Open the pod bay doors, Hal

Rating: 10/10 (26 August 2018)

At what point does a film transcend the medium and become something else entirely? How long does that process take? And would it even be recognizable afterward? Are these even answerable questions? I'm not sure they are, but in the 50 years since the original release of this Stanley Kubrick seminal Sci-Fi tale one thing has become abundantly clear - 2001: A Space Odyssey has not only transcended its own genre but cinema in general.
When Kubrick and his crew started production on this film I don't think anyone could possibly have known they were going to be changing the face of cinema forever. Sometimes, though, cinema can be a fickle mistress and the world didn't really take to the film right away. Many people and pundits called it boring and overly confusing. Which is still a main complaint of several people even today, but it is impossible (for my money anyway) not to be swept up in the grandness of it all. The overall epic feeling of this film has been practically unmatched in the 5 decades since its release. A multitude of things in this film have stood the test of time over the years...starting with its unbelievable Oscar winning visual effects. For a film that came out in 60's to have effects that not only hold up today but are better than just about every movie that has come out since is hard to comprehend considering how advanced technology has become. It doesn't seem like it should be possible but the proof is in the pudding. And it's not just the visual effects...this film is packed to the brim with some of the greatest techs to have ever graced the screen. Production Design, Cinematography, Costume Design and Sound are all exquisite and stand toe-to-toe with any of the best ever in those categories.
A knock on this film would seem to be that the characters always take a backseat to the visuals and the story suffers as a result. Now, that's not an entirely inaccurate statement, but at the same time it's not one that I really subscribe to. This is a visual story. Plain and simple. It makes perfect sense that the characters wouldn't necessarily matter much at the end of the day. Except there's more to it than that. We actually spend quite a bit of time with different characters throughout the 2-and-a-half hour runtime. The static camera shots that stay on the characters as they complete their day-to-day routine aboard the space station and giving us little morsels of info about their lives back home on Earth is all more than enough (for me anyway) to get in-tune with these characters. There is one character, however, that should get and keep your attention and that's HAL 9000; the robotic intelligence system built into the ship. He is able convey a wide range of emotions with just a voice and a little red camera light. Props to actor Douglas Rain for being able to create such a great character with just his voice. He strikes a perfect balance between unassuming and menacing. I would like to make special mention of Keir Dullea, though, who stood out to me much more on this viewing. He is a man of few words in this film, but like Rain with his voice, Dullea says so much and displays an inordinate amount of emotion with just his eyes that it's almost a shock knowing he had any scripted dialogue in the first place.
This was my third time seeing this overall and first in the theater. The 50th Anniversary IMAX screenings are making their way around the country, so I jumped at the opportunity. My first two viewings of this were at home on Blu-ray and while I liked it I wasn't blown away by it. That's happened to me before with so-called "classics" - some I've come around on and some I've stayed cool on. I'm one of those people who likes to believe that a film should be able to play just as well whether it's watched at home or in a theater setting and that opinion still holds true, but I will say with absolute certainty that watching 2001: A Space Odyssey in IMAX is 100% required viewing. Everything is enhanced the Nth degree that it's hard to imagine ever viewing the film any other way again. I had never seen a film in IMAX before so maybe my perspective is a little skewed here... either way, I'm going to focus on the Sound aspect. Since this was my first time seeing a film in this format all I really knew to expect was that the screen was much larger than an average theater screen. Well, I was not at all prepared for just how loud the sound was going to be. I don't have an exact figure for how much louder it is compared to what it is at a regular theater, but it felt like I was right inside the Pod Bay with Dave. Just an unreal experience.
Kubrick managed to create something wholly unique and something that has numerous times been imitated but never duplicated. The DNA of 2001 has been felt on every Sci-Fi film over the past 50 years and will likely continue to be for many more years to come. Which brings me back to the original question posed: What happens when a film transcends a genre and cinema in general? What does it become and what are we left with as the audience? The answer is quite simply...
Art.