2001: A Space Odyssey

[SmokeShow]

I just watched this flick and can someone please tell me WTF is going on? The only reasonable explanation for this movie is that Stanley was on some serious pyschadelics. Please... discuss, and help my small mind comprehend.

[Stonehead]

The meaning explained

 

Turn on the speakers.

[lummox]

its about man using tools. then tools using man. then back again. or sumpin. the big black block thing represents a bigass shift in thinking whenever it appears. or sumpin.

i like the monkey gangfight scenes.

[lancegranite]

May I suggest smoking more pot.

This is a proven technique for problems like yours.

Best of luck.

[Stonehead]

 

Space Odyssey (1968). The obvious analogies are the celestial alignments that proceed each of the alchemical transmutations in the film. The second main allegory is that it is a black stone that initiates these transmutations. Again this mirrors the alchemical lore about the black stone causing the transmutation of the alchemist.

 

Finally we get to Kubrick's ultimate trick. He proves that he knows exactly what he is doing with this trick. His secret is in plain sight. First one must remember that everytime the monolith, the magical stone, appears in the film there is a strange beautiful celestial alignment occurring. And one must remember that every celestial alignment in the film is followed by a monolith, that is, except for one. That would be the lunar eclipse that occurs at the very beginning of the film. So the question arises - if we are to stay within the rules that are prescribed in the rest of the film - where is the monolith that is supposed to follow that first alignment? The monolith itself doesn't show up in the film for ten more minutes after that first celestial alignment, so what gives here? Is Kubrick just showing off his incredible special effects? Is it just there to impress the viewer from the beginning? These things may very well also be true, but the ultimate trick of Kubrick's is embedded in the idea that the monolith must appear after every one of these magical alignments. Once again, the secret of the film is completely revealed from the beginning. There is a monolith that appears right after the opening sequence with the magical, lunar eclipse. But where is it? It is right in front of the viewer's eyes! The film is the monolith. In a secret that seems to never have been seen by anyone - the monolith in the film has the same exact dimensions as the Cinerama movie screen on which 2001 was projected in 1968. This can only be seen if one sees the film in it's wide-screen format. Completely hidden, from critic and fan alike, is the fact that Kubrick consciously designed his film to be the monolith, the stone that transforms. Like the monolith, the film projects images into our heads that make us consider wider possibilities and ideas. Like the monolith, the film ultimately presents an initiation, not just of the actor on the screen, but also of the audience viewing the film. That is Kubrick's ultimate trick. He slyly shows here that he knows what he is doing at every step in the process. The monolith and the movie are the same thing.

 

- _Alchemical Kubrick - 2001: The Great Work On Film_ by Jay Weidner

 

[Peter_Puget]

You think 2001 is hard to get check this out!

[sobo]

I just watched this flick and can someone please tell me WTF is going on? The only reasonable explanation for this movie is that Stanley was on some serious pyschadelics. Please... discuss, and help my small mind comprehend.

 

Not to be trite, SS, but 2001: A Space Oddysey, much like the classic Floydian-based film The Wall, is best enjoyed whilst experiencing hallucinatory drugs. Get yourself some 'shrooms and just lie back and relax. You'll see it just like Kubrick did.

[SmokeShow]

Once something like this is so simply explained I really have to wonder about my Intelligence Quotient.

[Stonehead]

It's talking in a different language than you're perhaps accustomed. Pictorial, symbolic. Would you be stupid if you didn't understand a foreign film? Just would signify ignorance, not stupidity or intelligence. So, you'd need some kind of Rosetta Stone to decipher the subtext.

 

The inspiration for the film version of 2001 is Arthur Clarke with modifications by Kubrick. The process is hermeneutic. More here.

Edited January 29, 2004 by Stonehead

[sobo]

Once something like this is so simply explained I really have to wonder about my Intelligence Quotient.

 

The sarcasm is veritably palpable.

[Dan_Harris]

Clarke's work became the basis of the novel and film 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968), for which Clarke wrote the script with Stanley Kubrick. In the story a mysterious monolith is found buried beneath the surface of the moon. It send's a signal towards Jupiter. To solve the mystery astronauts are sent to Jupiter with the help of the super-computer HAL 9000. With the amazing computer Clarke presents one of the basic philosophical questions: can there be intelligence without consciousness? After series of accident's and HAL's operations, one of the astronauts, David Bowman, is left alone as the ship reaches the planet. He embarks on the final step in humankind's next developmental stage

From the web site: http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/aclarke.htm

Kubrick added his own unique symbolism to Clarke' such as the giant fetus symbolizing the next developemental stage.

[Dru]

i remember seeing the movie as a little kid and bawling while Hal has his memory disassembled and is singing Bicycle Built For Two

[lancegranite]

OK... I'm outta here.

Too much psuedo education, not enough "dude"