Film Review - 2001: A Space Oddesey

Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film 2001: A Space Odessey has always been well know for it's impressive use of special affects, shot design and abstract way of storytelling. It's plot holds a very deep meaning, demonstrating the timeline of human evolution and where we are as a race and how we will evolve from there on wards. This isn't presented clear to us through spoken narrative but visually we can see that how Kubrick has presented these scenes and how long we are there for that it gives us this space to think more around what is happening. "This is the work of an artist so sublimely confident that he doesn't include a single shot simply to keep our attention. He reduces each scene to its essence, and leaves it on screen long enough for us to contemplate it, to inhabit it in our imaginations." (Ebert. 1997)  Kubrick, leaving these scenes for as long as they are almost invites us into this world he's created, which is much similar to the world we live in today, without the anti-gravity shoes and killer artificial intelligence of course.

Fig.1

At the time of the movies release the special effects used were nothing like Modern CGI but they were just as convincing, During the production of the film Kubrick wanted the atmosphere and the set design to look exact to what a space station would look like. "Drawing from a team of 36 technical designers, representing 12 countries, and working in association with 40 industrial research scientific concerns here and in Europe, Kubrick has insured scientific accuracy and logic in this projection into the near future of space exploration and man's first encounter with extraterrestrial life." (Staff. 2014) In other words, they basically constructed parts of an actual space station, to really make this world real.

Fig.2

Fig.3

Not only set design but camera work too, there are many panoramic shots and other odd shots that have left viewers questionable on how that was made, for example [Fig 2], in this scene the Attendant comes into show to retrieve food, the shot looks very neutral as shes walking in the centre shot and the viewers perceive as a normal action, but the shot suddenly throws everyone off once she begins walking up the wall, a similar thing happens in [Fig.3] where the actor is jogging and we the viewers are following him behind in a loop. Both of these scenes are shot the same way. in [Fig 2]'s scene the camera is affixed to the set which can be rotated, so when the attendant walks up the wall she is actually still in the same place she was before and the set is rotating with her movement to give the illusion that she is moving and not the set. In [Fig.3]'s case the set is still rotating but the camera is not, the whole set is this giant wheel and again the actor and the camera aren't the ones moving, the set is. It goes to show how much effort went into these kinds of shots just to pull of something almost impossible at is time.

Fig. 4

The movie is shown through 4 stages, each stage ends with the monolith which could metaphorically suggest the next step in human evolution. For example, the first setting is in the dessert with a group of apes having rivalry with the other group of apes, possibly a pre-evolution of mankind? and the first time they discover the monolith it's shown from that point on the discovery of using weapons and they start to inflict pain on one another, showing advancement. the second time there is this large evolutionary leap to where humans can now travel in space and to the moon where again the monolith is discovered. Jumping rapidly again where humans now have artificial intelligence and are advancing to Jupiter. The final stage goes on this acid trip which is very psychedelic and shows what we see through Daves Eyes "Later comes the famous “star gate'' sequence, a sound and light journey in which astronaut Dave Bowman travels through what we might now call a wormhole into another place, or dimension, that is unexplained" (Ebert.1997)

It warps us into what seems to be the last stage of evolution as it is the most rapid changing stage, Dave at first is completely warped, his face has aged a lot, we cut to someone eating at a table who could possibly be Dave again who is much older than the last time we saw him, and again we warp to Dave in what seems to be his death bed as he has aged once more looking weak and withered. We finally come to see the monolith standing at the other end of Dave's bed, which could be the cause of Dave's intense ageing process, or it could be that Dave has lived in this quiet kept room all his life and has simply been observed by the monolith. Once the the shot cuts away from the monolith and back to Dave, we see that a fetus is now in his place, was he reborn?  the fetus then comes into orbit taking up the same size as earth and the movie closes on that note.

The plot line of 2001:A Space Odessey Has this linear contrast between its intermission, before it everything seems neutral for human life apart from the appearance of the monolith but after its intermission things become very metaphorical and rather self interpretative, Overall the movie has changed the way how special effects, shot design and narrative can be represented, that an audience doesn't always need there hand held throughout out the plot and they can have they're own interpretations and meaning through those longed out scenes where characters don't tell the audience what they're going to do next.

Bibliography:

Ebert, R. (1997) 2001: A Space Odessey At: http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-2001-a-space-odyssey-1968 [Accessed 22/10/17]

Ebert, R. (1997) 2001: A Space Odessey At: http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-2001-a-space-odyssey-1968 [Accessed 22/10/17]

Staff, THR. (2014) '2001: A Space Odyssey': THR's 1968 Review At: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/2001-a-space-odyssey-1968-747494 [Accessed 22/10/17]

Illustration:

Figure 1. [Screenshot] At: https://www.bbc.co.uk/events/eqvhzc [Accessed 22/10/17]

Figure 2. [Screenshot] At:  http://letsnottalkaboutmovies.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/dont-make-scene-2001-space-odyssey.html [Accessed 22/10/17]

Figure 3. [Screenshot] At: http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/24016/a-celebration-of-rotating-movie-sets [Accessed 22/10/17]

Figure 4. [Screenshot] At: http://www.critique-film.fr/back-to-the-past-5/ [Accessed 22/10/17]