2001: A Space Odyssey

Thanks to the 50th Anniversary re-release of the film, I got the chance to experience 2001: A Space Odyssey the way it was meant to be - in a cinema! This movie belongs on a big screen. Why? Because besides being a film, it is also a grand advertisement of space travel. Being the first science fiction film set in space, in the sixties when space travel was just beginning, the film was aware of its potential to excite and inspire awe in the audience of that time – by depicting the wonders of space travel and the Universe on the big screen, arguably the next big thing to staring at the sky. And hence, the film devotes as much time to showing wonders of space travel, aspects of future technology as it does to it’s storytelling. There are extended sequences of walking in zero gravity, of spacecrafts launching and aspects of space engineering that do not add anything to the plot but are only meant to create an experience of space travel on the big screen. The special effects might not seem special to the audiences of today who have grown up, and now saturated, with CGI. But watching them unfold on a big screen and knowing the fact that this was made in the sixties was quite an awesome experience for me. And I am pretty sure I wouldn’t have enjoyed 2001: A Space Odyssey as much on a TV.

I had to look up “Odyssey” after watching this and wikipedia tells me that Odyssey is an epic poem, written by Homer, about Odysseus' long  journey home after the fall of Troy. At its core, 2001: A Space Odyssey is also a journey, but of human consciousness – a visual saga from the dawn of mankind to its eventual unification with the Universe. Told in four chapters, the film covers a huge time span with each chapter jumping to a different time and setting in the story. Consequently, the film does not follow one single protagonist throughout. Instead, it uses  different characters as anchors in each chapter. The only unifying thing across all chapters is a mysterious black monolith which keeps appearing at different points of time acting as a catalyst, and also perhaps a metaphor, for a jump in human consciousness. I call it a visual saga, because 2001: A Space Odyssey is pure cinema. It espouses, at the highest level, what it means to show and not tell. It does not drown itself in the technical jargon like the sci-fi movies of  today. In fact, there is not much dialogue at all and instead the film takes pains to demonstrate its version of future technologies. The docking scene made so  popular in Interstellar has its much superior origins here. The visuals of the cockpit show how a craft would land. Extended zero gravity scenes show how people would walk around in different  parts of the spacecraft.

Of course, this might not be charming for everyone. Most of us have  seen enough of sci-fi to not be impressed by all of this anymore. However, none of the sci-fi films that I have seen celebrate the beauty in  science and engineering as 2001: A Space Odyssey does. There are homages to symmetry everywhere. The  opening titles appear after a linear alignment of the Sun, Moon and the Earth. The mysterious monolith, which appears at different times,  also caused its effects during a symmetrical alignment  with the planets or moons or the stars, as if implying that there is  magic in the hidden harmonies which guide the universe. In one of the first  scenes set in space, a symphony plays in the background as a pen dances about in zero gravity inside a spacecraft. The same spacecraft, in its preparation to dock on the space station, starts rotating at  the same speed as the space station while the musical symphony starts to  swell. And as the music peaks, we have a long shot of both the  spacecraft and the space station rotating together and coming closer slowly! What is this, if not a celebration of the synchronicity in  engineering, and its comparison with the harmony of a symphony! I could not help but smile widely when I saw this - maybe because of the engineer inside me. But I believe these meticulously crafted scenes played along with a melodious symphony can evoke some level of excitement and hope in anyone. Perhaps, that is why Kubrick used classical music, to employ its familiarity and universality as a means to introduce a glorious vision of space travel.

2001: A Space Odyssey reminded me of what had originally attracted me to the science fiction genre. I was captivated by the visualization of the future, of presently non-existent technologies playing out on the screen. I remember coming out of watching Spider-man 2, at the age of 14, with only two things in my mind - Kirsten Dunst(:D) and the depiction of the Nuclear Fusion reaction. I would learn a few years later that it was quite an accurate visualization, albeit without a crazy scientist with octopus arm addendums, of one of the ways Nuclear Fusion can be achieved practically. Spider-Man 2 may not  qualify purely as Science Fiction, or stand anywhere in comparison to 2001: A Space Odyssey but that was its original charm for me. The philosophical discussions/repercussions of Science Fiction can stay for the books(I am looking at you, Interstellar, with the pathetically shot scene of Anne Hathaway and Matthew McConaughey talking about Love as a force across the universe!). I was reminded of Cinema's power as a visual medium on 4th of June 2018, 50 years after Kubrick originally tried to demonstrate it. If I am so moved today, 2001: A Space Odyssey must have inspired tremendous awe in its time of release, when space travel was brand new and prospective of a bright future! And 2001: A Space Odyssey does postulate a bright, positive 2001 where there would be manned flights to Jupiter, something that we are still waiting for. It celebrates the human in technology, its undying will and its infinite curiosity to know and understand itself, which may not drive  individual men, but does drive mankind. After all, as perhaps Kubrick tried to portray, we are, in the end, children of the Universe, gaping wide-eyed at its beauty, expanse and mystery!