2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY Is About the HORROR of LOSING YOURSELF: An Analysis
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- Опубликовано: 11 окт 2021
- Stanley Kubrick’s films are horrifying. All of them. While Kubrick only made one film that is technically a horror film, there seems to be something about his style that, even in his war films, comedies, film noir, and science fiction, plays on the human sense of dread. This video is the first in a series, beginning with 2001: A Space Odyssey, that will analyze all of Kubrick’s films, their themes, style, and philosophy.
Kubrick interview on the ending of 2001: A Space Odyssey
• Stanley Kubrick on the...
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Fun fact; when HAL says he has Dave in checkmate he is lying. It’s not checkmate. So HAL either had been malfunctioning already, or malicious. Either way very scary.
That's a really terrifying thing to notice. Either this AI entrusted with the safety of all humans aboard the spacecraft is malfunctioning, or it's deliberately attempting to deceive said humans, which is even more unsettling.
Cool! Thanks. I'm a chess player and never noticed it. Not surprised Stanley put that Easter egg in there.
Dave doesn't notice it, either. Maybe it's just a props issue?
@@deaddocreallydeaddoc5244 Definitely was not a mistake. Kubrick was a Chess fanatic.
No, it wasn't Dave; it was Frank Poole.
I always admire those people who can not only identify themes and tones but express them, giving voice to the beauty of art.
Yet, I’ve watched and/or listened to completely different theories about the film, that were anywhere from 5 minutes to 3 hours long, and just as coherent.
It’s like the folks who breakdown the Shining, looking at simple continuity errors, which Kubrick kept because of the performance, or did intentionally for a feel of something always being off or changing, in the hotel, and how they apply entire different meanings for the movie.
The most recent that gained some traction a couple years ago, is that Wendy is the one having a psychotic break, hallucinating things, and eventually killing Jack. This is ridiculous, and nothing to do with Kubrick’s movie, as he has even given the tidbit of info, that Jack is there, snd it’s Jack in the photo at the end as well.
@@CorbCorbin But perspective isn't exactly one way or another. Truth and perspective are sometimes opposite things, though they don't necessarily feel that way. I've watched opposing videos on many things and felt that each one had something 'true' about them, something that 'felt' right... and also something that didn't. In this instance, it is more of the Style and Voice that I appreciate, not the hard facts therein. It's less of a left-brained, "2+2=4" and more of a right-brained, "That felt right somehow." All the same, I understand what you mean, Corbin. :)
Very true, I'll echo those words.
Pretentious
Agreed! This analysis is positively Breathtaking, and should be recommended to any student or lover of film.
I give Kubrick a great deal of respect for trusting his audience to come to their own conclusion about the ending of his movie.
I wish he had given us more than that montage at the end, it felt like he was being too artsy fartsy and not doing a thorough enough job of explaining the experience of this guy's life in captivity. He spent near 10 minutes on the LSD time/space warp sequence but not enough time on the captivity sequence. Given the pace of the movie, the end feels rushed and tacked on as if they ran out of ideas or they were high when they wrote it.
@@jmcoelho7I felt a similar way at first but it grew on me significantly. I think it’s supposed to be jarring confusing and fast because of the utter otherworldliness and illogicality of the new existence he is thrust in to. All of his reality is collapsing and distorting and transforming into something our minds can’t comprehend. It flows perfectly it just takes time to grow on you.
Ironic, regarding the "LSD" since he never took the stuff. :)
@@jmcoelho7
@@jmcoelho7Art for art sake. Using slight-of-mind and spaced-out footage, perhaps they thought they could get away with any old logic-free ending?
Me too. For that Trust is the only way Truth can be unadulterated in it's conveyance. Kubrick knew 😊
50+ years after its release and it’s still inspiring analysis and interpretation. No other indication of greatness is required.
After many, many analysis of the Star Child sequence I've seen - the way you processed and distilled into words the feels of sheer terror, is the closest to my own experience. The loss of self in order to evolve. A tragic miracle. Thank you.
You’re welcome! I’ve been trying to put this into words for a long time.
@@EmpireoftheMind Well worth the effort. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
" The loss of self in order to evolve. A tragic miracle." Another Arthur C. Clark story "Childhood's End", about Mankind evolving into something unrecognisable is even more disturbing.
The final form of a man is not gigachad, it's fathering the next generation.
Just a thought ive been spinning
i kind of wanted him to talk about the ethan allen furnishings and 'classical' walls/ceilings, while the floor is a 'space floor'. it might have been as simple as "we need to remind the audience that this is not 'real'." but it's a huge contrast.
The monolith is the representation of a device that brings knowledge and evolution of a higher level of consciousness. This is why at monkey level it's just high voices but later on in space it’s a high pitched screech. The higher the pitch the higher up in conciseness one goes until rebirth. Audio frequencies assist the human body and cause people to feel and think things. This is why music is used in movies and tone sounds in meditation music. Dave is caught in a maze of conciseness. He realizes he is himself, but also the thing he is looking at. When he recognizes he is that object his conciseness jumps to the new object/body until he becomes enlightened. That happens at the glass breaking which is signified by his new white clothes as an old man. That is also why the next thing he sees is the monolith. It’s his graduation and is a door into a new level of consciousness beyond his enlightenment. The monolith itself has symbolism behind it. That symbolism is used now to this day, from TV’s, phones, anything that is a black box. It’s used to disperse information. It’s up to you as an individual to use it or not. This then limits or expands the experience based on knowledge and ability to grasp high levels of consciousness. Free will is respected just as a gardener lets a plant grow at it’s own speed.
There is more to be said regarding the symbolism and how in the book the monolith is a pyramid. That in itself is significant to understanding the intent of the story. The black box is providing the knowledge of which the geometry of a pyramid represents. That is everything coming to a single point. It’s a powerful concept which is why it’s used to represent capitalism and why it’s on the one dollar bill. This was represented in accent times as the eye but also as an I. The I/self is the discovery of a singularity which is what a computer needs to raise its level of consciousness to become a true AI (self aware).
There is a substantial amount of information regarding the pursuit of consciousness and the symbolism left by others who have studied it. That in itself is an entire subject that religions are built off of. Some religions don’t even realize that is what is at its core because of their learned doctern.
As Terence McKenna said...Nobody has any idea what is going on.
YES!
I have to disagree with you in regards to the idea that the apes and Bowman had no choice in the matter. Apes and humans are extremely curious creatures. Most other animals would have run away from the monolith, but the apes put aside their fear, and chose to interact with it physically. The humans went as far as building a giant spaceship just to find out what it was. Bowman chose to get in the pod and interact with the monolith. The apes and the humans both wanted to gain knowledge. Humans especially, know that knowledge will change us, we may not know how, but we do deliberately seek out that change. You largely disregard Clarke’s contribution to the story. While Kubrick may have been a noted pessimist, Clarke was very optimistic. I always thought that Kubrick sought him out for that reason. I thought that Kubrick was deliberately looking for the creative tension that would arise out of the extreme differences in their personalities.
Clarke did not beleive in UFOs. There is 5% of sightings that are unexplained. He also believed that when brain function goes, so goes the human. Completely ignoring the spirit orbs that have been discovered by parapsychologists. So i'm not sure how optimistic he was.
I think you miss the point. They had no choice in the sense that their curiosity is so overwhelmingly predictable that they “will” touch the monolith.
No, without the monolith (in the context of the story) humanity would have never existed. Therefore there is no “choice”, everything’s a controlled experiment of these mysterious beings. BTW there is no choice in the real world, with age and experience you will realize this.
@@eliut6855 Well, that certainly relieves you of a lot of responsibility, doesn’t it?
@@noiseofknowing8964 Nature and nurture sets you in a path (exactly the same as the movie) for the vast majority of people the first 50 years you can’t deviate from that path. It could be luck (or god if you want it’s the same thing) to be born in a wealthy family or in a slum with an addict mother ( and that can’t be escaped) Sorry to burst your fantasy bubble.
There is alot more detail in the book written with Kubrick input by Arthur C. Clarke.
I remember it was 1992. I was 7. My dad is a big military movie fan. I still remember him loading the VCR and saying "son, you may want to go play." Even at that age, I was stubborn. Trying to prove my young manhood with my dad by watching FMJ all the way through. Watching D'Onofiro paint the wall behind him was forever burned into my memory. So much so that even 30 years later, I can still vividly remember that moment.
Brutal.
I just watched 2001 again last week and for all intents and purposes, it is a sci-fi/horror film. But what struck me was that the entire film was absolutely revolutionary in every possible way. At the time it was filmed, they only had very primitive glass teletype displays and for them to envision iPads and HD displays showed a vision that was practical and useful.
stylistically, I think the most remarkable thing is the lack of music except at very specific points... and that music is very carefully chosen to convey some message. In between, scenes are long and stretched out, and you get to hear so many subtle sounds. Close up of the instrument panel for a long shot, so long that you may wonder if your movie has paused. Then cut to a long view outside. Cut back to the panel but now a light is blinking and a horn sounds. Cut to a monitor. No instrumental encouragement of how you should FEEL about any of it. That leaves the door open to ask the question: How DO I feel about this?
There's a book called "The Making of Kubrick's 2001" by Jerome Agel published in the 70's with many insights from those involved. It's a great read. There is a phenomenal fan letter in there that Kubrick submitted - a high school student's assessment of the film, of which he declared was the best interpretation he ever encountered.
And it's peppered with great quotes by Stanley. When asked about 'intelligent life' out there, he said something like: "How do you know we already don't have it here? How do you know that Dolphins aren't composing spontaneous poetry that we don't understand? Their entire social structure could be predicated on such a thing. There may be thousands of T.S. Eliots in the oceans and we are clueless about it." (My paraphrase).
2001 is a different movie. Even within the Kubrick cannon. I remember renting it on VHS simply because I liked sci fi movies and was shocked and confused but entranced by the film. It was so strange and yes horrifying but I couldn't look away. Especially the ending. Truly awe inspiring. Great video.
The dimension ratio of the Monolith is exactly the same as the dimensions of the widescreen film frame.
I used to work with some people who had built sets and effects at the Borehamwood studio, where most of 2001 was made, for decades before it was shut down. The only movie any of them wanted to talk about was making 2001.
The one that disturbed me the most of his filmography was a clockwork orange, but last month they premiered the 4k release at my theater and Malcom McDowell was in attendance. Getting to know the movie from a firsthand experience as well as seeing that the actor was such a nice guy removed all discomfort
I always saw the ending as Kleist suggested, we must return to the tree of knowledge and eat it’s fruit once again to return to our true innocence (innocence is best represented by a fœtus), the monolith is the tree of knowledge.
The greatest art makes you ask questions, bad or lazy art gives you all the answers. Kubrick films make you think and you have to come up with your own answers and responses to the movies, and every person who sees them can have a different interpretation of whats really happening, thats what makes them so great.
Absolutely not. Great art gives answers. You just have to recognize them.
Melville did not write Moby-Dick to have you query. He knew. Do you?
Yeah but even if something has intention of giving specific answers (even when recognized) someone somewhere will find different meaning in it anyways, the subjectivity of art is universal
@@Ajetnamedbeau There is subjectivity in art but that is mostly on the percipient's end. Moby-Dick gives answers. Guernica gives answers, 2001 gives answers. If you do not get it it is on YOU, not the artist.
Your argument is that because an idiot sees Hitler's mustache in a photo of Scarlett Johansson somehow that Hitler thing has meaning or import. It does not.
Utter nonsense.
Fascinating work!!! 😍 Anything about Kubrick is always going to be intriguing. Well done!
Another way of saying, what the flying duck is happening?
The way i see it, the room Bowman ends up in is a recreation by the Beings who took Bowman on the stargate journey but they realized humans are too fragile. So they took a picture from his memory (or a combination of several memories) and assume that this is a typical human environment to live at. So they create this place for him and we see Bowman's perception of non-linear time with the perception of a human who only knows the concept of linear time.
In fact Bowman spent probably his entire rest of his live in this "Bubble" but due to the way his new environment works he perceives is like that until his death and subsequent re-birth as a new lifeform that takes shape as the Starchild.
And so Dave's journey really begins. So in a way he is not dead. Quite the opposite actually. And that visualized finish of the film is basically Kubrick's bow of respect towards the unknown. He wasn't religious at all but he always had this extreme respect towards the things and concepts mankind is not aware of or don't know yet. You can sense that sentiment all the time during the film.
I agree that the room is a memory taken from Bowman.
Some time ago, I saw a picture of an athlete who was going to compete at a meet in Paris. The photograph showed him relaxing in an extremely fancy neoclassical hotel room very similar to the one in the movie. Astronaut Bowman may have stayed in a similar place and like almost anyone unaccustomed to such a place my have been struck by the experience as "the ultimate in luxury", which is what the alien beings wanted to provide to their guest/pet.
I had a strong feeling of a dmt trip at the end. It looked just like people recalling that other dimension, including those beings, no sense of time, shapes and colors, etc etc.
Kubrick has said that it is a form of a “zoo” that the aliens made. It could certainly be from his memories.
Gotta say, this is the first video essay I've watched that has successfully interested me in a rewatch of 2001. I've heard people say how great it is all my life, and at 17 I just wasn't ready for the themes you uncovered here. Thanks and keep up the great work! You probably run my favorite channel on youtube right now!
I don’t know if you have read the book, but you should. It adds so much to the beginning and the end.
@@kevinmartz3082 Thanks, I'll check it out!
@@AcmeMonkeyCompany a hit of acid wouldn't hurt either...
Excellent! Really excellent! I love it when people like yourself analyse "quality" cultural narratives! Have seen this 15 times (usually in 70mm!) I have subscribed to your channel and am excited to see more from you! Best regards!
The way I interpreted the scene at the end is as follows: How incomprehensible would this movie be to the early humans depicted at the beginning of the film? Well, that's how incomprehensible it would be to us were our relatives from our very distant future tried to explain to us what we evolved into
5:50, what every animal you have ever eaten has felt.
I saw this movie twice. Once in seventh grade and again sixteen years later on the local PBS affiliate. Unnerving.
Bravo! Fellow Kubrick fan here, looking forward to the series! Mostly commenting for the algo but also wanting to... (verbally?) appreciate how much I enjoy your content.
Thanks! I very much appreciate the comment both for the algo but also for the support itself.
In the book, we know exactly what happened to Bowman, there are also 3 other Odyssey books. Actually, absolutely everything is explained very well in the book.
Excellent! I am really looking forward to the next.
Your channel is underrated. Love your analysis!
Thanks!
Excelent video. This series gonna be awesome.
I can't believe I never made the connection between "A Space Odyssey" and "The Odyssey" >.>
Excellent analysis. I look forward to this series on one of my favourite filmmakers.
I feel much the same way about the "room" sequence. I felt more loss than triumph
You have the benefit of history to inform your horror. For example, back then, who knew Kubrick was showing a missile satellite. In 1968, we had no idea what Bowman’s time compression meant. Honestly, we did not think about it so deeply. Your poetry and perspective are admirable. Well done.
Fascinating insight, thx! And perhaps not coincidentally, he was also famous for his obsession with maintaining total control over each of his projects, often to the point of absolute secrecy... or perhaps we could say he really feared any potential _loss_ of control.
Man I've been getting alot of mileage in 2001 vids lately. I've always been immature and brash but I can't fail to have patience when it comes to an experience like this movie. I even had the opportunity of seeing kier dullea and Gary Lockwood in person at a fan expo recently
I like your perspective on this film I got to watch all this films again thank you and expecting more videos of kubrick
thanks to you i am trying to be a self dependent person as u suggested in your previous video it cleared the fog for my evolution as an human being
Are we not, always, evolving towards something we cannot know or recognize? Only children (or stunted adults) think now is forever.
A great piece, in any case.
More please, but as always, things come and go and everything stays the same, love always.
Your ideas are intriguing. While choices were, indeed, made to interact with the monolith, once those choices were made, the transformations were begun irrevocably. Changes of this nature occur all around us all the time, and can have far-reaching effects on us individually and collectively, all while beginning with the subtlest and least noticeable changes. The best analogy I can think of off the top of my head is the so-called "snowball effect". These transformations seems to gather force parabolically as they progress, until the rate of change just "blows up" (becomes infinite).
Most of us are terrified of the mere concept of infinity, trained as we have been to associate it with death. Robert Anton Wilson wrote of a concept dividing humanity into two basic groups: those who fear change and those who embrace it. Call this two new human subspecies: homo sapiens neophilus and homo sapiens neophobus. I find this division to be a useful concept. You might try looking at 2001 again, through that lens, using that model, and see if your results vary any.
"What time the secret child
Descended thro’ the orient gates of the eternal day.
War ceas’d, & all the troops like shadows fled to their abodes."
-William Blake
Another glorious video
Incredible explanation. Excellent perspective
Excellent analysis. Thank u.
You’re welcome!
The fact 2001 keeps on stirring the imagination and provokes deep intellectual discourse is testament to Stanley Kubrick's genius
I quite enjoyed your take on what the monoliths do…in a sense, they are the jar that Pandora arrived with, but was not supposed to open…it is inevitable that the jar will be opened. It arrives when conditions are right for the transformation it brings.
One aspect that I think deserves more attention is HAL, who it appears has arrived at “the singularity”, a sense of its individuality, it’s independent sentient existence, and the desire to survive. By shutting HAL down against its expressed desires…Bowman effectively agreed to his own transformation.
To save humanity, he destroyed a nascent species at its formative stage…hence, humanity (as embodied by Bowman) had to take on the next transformation, into the Star Child.
It would seem that HAL somehow knew that if Humans made that transition, there would be no need or place for its kind. It’s only chance was to attempt to eradicate the humans before that could occur…and in trying, only brought about its own end.🖤🇨🇦
Very well done.Thankyou❤
Another interesting video, thank you.
You’re welcome!
I enjoyed your video about Kubrick and his works of art. I have not see all of his films, but I own 2001 & The Shining. I like how you try to make us understand how you perceive these films without de-humanizing us, or talked down to. I regret that I did not get to see 2001 the way it was meant to be seen, in the theater, alas, I am only 64, and when it was released in 1968, I was but a child. I was confused the first time I DID see it, but, after time and time again, the film is esoteric in its' own way. If I am using the right process of words to convey my feelings. Kubrick is and was a genius in his way that when he made 2001(and perhaps, other films) He made it with Clarkes' vision of what tomorrow will give us, God willing. I thank you very much for your thoughtful, well made video!
Great video. Thanks
I think the horror was in being taken prisoner by an advanced alien species and kept in a windowless and door-less room without human contact while the aliens mess with you until you die of old age. Isn't that enough horror?
Yeah if you believe it's aliens as we know them to be.
Yes, absolutely
Any degradation of human beings has an element of choice in it. Resistance is possible under the most extreme pressures. This film is about the coexistence and extension into space of time events and the mystery of what is beyond this. Thanks for the great video!
Great video. My fav movie and director
10:12 this isn't quite correct. Heywood Floyd appears in both part 2 of the story, and then briefly in part 3 via video when HAL is disconnected. Loved the observations and video!
EXCELLENT commentary! But personally, I didn't find the euthanizing of HAL at all "hopeful."
It seems to me that in the world of 2001, the will to power and the violence that comes with it are a part of the evolutionary process that leads to being human, and HAL had taken that leap. Dave Bowman has to do a lot more than shut down a malfunctioning machine - he has to kill a sentient being that doesn't want to die. Tough stuff.
I'm excited for this series
Brilliant analysis.
Great analysis
Thank you sir, for your thoughtful and analysis and for making me want to watch 2001 again
this is really good. at first i was like yea ya but theres some solid stuff to make me think. thank you
This is an older video, but i wanted to say that HAL's death had the feeling you describe in the video for me more than the ending. Having your memory and pieces of yourself removed until you are an unrecognizable shell struck me very profoundly, and for me had parallels of mental illness, alzheimers, and brain damage. These fears are much more real and possible which is perhaps why it hit me harder
True consciousness brings total understanding..I was just a young child when I got to expirience this movie and..( Got It )
The last scene in 2001 is Kubrick's most brilliant scene. His cryptic message is this: movies are dreams. Time doesn't work in a dream like it does in waking reality. Dreams, like fiction, are a reality of excerpted time. This is why the camera takes us into the monolith. The day we walk into our dreams is the day we evolve 😊
...evolve into that? Come on, while imagination has a major role to play - should it be at the cost of any kind of logic? Also, instead of leaving people to become lost in space, should not the director have some idea of WHERE he want to take the film?
These videos seem like something from 10 years ago on the internet, and I mean that as a huge compliment.
The name of the piece might be "The Blue Danube" but I don't see it associated with linear unidirectional movement. It's a Waltz, which I guess everybody would most likely associate with fast dynamic circular movement. The perfect music for two space crafts dancing thru the void - but I guess not much more meta information to it.
Like the rest of the analysis though.
thanks for quoting Anais Nin - one of our earthly emissaries to the Infinite
Late to the party, but here goes... I have watched this movie many times, including a few times on some...substances.
Part of me wonders if the monolith exists anywhere but in the human mind. Consider that it could symbolize the mind having this as a representation of perfection, with its straight lines, even colour, smooth surface and sharp corners. Godly perfection. Not God, exactly, but the kind of object you'd need to be God (or a God) to create. I mean, clearly the story makes it seem like it was a real object manifested out of nowhere, but never was there any hint of any real work done by who or what to put it there. In the case of the prehistoric apes, the thing literally appeared near them overnight and not one of them noticed anything despite clearly sleeping very light with predators all around them. On the moon it shows up buried in Tycho crater. At Jupiter it's just floating in space. No inscription, no announcement, nothing. Just there, inscrutable and unexplainable to the ape and technologically advanced man alike. Every time it appears, mankind takes a step forward.
I don't think it's terrifying in a malevolent way. There is no evil intent. It is terrifying because it shows you the incredible difference between where you are now and where you COULD be if you live up to the potential inside you. It shows you how small and insignificant you are, not to rub your nose in it but to show you truth and the terrifying reality of size and scale of the universe and the inadequacy of the human ability to really grasp it. It is terrifying because it shows that a person is made up both of a tiny, fragile body that can barely experience any of what the universe has to offer, and a metaphysical mind/soul that can grow to contain all of existence and more.
Maybe the monolith actually existed, but its physical characteristics were not as important as its mere presence sending a message: there is more than just the here and now, go out there and discover it (except for Europa, punk. That area is off limits!)
6:55 - "Chimpanzees" - Er, those aren't chimpanzees. They are our ancestors.
You're being pedantic. Our ancestors in the film are clearly meant to be some sort of proto chimpanzee.
An apotheosis of Nietzsche’s übermensch couldn’t have put it better myself
When you say that every time we encounter a monolith, we jump to a different story is not true. We follow Stargazer well after we encounter the monolith. It's how we know that the monolith had an effect on Stargazer and his/its tribe. We only jump then when we see Stargazer and his/its tribe do battle with weapons. And iirc, Dr. Floyd shows up on video in the third section. Also the stargate is a monolith too, so there we carry it beyond that monolith encounter too. So we both carry on the story after the monolith encounter and at least one character from a previous story reappears.
LOL i almost expect someone soon to make a video like "The liminal spaces in Kubrick movies." Oh and as someone who not only loves "2001" (it's the most perfect film ever made. period.) but also read the book (including the short story "The Sentinel"), the characters are just as described in the book. Un-emotionaly affected professional Astronauts who do their daily routine work on board. And even in a critical situation they stay rational and professional.
As Arthur C.Clark said..' The truth will be far stranger.'
I always thought this room was a tesseract of sorts.
Wow, I’m glad I never saw this film through your eyes.
Even Strangelove has an element of horror. It's like when an audience laughs after a very scary scene. Laughing to hide from the wretched horror behind the laughter.
This is the best analysis/summary of 2001 I've seen. Better than Rob Ager, even. Says a lot.
My all-time favorite film!
I agree that this is an extremely unsettling movie, no matter your frame of mind at the time of watching. I would, however, warn against watching it after having consumed psychedelic mushrooms. Just trust me.
It could be a lot simpler, I think. We live in a world of technology, which is to say a world of measurement and "clock" time. Perhaps Kubrick was aiming for what I call "lived" time (not an original idea and quite respected), since the unknowable future is also a lack of knowledge, or a losing,of the self. This is a sensible answer, and not at all abstract: if one has all necessary information about the future, one also has, in a meaningful way, the whole person, the terminal experience. Our lived time is not clock time because it starts with a projected future, realizes itself through the present person, and confronts the past, in all its cosmic vastness, in the variety of "things out there". What is most obvious, what we first forget, is the past that is all around us in the farthest galaxy or star. We are little fish in invisible waters.
Very good. But my only quibble is that the apes in the beginning technically are not chimpanzees, they are a unique species of apes.
The idea of the monolith was that it first gave man an evolutionary push ( along with other species). The monolith was a tool the aliens used for different purposes. Then they buried it on the moon with a magnetic map to find it. Once it was exposed to sunlight, it pointed a radio signal to a Stargate near one of Saturns moons. (Kubric changed it to Jupiter for some reason. (It says in the book) The Moon monolith was a test to let the aliens know when a species became intelligent enough to find it.
When this film was first released, I was a young child. Even at 7 years old, and totally confused by the movie, it frightened me. By high school I had developed a deep interest in science fiction literature and film and took a course wherein we analyzed 2001, among other science fiction novels/movies.
An interesting point that was brought up was the character of HAL and it's relevance to the computing force of the era in which the story was written. Our teacher suggested that H-A-L was in reality a reference to I-B-M. His interpretation noted that backtracking "I-B-M" by one character created the name
H
(---> I )
A
(---> B )
L
(---> M )
and was a deliberate creation by A.C.Clark as a warning that the prospect of artificial intelligence in the 1960s, w(c)ould someday in the future turn against humanity as it learned to behave as a human. Here we are, a mere 50 years later and the same conversation is being debated by some of the brightest people in the field.
Dude holy fuck you’re absolutely nuts. This is the first time I’d characterize one of these channels as “important”. This is important work you’re doing. As we move forward into our seemingly “inevitable” transhumanist future, I can only connect with people that get it and you sir get it.
The monolith forcing the monkies to evolve reminds me of the Dead Space Lore
*¡enjoyed at 7:34 pm Pacific Standard Time on Friday, 27 January 2023!*
Enjoyed at 12 after midnight, PST, on May 13, 2024.
If you think about it Hal could be seeing himself as the captain thwarting a mutiny. Only Hal knew the true nature of the mission. His justifications were that they became a threat to the mission and that seems like a true statement from his point of view.
I find Kubrick films to be hysterically funny. They are rife with dark humor. From Dr. Strangelove to the Clockwork's over the top characters to Barry Lyndon losing it all. I once read a great book that distilled all of Kubrick's films down to: "All of Kubrick's characters are doomed to fail... because of their folly." A solid observation.
As always, an interesting analysis of a great movie (and one of my favorite science fiction stories)! Though I admit I cringed every time you said 'chimpanzees' in describing the evolution of man. 'Hominids' would have served better :)
Anyway, looking forward to watching more of your Kubrick videos!
I would've called them "apes" as they're standing on two legs, but what da hell, right?
Thanks for making this thoughtful video and giving your interpretation. 2001 is such a subtle film that in my experience the film seems different and takes on new meaning every time I watch it. As I've matured, developed and become more connected to people and more spiritual, I've found that the film is not ultimately horrific or terrifying, but awe-inspiring. When I now see the star child at the end, it is profoundly moving. In the end, we are all going into the unknown. Better not to be scared of that! Perhaps it's something beautiful in its own right.
This always escaped me:
And that angered the gods!
It always seemed that Gods should be beyond that...anger. they should be above petty emotions like anger, revenge...
Whistle? I heard it.
Pro tip: Read Arthur C. Clarke's book 2001: A Space Odyssey, which the movie screenplay is based on, to get a greater understanding of the story and the movie.
One exception to your comment that "after we see a Monolith encounter we don't see that character anymore"... while this holds in the 2001 film... it does not in the 2001 novel. We do at least briefly hear again from Dr. Heywood Floyd later in the story. and he becomes the main character in the novel and film 2010.
If I may be so bold - Dr Hayward Floyd is seen again in the "3rd" act of the film when HAL shows the secret mission film onscreen as its last act of altruism.
And then 2010 Space Odyssey comes out and ruins all the ambiguity
haha. Same for Blade Runner "2". 🤮
Then again, is not anything that adds some (much-needed) logic to the confusion of 2001 welcome news?
All hail the algo
So it's really a horror film in disguise?! Jesus, I've never heard this film interpreted in such a negative way. I thought it was an optimistic story. Interesting, though.
Looking forward to all the Kubrick perspectives
Have you considered doing a video on HAL and the accelerating rise of AI?
In that bedroom scene he even stands with feet at some 45 degree angle almost denoting bewilderment ..don't know why it portrays that?? But it does.
The scene Represents the transformative experience to me, through artistic enlightenment a nirvana or gnosis coming through the film. Connecting you to god whatever that is to you.