Movie #59: Released in 1968, directed by Stanley Kubrick, 149 minutes. Seen it before!
LetterBoxd score: 5 stars
I’ve seen this several times before, but it remains great.
One reflection I had on this viewing was that I’ve gone from thinking how hopelessly optimistic Kubrick was about the rate of mankind’s technological progress, to thinking “yes, we’re on our way, though maybe it will a bit longer than twice as long as Kubrick anticipated.” ‘On our way’ wasn’t how I thought about this film ten years ago. But we’ve more or less invented Hal, we’ve got the video conferencing equipment, and even spaceflight is showing signs of life. A moon base seems out of reach, but just as much because we don’t want it as we can’t have it. We might end up on Mars instead. And space hotels don’t seem totally out of the question, in a world where space tourism is puttering along. In my LetterBoxd review I joked that it feels like we’re living in the 1994 of the movie’s timeline (i.e., a little more than 3/4 of the way to 2001, from 1968).
Kubrick can feel a little cold, what with all the slow moving spaceships, but the movie has two emotional cores for me. First, there is Hal’s lobotomy; it’s so strangely affecting how the movie makes us feel so much for:
- a machine
- speaking in an affectless voice
- after it tried to murder to protagonist
What a magic trick.
Second, I’m so happy that Kubrick repeatedly cuts to blind terror on Bowman’s face, as he goes through the… wormhole? It could have been just that – a trippy light show – but the reaction shots anchor it to a central theme of the story, which is maybe the small stature of mankind against the strange cosmos.
Why would someone think it’s one of the ten greatest movies ever made?
A few reasons. First, film is an audiovisual medium, and this movie is one of the best examples of what that means. It overwhelms with cosmic imagery and music, the kind of thing that you have to thread just right not to have it be over-the-top and bombastic or cheesy and cheap looking. It’s not just the sun rising behind the orderly planets, or the ballet of giant space craft, it’s also the shimmering voices that convey to us so much about the monolith, without dialogue.
On LetterBoxd, after watching this movie, I started reserving 5 stars for movies that were not just perfect cinema, but which “transcend film” and are “wisdom about life and the universe.” Movies aren’t essays, but the wisdom of this movie is about the double-edged sword of technology and human existence, and about the humbling fact that, even at the height of our powers, we will be small creatures in an alien existence. But… it’s optimistic about this fact.
Final note, but objectively, Kubrick has to be the GOAT of directors, right? 2001 is on the short list for greatest science fiction movie of all time. The Shining is on the short list for greatest horror movie of all time. Similarly for Strangelove and comedy. Who else can claim to have demonstrated such mastery over so many domains?
Next: Once Upon a Time in the West