Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey is one of the greatest films of all time and it is the director’s most profound and confounding exploration of humanity’s relationship to technology, violence, sexuality and social structures. Kubrick’s philosophical inquiries about the nature of humanity are explored to various degrees throughout all his films but in 2001: A Space Odyssey he explored his preoccupations most substantially by examining the place that humans occupy in the universe, asking some extremely weighty questions about the way humanity has evolved and suggesting what the next stage of our evolution will be like.
Although loosely based on the short stories ‘The Sentinel’ and ‘Encounter in the Dawn’ by the acclaimed science-fiction author Arthur C. Clarke, who would simultaneously write the novel 2001: A Space Odyssey while Kubrick wrote the film’s screenplay, the film transcends its literary origins. 2001: A Space Odyssey is a work of cinematic poetry and its combination of philosophical musings with its special effects, sound design, production design, cinematography and editing make it just as visually impressive and thematically fascinating now as it was when originally released in 1968. It is a film that has inspired countless science-fiction films since, including Duncan Jones’s acclaimed feature film début Moon (2009), which is a direct homage.
While Clarke’s excellent novel is often used to unravel many of the narrative intricacies that are not immediately apparent in Kubrick’s film, it should largely be put aside for the purpose of conducting any serious analysis of the film. Clarke’s novel is excellent science-fiction literature, but Kubrick’s film uses the visual and audible powers of cinema to their full potential to create a work of art that produces a sensory effect on the viewer that the written word cannot replicate. The majority of the meaning to explore in 2001: A Space Odyssey is in its visuals, not in its dialogue or characterisation.
Most of Kubrick’s films contain a sense of despair over the way humans are capable of treating each other. Institutionalised violence and different types of unnatural conformity feature throughout Kubrick’s films as dehumanising and soul-destroying forces. In Paths of Glory (1975) three innocent French soldiers are executed for cowardice during World War I in order to deflect responsibility of a failed attack away from the orders of an incompetent upper command. The horror film The Shining (1980) places its supernatural elements into the background and functions as a parable for domestic violence when the father of a family looking after a hotel violently takes out his frustrations on his wife and son. The American soldiers in Full Metal Jacket (1987) are first stripped of their identities and transformed into killing machines during their training to then be sent to Vietnam where they symbolically align themselves with cowboys and joke, ‘the gooks can play the Indians’.
Kubrick does seem to believe that violence is innate to humanity and the role of civilisation is to create structures for suppressing that violence without going too far to the other extreme where the social structures are themselves violent or overly restrictive in nature. The exploration of violence within humanity can be found in 2001: A Space Odyssey and yet it is arguably the only film Kubrick made that could be interpreted to offer some hope for humanity to transcend its inherently destructive ways. However, before suggesting that 2001: A Space Odyssey can be therefore regarded as an optimistic film it should be noted that this hope comes in the unlikely guise of alien interference and the cold and cynical guise of sterile technology.
2001: A Space Odyssey begins with the birth of technology during the section titled ‘The Dawn of Man’. The ape-like primates who will later evolve into modern humans are depicted as on the brink of dying out. They are herbivores with not enough to eat, they are vulnerable to predators, they squabble over a small pool of water with a rival tribe and they are terrified of the dark. After encountering the alien black monolith one of the apes simultaneously learns to use a bone to hunt with as well as use it to kill with. Technology is used to kill for food and to kill for territory. Tools and weapons are thus depicted as being linked together throughout humanity’s evolution with one group having to kill another in order to wield power for their tribe to survive.
In one of the greatest graphic match edits ever depicted in cinema, Kubrick cuts from the bone being triumphantly thrown into the air to a satellite in orbit three million years later. This dramatic cut links the two objects as tools of humanity but also draws attention to the vast differences between them. One is a crude and Earth-bound tool/weapon with a simple function while the other is a sophisticated and complex object that has left the planet to now serve humanity in space.
Kubrick seems to have extremely mixed feelings about technology as it is frequently depicted as a threat to humanity (for example the doomsday device in Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, 1964) and yet he also views it as something beautiful. The first sequence set in outer space in 2001: A Space Odyssey is an extended, dialogue and plot-less sequence where Kubrick simply allows technology to dance. At first glance this sequence depicting the various satellites and spaceships, set to Johann Strauss’s ‘The Blue Danube’, may seem long and unnecessary but it is a crucial scene to understanding Kubrick’s vision of the future. The use of music and movement is designed to give the impression of the machines waltzing, which is the ultimate expression of the state of grace that humanity-built technology has now achieved. The days of bashing each other over the heads with bones is long gone as now humanity is capable of creating technology that can reach the stars and operate with the finesse of lovers dancing.
Not only is the use of Strauss’s waltz music romantically evocative but there is also a sexual symbolism in moments such as the space-plane docking into the wheel-shaped shape station (the wheel-shape also commenting on how far technology has progressed). Kubrick had previously presented machines in a sexual way in Dr. Strangelove when during the opening credits the image of a B-52 being connected midair to a fuelling plane is underscored by a lush orchestration version of ‘Try a Little Tenderness’. This sequence in Dr. Strangelove and the films overall sexual wordplays and innuendo is deliberately comical and suggests an absurd sexualization of objects of war. Kubrick would again do this in Full Metal Jacket when the army recruits are encouraged to sexualise their rifles. However, in 2001 the effect is different as the sexualization of the machines is far les brutal, comical or overtly suggestive. Instead there is something almost chaste and sterile about the sequence.
The sense of sterility is further reflected by the extremely clean and corporate look given to the space station that Dr. Heywood R. Floyd (William Sylvester) disembarks onto. The modernist furniture, bright white lights and smooth surfaces all reflect a bland uniformity that is not dissimilar to the corporate branded world that is satirised in Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air (2009). The conversation between Heywood and the Russian scientists indicates that in this version of the future the Cold War persists, or there are at least still tensions between the USA and Russia, however, discourse is polite and there is no hint of violence. Is this the price of humanity has paid for evolving beyond the desire to kill – complete blandness?
The idea of technology erasing violence but also erasing the desires and freewill that define what makes us human is also explored by Kubrick in A Clockwork Orange (1971). As part of a zero tolerance approach to crime the film’s protagonist, the charismatic yet sociopathic teenager Alex DeLarge, is subjected to a controversial behavioural-correction treatment that makes him experience nausea whenever he starts to have any violent or sexual feelings. A Clockwork Orange suggests that stifling such urges is a bad thing because it suppresses the will and therefore the identity of the subject. What good is it for somebody to do good when they have no choice otherwise? In Alex’s case he also becomes sickened by the sound of Ludwig van Beethoven’s music as a side effect of his treatment. While Alex’s violence is clearly depicted as destructive his neutering also has a morally adverse effect.
Kubrick is clearly anti-conflict and anit-violence but he is also against any system of over regulation that reduces humans to virtual automations. While the utopian technology of 2001: A Space Odyssey is something to be marvelled at it also comes with a price, which is fully explored in the ‘Jupiter Mission’ section of the film. The dehumanising effect of over-regulation is critiqued in this section by depicting the human characters Dr. Dave Bowman (Keir Dullea) and Dr. Frank Poole (Gary Lockwood) as almost emotionless servants of Discovery One. The three other scientists onboard are kept frozen in cryogenic hibernation making them virtual machines waiting to be switched on when required by the two ‘caretakers’ Bowman and Poole. The music that Kubrick uses during these scenes evokes the lonely emptiness of space but if Bowman or Poole feel melancholia, or any other emotion, then they don’t show it. Even when Poole receives a birthday message from his parents on Earth he barely registers any emotion.
The only character on board Discovery One with any traces of humanity is the computer HAL 9000 (voiced by Douglas Rain). Programmed by humans to conceal key truths from Bowman and Poole as well as preserving the mission at all costs, which ends up translating as resorting to murder, HAL is still the most sympathetic character on board. His flawed programming that results in violence is the result of his human developers, suggesting that humans have once again misused technology. While the deaths of the human characters are cold, mechanical and emotionless, HAL’s death is extremely moving. Pleading with Bowman to not shut him down and then spiralling into delirium, HAL’s death is given the most dramatic significance in the film.
Placing sympathy and humanity onto a machine character instead of the human characters is an effective way of establishing the dehumanising effect of the modern world. It is a technique that has since become very popular in science-fiction films making a similar comment about a society where the humans are so machine-like that the machines seem human by contrast. The replicants in Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982), Bishop in Aliens (James Cameron, 1986), Murphy once he has become the cyborg enforcer in RoboCop (Paul Verhoeven, 1987) and even The Terminator in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (James Cameron, 1991) all express compassion, passions and degrees of empathy that most of the human characters in the films fail to possess.
At the conclusion of 2001: A Space Odyssey humanity has reached a point where civilisation and technology have appeared to have outgrown the primitive brutality of violence that developed when humanity first evolved due to the intervention of the monolithic aliens. However, this evolution has now brought humanity to a false-Utopian state of sterility, passivity and clinical coldness where a computer resorts to killing the humans it is supposed to work for in order to preserve its mission. Just as the early human-ape creatures at the start of the film were at the point where they could go no further by themselves, the humans in the film’s version of the year 2001 are also required to now undergo the next step in evolution.
This next evolutionary process is depicted in the concluding segment of 2001: A Space Odyssey titled ‘Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite’ when the film adopts the point-of-view of Bowman to take the audience through an extraordinary psychodelic experience that is designed to represent the enormity and significance of what is happening. While the novel 2001: A Space Odyssey informs the reader that Bowman is physically transported through an alien made Star Gate, the sensation of the sequence in the film could easily be interpreted as a mental or even spiritual transcendence onto a higher plane of consciousness. Delivered into an ornate eighteenth-century room that is uncanny in its out-of-context familiarity, time appears to fold in on itself as Bowman witnesses himself in progressively older incarnations, before adopting those incarnations to eventually be reborn.
As the distinctive notes and crashing drums of Richard Strauss’s ‘Also Sprach Zarathustra’ are heard for the final time to once again signal the next giant step for humanity, we are left with what we are to assume is what Bowman has become – an unborn child floating in space looking down on planet Earth. This dramatic final shot contains a sensation of awe and triumph and then the repeat of the ‘The Blue Danube’ waltz over the end credits reinstates a sense of hope and beauty with this outcome.
However, what should we really deduce from this ending? Is humanity being transformed into the blank slate of an unborn star child something to hope for? Does such an ending suggest that given the way we are now there is no other hope for our species to survive? Since Kubrick is so critical of social and political structures that force humans to adopt a way living that is restrictive and contradicts freewill then what do we make of the idea that the entire human race have been manipulated by an alien intelligence since the very beginning? Is being under the control of a higher intelligence a source of comfort or the ultimate irony in Kubrick’s cinematic exploration of violence and artificial codes of behaviour throughout his career? The ultimate meaning of 2001: A Space Odyssey is as deliberately ambiguous as the motives and origins of the black monoliths whose gift of heightened intelligence gave humanity the tools it needed to both survive and self-destruct.
Originally published in issue 58 (Winter 2010) of Screen Education.
Thomas Caldwell, 2011
CINEMA AUTOPSY 
Fantastic piece!
2001 is definitely a film I appreciate more than I actually like – point in fact, from a narrative perspective I find it incredibly dull. But you’re right that there is a lot going on in the film as a thematic level, and that Kubrick’s mastery of visual composition (aided in 2001 by the special effects, editing and music) makes the movie understandably influential, and pretty astounding to behold. Still, I’d much rather read about the picture than watch it.
Just an incredibly beautiful film that will either leave some sleeping in their seats, or totally mesmerized by everything they see. I was part of the latter. Great Review!
I’m still absorbing the details of your fine review of the film and how you relate it to other Kubrick productions and other genre films. (I’d be interested in what you thought of Eyes Wide Shut.) I can only add an anecdote. I saw 2001 on its initial release, which was in a Cinerama theater. These venues had special deep wide screens and the most advanced analog audio of that era (six channels, IIRC). While the original Cinerama films (mostly travelogues) used 3 projectors, 2001 used only one, a special 70mm SuperPanavision system with a film gate curved to accomodate the screen–a process which superceded the costlier system. Certain scenes in 2001 when projected/viewed with a flat screen print have some perspective problems. I saw the film a second time, seven years later, also in Cinerama venue. On both ocasions, the experience of the film was stunning. And Cinerama never underlit the screen, which is sadly common today. AFAIK, there are only two Cinerama theaters left: one in Seattle, Washington and the other at a museum in England.
Hi Tom
Good cinema projection is so important and sadly increasing undervalued these days. Having said that, I don’t think it is always absolutely essential to see every film on the big screen, but there are a handful where you do. 2001: A Space Odyssey is one such film. However, I first saw it on a bad pan-and-scan VHS tape as a kid and even then it mesmerised me. It was the moment that I first had an inkling that there was so much more to cinema than I had realised up until that point. It’s since become my all time favourite film and I try to see it at least once a year now – on the big screen of course!
I’m actually a big Kubrick fan in general and that includes Eyes Wide Shut. It wasn’t until the second viewing that I picked up on its visual repetition, where the cinematic space that the film occupies seems to constantly collapse in on itself like a dream (it was adapted from a novella called Traumnovelle, which translates as Dream Story. Without writing another essay I’ve always felt it’s about the institutionalisation and industrialisation of sex.
Thomas–That’s a valid observation about a good film coming across well, even under less than ideal circumstances. My first viewing of Malick’s The Thin Red Line was a VHS copy viewed on a 13 inch screen. I suppose you could argue it’s a pure way of looking at cinema, since in modern film production, the director and DP view the framing on a small TV screen on the set. Some of the theaters around here have screens so large, you can only take in the screen as a whole if you sit toward the back of the auditorium.
Wow. Just wow. Great, great work Thomas. An insightful informative article on one of the greatest films ever. I’ve bookmarked your website. Will pay a visit regularly.
Just a quick follow-up. I also liked Eyes Wide Shut–a great deal, actually. It was poorly received here (U.S.). My reaction to the sexual aspect of the film was “ritualization.” I can also see your characterisations of institutionalisation and industrialisation. The members of that secret club in the film were most likely movers and shakers in the upper echelons of commerce for whom other people were just cogs and wheels in a machine, a machine which they controlled. Theirs is a very cold and manipulative world, and that was the visceral sense of the film.