A Tale of Natural, Technological and Spiritual Reinvention...

Rating: 10/10 (11 July 2016)

I saw this film with my sister in Cinerama way back in 1968. I'll never forget the completely lost look on her face as she turned to me and asked innocently, "What's going' on?"
I chuckled and said nothing.
Many people have to know before they can go, but I must say I have never had a problem with this. That is not to say that there are not a vast number of things beyond the ken of my understanding, but I have always felt that if you just keep on truckin' you will arrive at the Truth sooner or later.
This is a stellar film (no pun intended) and once again rivals CITIZEN KANE for its sheer inventiveness. The inventiveness here, however, is not based on spending Saturday afternoons with the cinematographer learning novel ways to set up and use the camera to frame shots; as was the case with Welles and Toland, but is based on staggering and exhaustive research within and without the Space Program and various communities of High Technology.
This is actually quite a simple film to understand, as it is designed to evoke mystery, to generate questions rather than answers, to launch the viewer on his or her own personal odyssey and voyage of discovery.
That's really about it. This film is about as close to pure cinema as you are likely to get; with the possible exception of THE GOLD RUSH by Charlie Chaplin or Russian ARK by Alexander Sokurov, and yes, I could share all of my associations about the film with you, but what would be the point when that's the whole point? That is, your take on this movie is as good as mine and a great jumping off point into the realms of higher dimensions where together we can learn a great many new things.
I will say this. I must have seen this movie over thirty times before I finally fully comprehended the gist of what Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke were attempting to express, while after reading the second of Clarke's Odyssey novels I attained full understanding in mere seconds.
Once again, this is really a simple film. I agree with Kubrick that it is meant to be a nonverbal experience aimed at arousing emotions and moods of awe and sublimity and at this succeeds enormously. I also agree with Roger Ebert that this is a fable for Mankind albeit from a Western perspective or standpoint. Unlike many movies, it defies surrendering to a surface interpretation and challenges you from the outset not necessarily to agree with its open-ended conclusions but rather to explore and understand it from the inside out as Frank Lloyd Wright used to exhort us to do.
This film is also the gentlest introduction into the world of abstraction that I know pertaining to the cinema. I must admit it is one of the reasons I stumbled into the Fine Arts wanting to understand how the aesthetics of 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY was able to affect me so profoundly. Here, the Magician works his magic and leaves it to you to ferret out his secrets.
I would like to conclude by saying that you might be interested in AN IN DEPTH ANALYSIS OF 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY by Roger Ager 2008 as more food for thought. Also, at the risk of uttering ironic heresy, I have to remark that I have been surprised here and there by how well atheists like Isaac Asimov understand the Concept of God.