Thank you for bearing with me as I conclude my review of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. The first two acts are covered in my two opinions immediately preceding this one 2001 Part I 2001 Part II. This opinion covers the third problematic act, entitled…

Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite

After disconnecting the HAL computer's higher intelligence functions and viewing the video recording that automatically plays and reveals the real mission of the mission to Jupiter the screen fades to black…

When the video returns it is a view of billions of stars in the blackness of deep space. A monolith crosses the path of the viewer. The camera pans on Jupiter, the king of the planets. Its moons are visible, and the sun is a distant dim star. Jupiter and its moons make another celestial alignment and the monolith aligns itself with them and travels along their line. The mother ship <>/iDiscovery</i> is shown as a tiny elongated phallic speck in comparison with the enormity of the planetary alignment.

The scene shifts to a pod. Apparently, Dave has left the mother ship to follow the monolith. As he proceeds along the alignment the stars begin to rush at him in long streaks -- he must be going way beyond the speed of light…

There follows a psychedelic light show of 10 or 15 minutes duration where the multicolored streaks dissolve into plasma, gaseous clouds and bursts of pure light. The camera quickly cuts several times to Dave's contorted face. Then, it focuses on a close-up of his eye, again using false color, like in the beginning of the film. Some of the gas clouds appear to be forming new life, embryos, sperm cells, and the like. Finally, Dave is flying over a real landscape, in false color, rock formations, atmosphere, and bodies of water; his eye is intercut with these images, still in false color. Rock formations look faintly anthropomorphic… Dave sees seven diamond shaped objects flying in formation over the landscape… the screen turns orange like lava or the surface of the sun, with matter exploding off the surface… Dave's eye turns from false color to true color.

We are looking out of the oval pod window, into an antique bedroom. The bedroom is not entirely antique, however, it has a lighted floor of glass or plexiglass. The camera shows the furniture -- the bed, etc. Suddenly space suited Dave is outside the pod. His face has aged. He walks laboriously into the bathroom and looks at himself in the mirror. Hearing the sound of knife and fork on a plate, he turns. As he looks out the door, he sees an elderly man eating at an elegant tray table. The man turns, gets up and walks to the bathroom, looks in, then returns to his seat. The pod has disappeared, and space suited Dave has also. Dave has apparently become the elderly man. He reaches for something and knocks over his crystal wineglass. As he looks at the broken glass, he hears gasping. Now in the bed is a really old man. The camera looks over elderly Dave and shows us the old man is also Dave, about 100 years old and dying. When the camera pulls back from a close-up of the old man, we see that elderly Dave has disappeared and the monolith is standing at the foot of the bed. When the camera turns from the monolith, Old Dave has disappeared and an embryo, in its amniotic sac, is in the bed. The camera zooms on the monolith, which blacks the screen. Suddenly the moon appears, to the strains of Also Sprach Zarathustra. The camera pans and there is the embryo, and it is Dave.

CRITIQUE

The photography, use of color, and editing is, again, beyond that found in most films. The soundtrack is many times disturbing, but Kubrick was using that to show the discomfort of change. The screenplay is enigmatic, but I believe it can be successfully interpreted.

THE MEANING OF THE FILM

2001 is about change and evolution. The first act shows Man's discovery of technology and his exploitation of it to conquer his surroundings, to the extent that he can leave his own environment and travel to the moon.

The second act shows how he has become enslaved by his technology, actually voluntarily surrendering his will to be controlled by a computer. But he redeems himself by seizing power from the oppressive HAL and regains control of his destiny.

The third act is about self-determination, where he decides to use his technology to follow the monolith. The antique bedroom is obviously a symbol of the womb, given the various reproductive imagery throughout the film, spaceships entering space stations, the gas clouds looking like sperm and embryos, and so on. The antiquity of the furnishings suggests comfort and the mysterious out of place glass floor suggests change, transformation, as from a human being to a higher life form. According to Nietzsche, man was destined to become superman, really over-man, or above-man, or beyond man. If we accept the natural progression of the film we can also see this, as Monkey > Man > Superman. That, in a nutshell, is my opinion of the meaning of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Thank you for reading! :>

Recommended: Yes