I think, therefore I am. (I think.)

Rating: 9/10 (21 June 2005)

Nobody could have done it better than Kubrick. The question is, "What does 'it' mean?" I'll skip the story, what there is of it. Anyone who wants a reasonably decent explanation in coherent terms ought to consult the Film Guide series from Indiana University Press.
It is an unforgettable movie that would not have had quite the same impact if it had been made more than one or two years, one way or the other, of 1968.
Just take one instance. The computer, Hal, the most interesting character in the film, goes berserk. He signals to the two astronauts that there is a failure that must be fixed from the outside. The astronauts leave the space ship in tiny round pods. While they are gone, Hal kills all the other astronauts who are in hibernation for the long trip to Jupiter. Hal also causes a pod to kill one of the external astronauts and then refuses entry to the remaining live one, Dave (Keir Dullea).
Dullea orders repeatedly, "Open the pod bay doors, Hal." His expression is one of vexation, as if he's having a duel of wits with a recalcitrant garage door. Finally he blasts his way into the space ship, barely surviving, then sets about destroying Hal.
As he climbs a ladder to enter Hal's brain, Hal remarks soothingly, "Dave -- I can see your really upset about this." It's EXACTLY what Carl Rogers would have said. Hal begins to sound like a junior executive being fired. "I know I've made some bad decisions recently. But I can assure you that I am back to normal now. Really, I am devoted to the success of this mission"
If that's supposed to be a joke, it must have worked in 1968, when we were all in the business of seeing (or being) humanistic shrinks. I'm not sure that everybody would find the humor in such a line now, in 2005, a year in which most of the USA seems to find itself adrift on Jupiter. In the end, Dullea, if that in fact is what we're looking at, finds himself alone and unborn in the shrill silence of outer space.
That "star gate" episode -- wow! The coeval audience had a heck of a good time seeing it while stoned. Vavoom -- through an unknown universe! Into the Maelstrom. It must have been great if you'd been smoking grass. If you were tripping it might have become one of Edgar Allan Poe's worst hangovers. Just seeing it tonight took me back thirty years or so to when I was a research assistant at the New Jersey Neuropsychiatric Institute, engaged in a study of psychedelic drug use. It was perfectly legitimate, run by the psychiatrist who coined the term "psychedelic" and visited Aldous Huxley on his death bed, and endorsed by a former Attorney General of the United States. (By the way, has the statute of limitations run out?) We were not supposed to use drugs but one night circumstances demanded it and the next thing I knew I was wandering around a part of Manhattan I was completely unfamiliar with, the East 70s, never having gotten north of 14th Street in my youth. And -- wow -- everything was just terrible. People were walking dogs along the sidewalks and I fancied the dogs were staring at me because they knew I was a complete wreck. Well, let's skip it, except to say that what you need in a paranoid state is not the trip that Kubrick gives you, but a handle on reality. Well, I'm not sure, really. Sometimes I feel spaced out here in New Mexico where the Ice Cream trucks play "La Cucaracha." In the New Jersey neighborhood where I grew up they at least had the prescience to play the "Dies Irae."
Anyway, one of the most impressive features of the film is the special effects -- all done in the 1960s before computers. They are all mechanical or photographic. No computerized graphic images like the dinosaurs in "Jurassic Park" or the musclebound monsters that leap around on today's screen. If you see a space ship in "2001", it was hand built. The FX are the pinnacle of pre-computerized FX. They're like the clipper ships of the 1850s, marvels of marine engineering, about as good as it gets, before they were replaced by steamships.
I realize this is not much of a review of the movie itself, but without having looked, I imagine there must be a hundred or more so, really, why bother? Kubrick was an interesting guy. According to Kirk Douglas's revealing (and not very flattering) autobiography, "Rag Man's Son," Kubrick shot "Spartacus" which had been written by someone on the McCarthy-style blacklist and forbidden to work in the USA. A heated discussion arose about who exactly should get the writing credit, since the actual writer's name couldn't be used. How could justice best be served. Kubrick piped up and said if you want a writer's name, use mine. I'll take the credit. As Douglas put it, "Kubrick was a talented s***."
But -- all of that period and personal detail aside -- this film is a magnificent artifact. What an artist Kubrik was.