Some good thoughts and resources on this and other Kubrick films here.
Wow! Cool site. Thanks
Moderated
It’s a film is what it is – the meaning is secondary to the nature of its being. However, if it is of any relation to elements stick out more than any other – THE UNIVERSE and TECHNOLOGY. Mankind is insignificant.
It is an incredible film, a must see!
I’d refer to Nietzsche’s ‘Zarathustra’
Possibly the greatest film ever made, and certainly the greatest ending to a film. Bowman is thrust through space and time to the realm of the extra-terrestrial intelligence that created the monoliths, ages in an alien zoo and is reborn as a superior intelligence that may provide hope for man’s continued existence as a species.
A beautiful masterwork from the greatest American director of the 20th century.
It means whatever you want it to mean, and you can’t be wrong about it either. That’s why its so great.
To me it is the next step in our evolution.
This isn’t going to break any new ground, but it seems Bowman does reach the next evolutionary stage. Having destroyed HAL, he’s free from the bondage of tools and technology. If you’re not careful, you might even mistake him for a Luddite.
After the fantastic light trip through space and time, the astronaut arrives in the Room that awaits him after death. That is why he see himself aging and the setting and sound are so strange. Maybe such a Room awaits all of us eventually. Of course, he is then reborn, because this is a film about cosmic re-incarnation. This is my super-simplified version, but YOUR own version is the only right one.
The director who’s accused of not putting enough human emotion in his films, has made the film that is the most hopeful for mankind than any other in my opinion.
Evolution is not simply darwinian.
But this is the greatest Sci Fi movie ever made, and up there at the top of the greatest movies also. I saw this at the Arclight in downtown LA in the original CinemaScope, and it was mind blowing. And I’ll guess I’ve seen this picture 100 times.
The amazing thing about the ending, if you read the book, is that it’s a perfect visual representation of what is quite explicitly laid out in the book — just without the third-person omniscient narrator explaining what the hell is going on. So there is a definite explanation that makes total sense, if you want to go with the literary version. OR you can say, “Forget the book!” and go with whatever your own interpretation of the ending is.
I once offered the book’s explanation of the end during a post-screening discussion when I was in film school, and one person in the class was like, “I wish you hadn’t told me that because I had my own take on it that I like better.” So, beware of running out to read the book (because I’m SURE there’ll be a run on Clarke’s book at Barnes & Noble after I post this) if you have a cherished interpretation of this amazing film’s ending.
I found the book made the ending of the film much less interesting as well – but is does match up shot by shot.
Also, the original was in Cinerama which is nearly a 180 degree wrap-around film experience, not CinemaScope.
I watched it again last night and had to post this review….. sorry for the verbosity…….
This is Kubrick and Clarke’s meditation on the meaning of life no less, set within the Darwinian precepts of evolution and virtually rejecting religious or supernatural explanations. The film establishes the link between our ancestors using technology to learn to kill for survival and our future generations having to ‘kill’ technology to survive. The intellectual ideas are bold and supported by cinema advances that created a new language of how we view a ‘space’ film, so much so that virtually without exception (okay, Tarkovsky) every film since has used the Kubrick/ Doug Trumball standard look in order to appear ‘authentic’.
The monolith is a true Hitchcockian ‘McGuffin’, a relic from another civilsation perhaps with no deliberate meaning attached. Clarke had an idea of what finding other intelligent life would mean to humans, but he leaves the mystery hanging, and it’s the device by which Kubrick propels the narrative. The attention to detail visually is stunning, the result of years of work, and it’s aided and abetted by quite intricate use of music, as much of the film is dialogue free.
Kubrick uses two different Strauss’ to counterpoint his visuals. The fact that he uses Johan so soon after Ricard is almost certainly an aural joke. It would be like following a Led Zepplin epic with Barry Manilow in a modern sense. The humour in the mating manouveres to the Blue Danube waltz, where the circular space station has a definite similarity to female genitalia about to receive the phallic ship could only be intentional.
In the early scenes the music is a cacophany of sound, but voices are detectable, humans making codes out of the chaos, learning to control their random, indifferent environment. Once the apes learn to use tools to kill for survival, a key development in the ability to control your environment, the relentless thrust to push out into the Cosmos begins. A famous jump cut and we’re there already, with vague hints of what the discovery of a monolith on the moon will mean to mankind.
Clarke was a famous atheist and it’s easy to see HAL as GOD. HAL is perfect, can’t make an error, remind you of anyone?
HAL is omnipresent on the ship, in control of everything and seemingly benevolent, but if God makes an error, he cannot be God, the lie is revealed. HAL makes a mistake and seems just as capable of killing as the astronaut-apes he shepherds through the
heavens. Human reason and ingenuity overcomes the ‘god’ figure and man continues his search for meaning, leaving god behind. Clarke ends up indicating that the meaning of life is in the continuation of life, man goes in search of meaning and in this case literally finds himself. The starchild is as much a part of the stardust as were the first human apes that negotiated their way through the wild African plains.
Clarke would not be aware that new discoveries in the quantum world would make the idea of time and how we view it quite different from the linear model that was once widely accepted, where time travel still happens in pop culture, but he would have known that it makes redundant the idea of a first cause or creator explanation. Kubricks ‘hippy’ trip at the end of the movie is less forgivable now than in the era of psychedlia, but still visually remarkable. Both are saying we are of the cosmos, and that we are still able to find poetry and depth and meaning. No god required.
A landmark film of great mystery and beauty, embracing science and reason, eschewing the superstitious and supernatural, and obviously still confusing the religionists judging by some of the comments on this site..
Hmm… posts like this make me wonder, did anyone besides me enjoy the book far more than the film? The ending of the book is FAR more exciting and dramatic than Kubrick’s, though Kubrick’s ending is understandable when you find he simply didn’t have the funds or technology necessary to portray Clarke’s elegant vision of the cosmos. Moreover, anyone who declares that the ending of the book makes the film much less interesting hasn’t thought about what happens in the Stargate. I mean, my gods man, Bowman goes into another alternate universe at one point where light is everywhere and the stars emit darkness!!!! And who can forget the final declaration of Bowman’s which never made it into the film (save 2010), “My God, It’s Full of Stars!”
Yes, I enjoy Kubrick’s version, but I find myself always wanting to read Clarke’s novel. But, alas, science fiction in film has yet to catch up with science fiction in novels. Children of Men, Solaris, A Scanner Darkly, almost there, were around the late seventies or so. I forget who said it but, “science fiction in cinema has always been, and, quite sadly, may always be, twenty to thirty years behind where science fiction is in written format.” I was actually hoping with Fincher’s “Rendezvous With Rama” (also by Clarke) [no longer being made, alas], Duncan Jones’ “Moon” [coming out soon, hope hope is as good as I wish it to be, I have high standards for my science fiction, but I’m a sci fi fanatic, so it’s expected I should], Cameron’s “Avatar”, and Blomkamp’s “District 9”, to bring cinema at least to the nineties. But, “day the earth stood still” was a giant step back to the fifties… trying to keep it modern, and obviously did not fail in doing so, however, that stories already been told…
With science fiction, you never tell the same story, you take it a step further. Much like Kubrick wished to do with 2001, in making the “definitive science fiction film”, and it was, for it’s time. It also did justice to science fiction in bringing the science along for the ride, dispelling the false ideas that Them! and Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman was all science fiction had to offer. In the written world, science fiction was dealing with atoms, quantum physics, and alternate universes. Cinema hasn’t even reached that point yet now, but almost… almost… were up to Asimov’s robots [I as of yet have not forgiven Alex Proyas for what he did to I, Robot], and sixties sociological science fiction of what is reality, what is human, what is culture (Philip K Dick, David Gerrold, many more). Read Greg Bear’s ‘Eon’, or Stephen Baxter and Arthur Clarke’s ’Time’s Eye’. You’ll see what I’m talking about. And I pray that the collaboration of a great director working with a great science fiction writer wasn’t a one time thing. We need another.
Like Yesterday.
The book (Arthur C. Clarke’s masterpiece) goes like this in the end:
Dave Bowman enters the Star Gate and is flung to the far reaches of space. The aliens use the monoliths to jumpstart evolution in other species, including humans. They model a human-like Victorian room for Bowman when he exits the other side of the Star Gate, and the aliens present Bowman with another monolith, this one designed to make him evolve into an even higher state. Bowman returns to Earth, now being nothing more than pure energy, and surveys his home.
Clarke wrote the novel at the same time Kubrick created the film. That’s why they are both equally amazing. So many film adaptations of books fall short of the power of the original novel. However, I believe anyone who sees the film (whether they love it or not) should read the book.
My theory:
I read somewhere, I think maybe Clarke himself said it, that there is about the same number of stars as there are human deaths. I believe that the monolith causes humans to evolve and become the central star of a solar system. Bowman seeing the monolith before his death has no significance in the fact that he is in this alien recreation of Earth. Every human sees the monolith as they die and then they become their own star child. There is also a monolith to advance the whole human race so first with the monkeys and then on the moon people are going to advance in some way after that. We (the audience) don’t stick around to see what this next step in evolution is though. But since humans became humans each time someone died they would evolve into a sun.
I doubt this lines up with the book or 2010 but this is just what I think after having seen the film 10+ times.
I always saw the ending as another monolith.
I always took the ending to represent the complete devastation and locally apocalyptic results of a nuclear explosion. Given that the monolith in the dawn of man segment comes about at a time when the apes first learn how to use bones as weapons, I took the monolith in 2001 to be indicative of this next stage in weapons development, perhaps some sort of universal doomsday device portrayed in a more serious vein than in Strangelove. In the Cold War-Space Race atmosphere of 1968, the worry of nuclear war was obviously of concern and the devastation of such a war is being expressed metaphorically here as the warping of space and time that occurs within a black hole. I can’t quite remember exactly how I tied this in with the very final scenes as it’s been a while, but the rapid aging he undergoes is, I feel, analogous to a painful cancerous degradation due to nuclear radiation.
Does anyone agree? I thought it the first time I saw it and am surprised not to have heard the theory mentioned here.
As MARK said above, “Bowman is thrust through space and time to the realm of the extra-terrestrial intelligence that created the monoliths, ages in an alien zoo and is reborn as a superior intelligence that may provide hope for man’s continued existence as a species.”
Bowman becomes the Star Child, floating above Earth. In the novel he witnesses the world’s arsenal of nuclear missiles launching—the beginning of WWIII. With a thought he eliminates the missiles before they’ve done any harm, and contemplates what to do next with the little planet below him.
Kubrick himself explained it this way:
“When the surviving astronaut, Bowman, ultimately reaches Jupiter, this artifact sweeps him into a force field or star gate that hurls him on a journey through inner and outer space and finally transports him to another part of the galaxy, where he’s placed in a human zoo approximating a hospital terrestrial environment drawn out of his own dreams and imagination. In a timeless state, his life passes from middle age to senescence to death. He is reborn, an enhanced being, a star child, an angel, a superman, if you like, and returns to earth prepared for the next leap forward of man’s evolutionary destiny. "
another film that is crying out for a Criterion edition. And the book is really helpful in understanding much that was left unsaid in the film. Oh, thanks for the correction on Cinerama vs Cinemascope, Chris Doyon, five months ago. The amazing width of the image at the Arclight will be something I’ll never forget. If only I could see 2001 again that way….
The Superman
Just to be clear, 2001 was shot in Super Panavision 70 and, in some instances, projected in single camera Cinerama.
Kubrick was a big proponent of fetal stem cell research.
I always thought it meant that evolution is inevitable.
You really need to read this book!
I watched the movie about 20 times when I was really young, and I read the book way back then as well. The end of the book will blow your mind, for the story itself but also for how Stanley Kubrick told you exactly what you needed to know but you just weren’t paying enough attention.
I’ll give you a quick run down. Pay attention: There is no monolith on earth. The beginning shows apes rubbing the monolith and later in the film, they discover the monolith ON THE MOON! Pretty mind-blowing but it make sense, considering the title implies away from earth – in space.
The monolith is a device for an alien race to observe humans; i might further this by saying it’s god observing humans but it’s been years since I read this book. Man created technology and because it conquered over it’s creation, it’s proven it’s worth. The ending, after arriving on jupiter is that alien race “testing” dave. This test is so odd to us because it defies our logic. Dave passes, and his prize is being born as the “Star Child” which is something like god, from what I gather. Sorry if this is missing details you’re looking for – it’s been a while since I read the book – but I bought the BLU RAY the other day!
The chimps have a sweet tooth and they think the monolith is a giant Hershey bar. Why do you think they go apeshit over it? It can’t be because they’re Ligeti fans.
Esteban Corzo
It’s my opinion. This is a tale on isolation of manking because of the machines, and in the other side of the coin, a parable of how cinema bring us to a higher level of existence.