A film stripped to the bare essence of film

Rating: 10/10 (21 December 2013)

Film is a visual medium, and Kubrick was one of its greatest experimenters. Every one of his films is an experiment in its genre. Every one of his films successfully takes its genre in a new direction. For SF, 2001 is no exception.
The film contains half hour+ stretches with no dialogue, only minimal classical music. Yet these stretches can hold an intellectually inclined viewer spellbound, just soaking in the images. Even the decisions forced on the director (such as leaving out the aliens in the final alien encounter) are worked in favor of the film. And of course Kubrick's decision to leave out an electronic score (albeit a well done one) in favor of unedited classical music that ranges from quietly disturbing to exuberant - or just not to have any music at all - makes the film watchable and listenable decades after its conception. Every set piece - and the film is nothing but a series of visual set pieces, is priceless, from the Pan Am stewardess doing a 360 degree walk in the space plane, to an astronaut fighting for survival in the quiet vacuum of outer space, to a conversation with a sentient machine gradually reduced to his (not 'its') oldest memories, becoming senile at the hands of his human antagonist.
Of course current audiences used to modern CGI will notice flaws: the proto-humans have that odd combination of realism yet costumed fake-ness that only real acting (and really good acting, at that) in a costume can provide. The multiple-exposure masks used during flight scenes to block off the star field are not always perfectly aligned against the space ships. Unable to get the engine fire and dust upon landing right, effects master Doug Trumbull decided to just forgo it. Yet these peccadilloes pale by comparison to how accurately physical laws are modeled and represented in every detail in this film, especially in view of the cartoonish and video-gamish liberties taken by the current slew of SF action films. 2001 almost stands alone in how accurate it is physically.
2001 was a watershed for SF films. Like another of Arthur C. Clarke's masterworks, "Rendezvous with Rama," it does not try to explain, it just lets be. Unfortunately when "Rendezvous with Rama" finally gets made, it will probably be turned into a current-generation mindless sci-fi action movie with plenty of outer space sound effects and horrific spider monsters coming after the humans. The problem right now is that big films have become so expensive to make, that deviating from formula, as Kubrick always did, is just not a safe option anymore. This will change: CGI will become so commonplace and inexpensive, that we will see a generation of smart films with CGI in 10-15 years.