Lecture 9 - 2001: A Space Odyssey

A. Introduction

A1. Stanley Kubrick

Films portray a “disenchanted, sardonic and generally pessimistic view of humanity”

An auteur: distinctive cinematic style, viewer finds certain themes, ideas, motifs recurring throughout his films

See Contorted Face motif, Geometric Shape motif

B. The Film

4-part narrative:

1. Dawn of Man
2. Untitled second section
3. Jupiter Mission: 18 months later
4. Jupiter and beyond the infinite
   • Gesturing how we’re going even beyond the limits of human subjective perception

Features a pattern of spatial expansion

• Prehistoric Era
  • Stable spatial coordinates
• Jupiter Mission
  • No spatial coordinates
  • No sense of up/down/left/right
• Beyond Infinite
  • 3D space no longer exists

B1. Dawn of Man

B1-i. Conflict in Dawn of Man

• Shows primordial traits of Man:
  • Savagery, aggressopm, murdeerousness, will to dominate
• Foreshadows different form of conflict in later sections

B1-ii. Film-making in Dawn of Man

Opening scenes

• Still shots of empty land but we hear insects so we know life is present
• First moving shot is a tilt up, represents broadening of horizons, looking to and beyond the horizons
• Skeleton on the ground: Sense of time, parallels this shot in Beyond the Infinite:

Discovery of tools

• Discovery of The Bone
• Low camera angle
• Rhythmic editing during the crushing of the skull
  • Point of change in figure behaviour
  • Ape begins to stand upright, more vertical

B2. Untitled Second Section

B2-i. Summary

• Dr Heywood Floyd travels to the moon, makes a transit stop at The Wheel
  • Moon has almost become like a tourist object
  • Man has lost its sense of awe
• Lack of straightforward linear orientation in space
  • Similarly, the distinctive “linear narrative” we expect is dispersed and loses its strong momentum

B2-ii. Conflict in the Second Section

E.g. We see weapons out of control: 

- Drifting satellites
- The pen is drifting -> possible metaphor for the Cold War spinning out of control
- Man is asleep

• Man has lost control of his technological creations
• Machines now in control (?)

The Cold War

2001 imagines that the Cold War continues into the 21st century, and thus:
The pursuit of technology is the pursuit of self-destruction

Features the use of parallel mise-en-scene

B3. Jupiter Mission: 18 Months Later

B3-i. Summary

"18 months ago, the first evidence of intelligent life off the earth was discovered... Except for a single, very powerful radio emission, aimed at Jupiter, the 4 million year old black monolith had remained inert, its origin and purpose still a total mystery" 

- Pre-recorded message

• Continues situation of depersonalization
• Dave and Frank: cold and impersonal (dehumanized men)
• HAL: ironically, more personal (humanized machine)
• Dramatic one-on-one showdown between dehumanized man and humanized machine

Outcome:

• Bowman recovers his instincts, humanity

  E.g. He re-enters the Discovery without his helmet -> sheds his dependence on technology
  

B4. Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite

B4-i. Summary

• Bowman travels into Jupiter space and beyond
• Film from this point onwards leaves aside all conventional themes
• A trace of the human being still exists: the “eye”
• Concludes in a room: familiar and unfamiliar aspects
  • Is he in a cage? a human zoo?

B4-ii. The Stargate

While it looks chaotic to us, there may be an order to it that we can’t perceive

B4-iii. The Room

• Rectilinear room is highly ironic
  • No longer in 3-D time or space
  • Don’t expect a conventional 3D space in a non-3D spacetime
  • Is it a “normal” physical room, or matter in some other form, or Bowman’s “subjective hallucination”
• Room is in the 18th-century style. The 18th-century, in Western history, is a time of enlightenment

B4-iv. The Star Child

• Bowman evolves into the Star Child
• Usual dimensions don’t apply
• Now a new being: He can be both a baby and a cosmic body

C. Themes in 2001

C1. Human Advancement

Is Man experiencing progress or regress?

Does technological advancement help to advance Man? Or is technological advancement more ambiguous?

C1-i. The Bone

• The first tool or weapon
  • Ambiguity in this sign of technological progress

    E.g. Shot of the bone spinning in the air, transitions to satellite
    
    - Satellite possibly an orbital weapon
    - Shows escalation of the use of technology for violence -> "The Dusk of Man"
    

Bones are:

1. Associated with death
   • Technology associated with dehumanization
   • As man progresses, he becomes more cold and dehumanized, spiritual death
2. An extension of Man
   • Thus, technology is an extension/mirror of Man
   • Technology is as flawed as Man is

C1-ii. Discovery One Spacecraft

• Large head
  • Implies advanced brain
• Thin, minimal body
  • Man has advanced in terms of intelligence, but regressed in other areas

C2. Dehumanization

Caused by Man’s pursuit of technology

Though man has made tremendous progress in intelligence and technology, his humanity has diminished The ambivalence of Man’s progress

• Reinforced by use of geometric shapes

Prehistoric period: Apes live in communities with physical closeness
21st century: Man is separated by vast distances; there is alienation and a loss of relationships and humanity

E.g.

- Human beings dwarfed by machines of their own creation
- The hibernating scientists are barely human
- Man, often seen as mechanical and robotic
- Dave Bowman and Frank Poole: efficient but unemotional -> cold and lacking in warm humanity

C2-i. The Human Characters

Namely, David Bowman and Frank Poole

• No distinctive character traits — not individualized
• Kubrick’s point — precisely to show that Man has become dehumanized
• Man has become machinelike, while ironically machines have become more human
  • HAL is more communicative and emotional than Dave and Frank, "I’m afraid."

C3. The True God and the False God

“the God concept is at the heart of 2001.” - Kubrick

C3-i. The Monolith: The True God

Characteristics of a True God:

• Transcendent of space, time, and 3 dimensions
• Represents geometric perfection
• Ultimately ungraspable, cannot be contained by Man
• Associated with order in the universe

E.g. Last scene, Bowman attempts to grasp it -> reference Michaelangelo's God's Creation of Adam

Reinforced by motif of geometry.

C3-ii. HAL: The False God

Man’s relationship with technology

Relationship between creator and created

1. Creation in the Creator’s likeness
   • Ideas in Christianity:

    "Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness"
    - Genesis 1:26
   

   • The created machine mirrors his creator, the human
   • This mirroring relationship is suggested by how machines come from “bones”
   • Observe how machines often mirror Man in 2001
2. Man begins to worship his creation, the False God
   • Technology does become Godlike, and functions like Man’s God
   • Man is totally reliant on technology in 2001

HAL as Godlike

• Infallibility(?) E.g. "Foolproof and incapable of error"
• Highest perfection of logic and reason?
• Omniscient and omnipotent(?) (manages all operations onboard)
• Humans are completely reliant on HAL
• Visual image of man bringing a sacrificial offering to HAL

HAL as a False God

HAL, made in the image of Man, is only too human and reflects Man’s shortcomings

• HAL mirrors his sinful maker (Man)
  • Ambition, murderousness, cunning, subtle deceit
• Turns murderous, like his creators

HAL’s Errors

3 possible interpretations:

1. Genuine mistake
   • HAL is fallible after all—a false God after all
   • Here, HAL’s sin is his pride — he refuses to admit his mistake
   • He is, like his maker, all too human
   • Retaliates when Dave and Frank threaten to disconnect him
2. Descent into madness
   • HAL, who supposedly embodies perfect rationality, is paradoxically going mad
3. Deliberate mistake
   • To provoke Dave and Frank, ultimately to destroy them, so that he will be the only one reaching Jupiter
     • He wants to reach Jupiter space and be the being to undergo further evolution
   • Here, HAL’s sin is his ambition and murderous intent
   • HAL rebels against his creator (another christian idea)

• Showdown between Man and machine, creator and created, is visually reduced to pure geometric forms
• Contrast between the tremendous violence in the action and Kubrick’s cold, detached, clinical visual representation

E. Film-making in 2001

E1. Motifs

• Dual qualities of geometric order and instincts of aggresssion and murderousness, coexisting together ironically
• 2001 has a geometric, rational, orderly exterior, but…
• irrationality and aggression lurk beneath
• Seen in HAL

E1-i. Contorted Face

Suggests:

• Mental breakdown
• Man’s loss of reason
• Uncontrolled instincts of agression, violence and murderousness at Man’s core

E1-ii. Geometric Shapes

Intelligence, Design and Order

There is an intelligence behind the “order” of geometrical forms: circles and squares

But geometric forms are also inhuman, impersonal, cold and emotionally empty, thus underscoring theme of dehumanization.

Squares:

• Sense of order
  • Equal sides, symmetrical
• Sense of intelligence
  • If there is order, some intelligence must have created this order
  • Animals can’t create order

Circles:

• Another form of order, but exists in nature
• Suggests that there is order in nature
• Asks: is there a creator who created these forms of order in nature

Geometry and The Monolith

Reflects order and intelligence

• Represents a kind of order that the contrasting prehistoric setting lacks
• Perfect, immaculate form
  • Sign of perfection and transcendence, appearing on Earth
  • Reinforced by music, Lux Aeterna

Planetary Alignment

• Metaphor for human progress
• Signifies order in the universe instead of chaos
  • Alignment of not 2 but 3 planetary bodies
  • Reinforced by music, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Is the sun really rising?

• Orientation of alignment and the concept of a “rising sun” is ambiguous
• Questions reality of human advancement

E2. Sound

E2-i. Lux Aeterna

• Composed by Gyorgy Ligeti
• Plays when the Monolith appears
• Accompanies perfect geometric form that manifests itself
• Could be either diegetic or non-diegetic

E2-ii. Thus Spoke Zarathustra

• Composed by Richard Strauss
• Plays during planetary alignment
• Sense of the grandiose

E3 Mise-en-scene

E3-i. Parallel Mise-en-scene

Parallel between territorial dispute between Apes over the water hole, and the meeting on the wheel

E.g. the Russian pulls his drink back towards him

• Different kind of conflict: words as weapons now
• Less explicit hostility