generally, if work is good, nothing of what one known as is not relevant| Stanley Kubrick

You are free to question you as long as you want on the direction philosophical and allegorical film-and such an interrogation is an indication which it succeeded in bringing the public to a level advanced-but I do not want to give a grid of precise reading for 2001 that any spectator would feel obliged to follow fear not of seizing the significance of it| Stanley Kubrick

Comment

Although Clarke took part in the drafting of the scenario, the film carries the leg of Kubrick clearly, in particular of its pessimism. Thus, the first effect of the intelligence is, for our ancestor, the invention of a weapon and a murder. The characters are singularly inactive: the astronauts are completely under the control of a computer, and only a start will make it possible to the last survivor to be run away at the price of a new murder symbolic system. The question of knowing if the end of film is optimistic or not is dubious. Is this the prefiguration of a going beyond of the mankind (what the music title Ainsi suggests spoke Zarathoustra )? Of an evolution or another thing?

From the point of view of technological advances at the beginning of the 21e century, 2001, the odyssey of space gives a rather optimistic vision. In the representation of what in the middle of the Sixties technologies of the future were, Kubrick pushed the precision and realism at a point which had not been seen yet in a science fiction film. It méticuleusement would méticuleusement have destroyed all its models (what is not sure since one sees the vessel Explorer 1 in an episode of the series Cosmos 1999 ) before proclaiming: So of others want to make a more realistic film, it will be necessary that they will turn it on the spot. Obsessing the Silence of the space vacuum, where the astronaut, locked up in his combination, hears only his own breathing, plays a leading role in film. the Star Wars did not retain the idea of it, nor even 2010 (the continuation of 2001 ) where one hears noises of explosion in the vacuum (what is a nonsense from the physical point of view).

The quality of this work and the perfectionism of the realizer allowed the special effects used in film to preserve a force which creates the illusion still today. Moreover, topics raised by this film: the nature of humanity, the intelligence, our place in the universe, always remain of topicality, nearly forty years later.

Ellipse

If " 2001, the odyssey of the espace" was to be reduced to a emblematic scene, it would undoubtedly be (at least in the collective conscience, according to the many parodies that it generated) that where the monkey first-man launches in the air the first tool of humanity (a bone) and that this one rises in the air then falls down and " transforme" suddenly in a floating spaceship in the space and which seems even " tomber" in the prolongation of the trajectory of the bone. The characteristic of this scene holds primarily in its form (the assembly). This extremely simple sequence, since there is not null use of transitions (ex: melted, etc), can be qualified at the same time the brutal one and of coherent. Brutal because he opposes two very different situations and especially two very distant ages. Coherent because the shapes of these two objects are with the screen, very similar and that the movement is not broken. This assembly is a specificity of the work of Kubrick since traditionally, a dissolve with the black would have been used to mean the context switch. This causes to carry out a certain bringing together between the two tools, in fact the bone and the vessel. The force of this scene is precisely in the ellipse that the realizer chooses to operate. Thus for Kubrick the million years of evolution of the man represents only one fraction of a second. All this evolution is only one transition which made it possible the man to pass from the first inventions to walk on the moon, stage considered to be as revealing of maturity since it is here that one discovers the monolith. The man thus evolves/moves, in 2001, only by successive steps.

Symbolic system of the forms

It is interesting to notice the strong value allotted to the forms in this film, two models come out mainly from this observation: the circle and the rectangle. The circle seems to represent what refers to the man, note for example the eye of the hero filmed approximately plane, the first men who form a circle around the water point or the astral fetus. In the same way, on the level of the technical realizations, the orbit station is made up of two gigantic wheels which turn harmoniously in the vacuum, the livable part of the Discovery vessel is of form cylindrical and much of vessels (as Pods) are spherical. The rectangular form takes, as for it, a significance which one can associate with the monolith. This perfect right-angled parallelepiped, evolutionary symbol, can lead us to perceive the rectangular form like the representation of the higher intelligence. Consequently, a detail reveals all its importance concerning the interface of the computer HALL. This one communicates with the astronauts by a framed circular objective of a rectangle to the proportions of the monolith. Thus one can design HALL like an intermediary between the man and the higher entity.

The Hal computer represents with him only the two perfect shapes of film, the rectangle and the circle, i.e. the organics and the inorganic one, the built artefact and the biological intelligence.

Duality of the heroes

The duality, recurring idea in works of Stanley Kubrick (duality present in each man and which in fact a being which can choose) generally represented by the famous parquet floors black and white in its films, are found in 2001 in an unexpected way. Indeed Kubrick chooses here to film the two principal astronauts of Discovery in a specific way. Thus these two heroes almost never meet in 2001 (whereas it are however on the same vessel!) and even at the time of the one of their rare discussions, that which they hold while eating, they are not looked at only once. Kubrick goes even further in the scenes of exit in space. It is then very interesting to notice that their positions seem to be reversed perfectly at the time of the second exit. Indeed at the time of the first, it is Dave which will seek the radio beacon in Pod while Franck assists it since the vessel with the assistance of HALL. Then when HALL proposes to go to replace the beacon in its place, the roles are reversed: Franck leaves with Pod and Dave assists it same manner. Moreover, coincidence even more disconcerting, the gestures of the two heroes to go to seek the beacon are virtually identical. The only moment when Dave will look at Franck directly unrolls in tragic circumstances since this last will have died and that Dave will try to take again its drifting body in space. Finally last index, whereas one is left-handed, the other is droitier. Some critical have even advanced the idea that these two heroes would form only one of them. Put besides these theories, it is however obvious that Kubrick expresses its obsession of the human duality once more.

Bowman and Poole behave during their voyage as strange mirrors one of the other (...) Kubrick intentionally chose besides two actors who resemble each other extrêmement.

It is as interesting to notice as, in this duality, Kubrick generally holds the left part of the screen (that turned towards the past) with Franck and the right part (that of the future, of the chronological progression) with Dave. This can be seen as an advertisement of the end of film: Dave is the human one which will reach the stage of evolution according to, which will reach the row of “astral fetus” and will exceed its statute of man. The fact that Dave is the “elected official” is also foreseeable in the direction where he is the only main character not to be still related to the Earth: Floyd speaks since space with his/her daughter, Franck with his parents but Dave, seems to him alone.

Rupture

Bandage sound

Original soundtrack

Here the principal titles which constitute the musical part of film:

Richard Strauss: opening of Ainsi spoke Zarathoustra
Johann Strauss wire: blue the Danube Beautiful
György Ligeti: extracts of Requiem , Lux Aeterna , Atmospheres and Adventures .
Aram Khatchaturian : extract of the continuation of ballet Gayane

Analyzes

Let us take the risk to examine the particular sound treatment of 2001, the odyssey of the space , which will remain also famous for its original soundtrack, particularly at the time of the first futuristic scene, during which one hears Ainsi spoke Zarathoustra about Richard Strauss, and especially during stowing at the space station (which rotates to simulate a gravity), blue the Danube Beautiful , piece of music which remains since associated with the vastness with space.

The conventional hierarchy as of the beginning is upset: an sound environment made up of various noises of desert and wind takes seat with landscapes, without comment nor basic music. The beginning is at this diverting point, without explanations, that nothing seems particular to see… or rather the reverse, and it is what is remarkable: all takes direction. A history, made up of episodes separated by black dissolves, is built. Then an incredible element appears, nimbus of a subtle mixture of voice: a black monolith. The topic associated with this object, the " Kyrie" requiem of György Ligeti (1966), translated the knowledge and the capacity of the monolith. It synthesizes thousands of voice and sounds, and thus from the thoughts, knowledge, etc the following scene returns to the sound effects and, while a plan tallying the monolith in low-angle shot towards the sky prepares the passage towards the space station, the music makes in the same way with a topic of Richard Strauss. A man monkey discovers the application striking down of the bones on his enemies. Last disturbed prehistoric scene followed by an almost quiet transition, become famous: the image of a bone launched towards the sky, that of an of the same spaceship succeeds forms. A composition of Johann Strauss comes to accompany this immense and unexpected jump in space and time. For some, the choice of this title illustrates the decline at which human civilization would have arrived after 4 million years (music of end of the Austrian empire). This music announces that human civilization will be destined for a new stage of its evolution, not which is approached with each appearance of the monolith.

The music consequently takes a choice place in the composition, with the same row as the image. It seems to make dance the objects within the framework which whirls at its rate/rhythm. The choice of the shape of the vessel, rotating, appears in complete agreement with it. Let us note that the rate/rhythm of the movements to the screen is slower than that of the music (already relatively slow) creating thus not only one effect of slowness of space, but also of lengthening of the distances, even of traversed infinity. Space is created by the relationship between the images in overall plans and the classical music, sophisticated. The images have one great depth of field, the music a sound depth, it homogenize the sequences, by using a musical topic by sequence, and unify film by using the topic of the first sequence in the last.

Until now, the only information communicated to the spectator passes by the image and the sound. Panels of warning add direction with visual elements, but the comments and dialogs are rare. The very conventional arrival of Dr. Heywood Floyd makes hope for a reversal of the sound system, but that is of short duration. Thus appears a new direction: the sound problems of film become allegory of a broader communication evil resulting, inter alia, of technology. Indeed, the majority of the communications are conveyed by media other than the human one: television, microphone, satellite, computer, photographs, etc At the beginning, this choice can undoubtedly be explained by the distance separating enonciator and recipient. The communication of human with human is reduced to its only phatic Fonction.

The film tends, as of the third part, to optimize his ambiguous report/ratio with the communication. Kubrick moves towards the diagram, for better clarifying its matter while reducing, at the end of film, the diagram of the traditional communication with two elements: a human enonciator and a technological recipient, HALL. One breathes, it is heard, and exclusively him, the other not. One would like to communicate, the other, finds without matter this exchange ( Dave, this conversation is from now on without object. Good-bye. ). The weakness, or size, from the man comes from the information conveyed by its body, the tone of its voice, its gestures, etc and all that “betrays” its feelings. With discovered of a possible error of the computer, the concern of the two men is seen on their faces, even if they deny. And on their lips is read their will… The question to know if the computer with the always neutral voice tests feelings is clearly put in film. The answer is in intersidereal silence: nobody knows. Or rather: nobody wants to know. Does one have to worry about technological advances? Does one have to see what it is good to delegate to the machines, and good to keep for oneself, like the feelings?

The sound, to finish on the initial element of this matter, expresses the loneliness of the protagonists. Only vis-a-vis the machine, they are surrounded by space silence, noises of apparatuses and their own breathing. The latter, not by listening subjective, increases as the problems become heavier: increasingly fast, it increases the stress and the tension of the spectator. The moments of silence become, although necessary, insupportable. It is at the time of these moments that the spectator hears his own breathing: it is in the same position as the survivor David Bowman, lost.

The respect of sidereal silence is one of the elements contributing to the realism of film. Indeed, the vacuum characterizing space does not allow the propagation of sounds. However, of many science fiction films (former and posterior with that of Kubrick) take the bias to illustrate the displacement of the vessels by the sound noise of engines in action, their weapons producing of the noises physically impossible in space. Of this fact and in spite of its age, 2001, the odyssey of space remains an unequalled reference as regards realism for a film of this kind. Space silence was cleaned besides to remove the last background noises, in the restored version of film, left in 2001.

Data sheet

Title: 2001: the odyssey of space
original Title: 2001: In Space Odyssey
Realization: Stanley Kubrick
Scenario: Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke according to its news The Sentinel and Encounter At Dawn .
Production: Stanley Kubrick
Production companies: MGM, Polaris
Music: to see above
Photography: Geoffrey Unsworth
Assembly: Ray Lovejoy
Decorations: Tony Masters, Harry Lange and Ernie Archer
Country of origin: The United Kingdom, the United States
Kind: Science fiction
Format: Technicolor, negative 65 mm - copies in 16 mm (anamorphic) - 35 mm (its 4 tracks), 35 mm (its mono) - 70 mm (Super-Cinerama), 70 mm (spherical) and 8 mm (anamorphic) - 2.20:1 and 2.35:1 (for the 35 mm)
Lasted: 156 minutes (original version), 139 minutes (final version)
Comings out date:

the United States: April 2nd 1968 (Washington DC, first)
France: September 27th 1968

Distribution

Keir Dullea : David Bowman
Gary Lockwood: Dr. Frank Poole
William Sylvester: Dr. Heywood R. Floyd
Daniel Richter: Moonwatcher
Leonard Rossiter: Dr. Andrei Smyslov
Margaret Tyzack: Elena
Robert Beatty: Dr. Halvorsen
Sean Sullivan: Dr. Michaels
Douglas Rain: the voice of HALL 9000 (François Chaumette for CARL 500 in the French version)
Frank Miller: the controller of mission
Alain Gifford: the father of Dr. Poole
John Ashley: the astronaut
Brunell Tucker: the photographer
John Swindel: the first space technician
John Clifford: the second space technician
Vivian Kubrick: the girl of Dr. Floyd
Martin Amor: the journalist of World Toonight
Hostesses of space: Penny Brahms and Edwina Caroll
Figurants' es': Glenn Beck, Bill Weston, Mike Lovell, Edward Bishop, Ass Gillis, Heather Downham, Jimmy Beautiful, David Charkham, Simon Davis, Jonathan Daw, Peter Delmar, Terry Dugan, David Fleetwood, Danny Grover, Brian Hawley, David Hines, Tony Jackson, John Jordan, Scott Mackee, Laurence Go, Darryl Paes, Joe Refalo, Andy Wallace, Bob Wilyman, Richard Wood

Around film

Comments

the initiative of the project returns to Stanley Kubrick, who, knowing the work of Clarke, contacted it in order to see up to what point they could work together on (“the legendary good film of science fiction”).
the scenario of film, as well as the book corresponding, were written jointly by Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick. Nevertheless, it was agreed that Arthur C. Clarke would preserve officially the paternity of the book, and Stanley Kubrick that of the scenario. The film and the book in fact were developed in parallel: the book is for example founded on some of the daily rush of film… and vice versa… (for more details concerning collaboration of Clarke and Kubrick on this project, to see The Lost Worlds off 2001 , Arthur C. Clarke, Bookmark, 1972). Let us specify however that the news The Sentinel , of Arthur C. Clarke, constitutes the true origin of film by taking up the idea of an extraterrestrial object abandoned on the moon and being useful since like alarms: however, it was yet only of one pyramid and not about a monolith.
It should be noted that according to some, in spite of the denials of the author, the name of the computer HALL 9000 would not have been randomly selected. It is only the shift of a letter in the alphabet of IBM, which took part in the realization of film… In the French version, the computer is called Carl (Acronyme of C erveau has nalytic R echerche and of L iaison).
Also, this film is supposed to follow, according to certain interpretations, a mythological constant such as for example that of the Argonautes. Joseph Campbell, in her book the Heroes are eternal , analyzed this constant, current in Alchimie (departure of the hero of its region, fights against the mythological monster, initiatory revelations made to the hero, return of the hero in its region of origin, the hero becomes Master of the two worlds). Under this aspect, the film takes an unexpected relief.
In film, the spaceship moves towards Jupiter around which the monolith is in orbit whereas in the book, it moves towards Japet, a satellite of Saturn where the monolith is. The monolith is completely black and opaque in film and is described as being translucent in the book. Moreover, one essential point which is evoked only by the feather of C. Clarke on several occasions in the novel, the proportions of the object, whatever its dimensions, are of 1 X 4 X 9, i.e. the first three high numbers squared. These magic figures prove to be for David Bowman, suddenly towards the end of its epopee of human being, the key of the secrecy which governs the behavior of the monolith and this why it was created. In spite of the differences between film and the book, the novels of Clarke which will make following 2001, the odyssey of space will take the elements of film and not book.
2001 explored many techniques of avant-garde as regards special effects and was in particular at the origin of the Motion control . The whole of the elements scenaristic and the decorations were the subject of a very detailed attention and several scientists and experts as regards space exploration cooperated.
the continuation of film and the book: 2010: the year of the first contact ( 2010, The Year We Make Contact ) answers some of the interrogations that the first could leave outstanding. However, neither the book, nor the film had discounted success. Arthur C. Clarke published despite everything two additional volumes: 2061, Odyssey three (1988) and 3001, the final Odyssey (1997).
the girl of Floyd, with which it telephones since space, is played by the proper girl of Stanley Kubrick.
the final scene of film is based on a fragment of Héraclite of Ephèse, philosophical presocratic, which speaks about the cyclic continuity of the life.

Cultural references to 2001: the odyssey of space

Distinctions

Oscar of the cinema 1968

Rewards : better special effects (see the technique Slit-scan used by Douglas Trumbull for the last sequence “ Jupiter and beyond… ”)
Nominations: better realizer, better scenario writer, better artistic director.

National Film Registry 1991

selected and preserved at the Library of the American Congress.

British Academy Film Awards (price of the British Academy off Film and Television Arts

Rewards : better artistic director, better Original soundtrack
Nominations: better film

Price Hugo

Rewards : better " Dramatic Presentation"

Kansas City Film Critics Circle Awards

Rewards : better film, better realizer

Directors Guild off America Award

Nominations: better film

Classifications

2001: the odyssey of space is regularly quoted in the film classifications by the film critics. Thus it appears in the 6th place of the classifications Sight and Sound, in the 22nd place of the Top 100 of American Film Institute and with 15th for the classification of 2007. Hal 9000 is in the 13th place of the classification of AFI' S 100 years… 100 Heroes and Méchants of the cinema. Moreover, it comprises a counterpart classified in the Top 100 of the counterparts of the American cinema according to this same institute. Lastly, he is regarded as best science fiction film of all times by the Online Film Critics Society

Random links: