2001: A Space Odyssey

Rating

Director

Stanley Kubrick

Screenplay

Stanley Kubrick & Arthur C. Clarke (Short Story: Arthur C. Clarke)

Length

2h 29m

Starring

Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester, Daniel Richter, Leonard Rossiter, Margaret Tyzack, Robert Beatty, Sean Sullivan, Douglas Rain

MPAA Rating

G

Review

For a filmmaker to impress both cineastes and audiences alike is a rare and complicated feat. Although Stanley Kubrick can be considered an acquired taste when it comes to films like A Clockwork Orange and Eyes Wide Shut, he still managed to excite audiences with films like Spartacus and this 1968 masterpiece, 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Kubrick’s filmography is filled to the brim with films that redefined cinema in sometimes obvious and sometimes esoteric ways. He tackled each new genre with the eye of a master filmmaker and turned out pinnacles of achievement in each. 2001: A Space Odyssey might also be his most successful in that regard, having influenced every science fiction film that came after it, each borrowing heavily from the master’s film.

Based on a novel by Arthur C. Clarke, the film diverts from Clarke’s original narrative in several ways, though Clarke himself co-wrote the screenplay with Kubrick. The film revolves around a strange black monolith that appears at various points in Earth’s history. The first section of the film explores a prehistoric era when apes discovered the use of weapons at the seeming urgence of the monolith. Millions of years later, a monolith is discovered near a lunar colony where its existence is classified a mystery.

The bulk of the film takes place in the third chapter wherein two astronauts on a space-faring journey to Jupiter to investigate yet another, larger monolith orbiting the planet. Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood play the astronauts at the center of this segment and who begin to suspect their vessel’s artificial intelligence, HAL 9000, is plotting against them. The fourth and final segment follows Dullea on a space walk and into a strange time-spanning anomaly that defies easy explanation.

Employing Technicolor for its 35 mm release and MGM’s Metrocolor for 70 mm, the film’s expansiveness was evocatively projected onto the big screen. It’s grandiosity was a testament to Kubrick’s vision, filling the vast expanse of the film screen with gorgeous images and technical marvels. Kubrick’s use of filming techniques to create a sense of motion in the wheel-like insides of the Jupiter-bound vessel were marvelously executed while the rich aural tapestry mixed from sound effects, ambient noises, and musical inspiration helped enhance the overall cinematic experience in a film that was perhaps not as narratively complex as some audiences might have expected it to be.

Making more than $59 million in 1968, the film’s gross in 2021 dollars would be over $410 million, making it one of the most successful films in history. Only Kubrick’s final studio-controlled release of 1960’s Spartacus made more money for the director. That film’s success also helped him break away from the studio system to make movies his way and with only his input to define them, which is why, outside of Paths of Glory (1957), his post-studio work was most responsible for redefining cinema in so many and varied ways.

2001: A Space Odyssey is a lengthy watch, but anyone interested in a master filmmaker working at the height of his craft needs to experience the grandeur that is 2001. It’s a film of simple and elegant beauty supported by a complex philosophical narrative exploring civilization’s origins, the hazards of unfettered artificial intelligence, and even the nature of humanity. It’s a film of immense depth that requires contemplation and analysis to reach into the depths of its purpose, but which will create many more philosophical and sociological questions the deeper one goes.

There are many films that are enhanced by a visit to the local cineplex, but 2001: A Space Odyssey might well be the most important film to see in that setting. On the small screen, the magnitude of the film’s scope and ambition feels confined and underwhelming, but on a large screen, the experience becomes more expansive and incomparable. That ponderous quality is why this remains an unquestioned pinnacle in cinema, a peak to which many have climbed, but few have matched.

Review Written

October 19, 2021