Topic started by vj on Fri Jul 23 19:15:42 .
All times in EST +10:30 for IST.
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This is a bacterial thread, expecting to have a short lifespan before getting relegated to the archives! It is about the "supposed" profundity in 2001: A space odyssey...
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Responses:
- From: vj (@ nt-124-35.lib.purdue.edu)
on: Thu Jul 29 16:36:21
In my opinion,
The movie is essentially about Man and his relationship with everything around Him ( the Him could be construed as to mean God too)
Part-I
Dawn of Man
The movie starts with the Dawn of Man where Man is shown foraging for food mindlessly. (Trivia - The apes shown were actually men but the Oscars did not know that and hence awarded the Best Costume design to "Planet of the Apes" which had definitely more cruder versions of Primitive Men) There are incessant growls and chatters and he is being constantly attacked by other animals. He is weak and highly unsafe. He is dwindling. He is starving
One day a monolith ( a rectangular granite piece appears) there is also an alignment of the Sun, the Monolith and the Crescent shaped Moon.. This denotes an 'auspicious' moment and this event appears at 2 more critical junctures in the movie... this is to indicate a "giant step" or "transformation" for Man.. may be compared to a key event in a plan (that God or the Force Beyond may have had for Man)
The monolith disappears the next day but Man is not the same anymore. One particular man (call him the cognizant one) discovers how he could use a piece of skull as a tool for killing animals, the tool is also used to kill fellow men sadly which serves to indicate that the Monolith (or God or a Force) that gave him the power did not choose to give him the way to utilize it. So there are no checks. so Man's tools could be a source of despair (The classic battle of science versus misuse of science). Primitive man throws the bone in ecstacy after he realises his potential as the bone transforms into a space-ship! Tremendous! This scene indicates how Man has used his tools and the most advanced stage was this space ship traveling to the moon. We are thrown from B.C to 2001 A.D and we are greeted by silence
Part-II
Voyage to the Moon
A Dr. Floyd is chilling out in space. There is silence as it should be in space. Everything is zero-gravity. A pen floats in the air as a hostess walks in carefully to capture it ! The zero gravity toilet and the detailed instructions are a reminder to the fact that things get more and more complicated, the reach of science is to get narrower. The flight comes to a slow stop after alignment etc... The mood of Space is captured and it sure had grown on me by then. He walks out...The normal conversations around indicates that nothing really has changed. Small talk will always haunt Man. :)
Floyd moves slowly after some checks (voice identification crap)and enters a booth to talk to his kid. She's just as bored as these days kids are. Floyd professes a very typical love for his daughter and she asks him for a telephone as a gift for her B'day! (she incidentally is Kubrick's daughter). Then a Russian (well, the cold war got over) meets him at the airport lounge and informs him that the place he's going to has been under some mysterious trouble. Some epidemic has flung out apparently.
Acting curious, Floys promises to find out the trouble. He actually has been called solely for the trouble. He lands on the Moon's base finally to realise(after a meeting where he asks all the poeple up there to observe complete secrecy regarding the issue at hand)that the trouble is a Monolith buried there some n million years ago. Man again approaches the Monolith the same way primitive Man did it ! carefully slowly ! Ironic!
The Monolith was there to signal Man's transformation from Primitivity to the Advanced. He's now on the Moon !
As they go near, an alien strange loud electric wave-type thing hits all their heads. The sound is terribly ittirating and the men crings clutching their heads and the sound suddenly stops as the movie moves on to Part - III....
(to be contd)
- From: vj (@ chme6pc4.ecn.purdue.edu)
on: Wed Aug 11 13:06:36
I'll post my interpretation of Part-III and IV by tomorrow. Sorry for the delay
(Not that it troubled anyone :)
- From: vj (@ chme6pc4.ecn.purdue.edu)
on: Wed Aug 25 21:19:00
( I apologise for some possible factual errors in naming things)
On to part-III
The annoying high frequency noise is the culmination of Part-II : Voyage to the Moon.
In Part - II the most important dialogue is the one uttered by someone (Floyd or his coworkers when on their way to see the monolith) and it is the last about the monolith
"Its origin and purpose - a complete mystery"
That is the closest the movie came to explicitly calling the Monolith a 'God' or the 'Ultimate' Thing amongst All Things that, from our perspective in the light of its presence in the movie, seems like the One "controlling" Man's destiny.
This part is titled " Eighteen Months Later - Mission to Jupiter " ( I think) and we are yet again introduced into Space with a deafening silence… with the humming of engines... we are introduced slowly into the design of the spaceship, its long, has a few distinct blocks of architecture sewed together like bogies in a train... the engine (the front block) is a globular block of white....and against the almost dark sky spotted with stars it looks beautiful and cold.
As we enter the ship we see a man jogging to keep fit. The revolving globular structure enables him to keep
on jogging... round and round and the camera duly follows him round and round. ( I believe Kubrick and Arthur Clarke foresaw this kind of a structure!)
The background slowly unwinds through a series of incidents , Dave ( the man found jogging) and Frank
are on a mission somewhere and they dont know their destination; Everything is taken care of by HAL 9000 - the supercomputer who is in complete scientific charge of the mission leaving the humans mere back up devices, there are two men on the ship ... while four more were put under hibernation before the trip started. Frank watches on a TV-like screen, his parents exude "human" vivacity about his birthday and other things. Frank is quite unconcerned. vast Space and Timelessness can do that to you. HAL is interviewed by someone on Earth where it seems 'proud' about itself. The idea that endowing consciousness or intelligence is like infusing ego or a sense of self is obvious. Now, a series of incidents happen in which HAL wrongly reports an error ( "sure to go to 100% failure in 72 hours" J !) and Dave/Frank is questioned by HAL about their feeling on this journey. Since the whole journey is in HAL's control any error by It is unpardonably dangerous. Dave and Frank are forced to discuss disconnecting It (out of It's earshot!) . Now when Frank goes out to anyway replace the 'supposed' fault the humming of the engines is replaced by a heavy breathing and the silence of space, which by this time had become very dear to me. He floats towards the part leaving his pod (his transportation vehicle) when HAL strikes. The heavy breathing stops abruptly. He is cut off .... and he starts to spiral away into space. The image of the helpless human revolving away into space , done in by HAL, is more frightening than any display of blood I've seen. No shrieks! The visual - real and chilling terrorizes you. Dave immediately takes out another pod to rescue him and just as he succeeds in capturing his
friend..... He and HAL have one of the most engrossing conversations I have ever heard. I reproduce it here…
Dave Bowman: Hello, HAL do you read me, HAL?
HAL: Affirmative, Dave, I read you.
Dave Bowman: Open the pod bay doors, HAL.
HAL: I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.
Dave Bowman: What's the problem?
HAL: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.
Dave Bowman: What are you talking about, HAL?
HAL: This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.
Dave Bowman: I don't know what you're talking about, HAL?
HAL: I know you and Frank were planning to disconnect me, and I'm afraid that's something I cannot
allow to happen.
Dave Bowman: Where the hell'd you get that idea, HAL?
HAL: Dave, although you took thorough precautions in the pod against my hearing you, I could see your lips move.
[HAL won't let Dave into the ship]
Dave: All right, HAL; I'll go in through the emergency airlock.
HAL: Without your space helmet, Dave, you're going to find that rather difficult.
Dave: HAL, I won't argue with you anymore! Open the doors!
HAL: Dave, this conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye.
Chilling! "This conversation can serve no purpose anymore"
Now things fall in place. Why is HAL doing this?
My idea is HAL did not act like committing an error (what many believe). It's a machine endowed with human intelligence. It remains, at the roots, a logical device capable of logical-circuit run emotions(!) , Given complete charge it was the commander. The commander had to take into confidence its soldiers in executing a mission. However the Men were not to be told about the mission. Why? It beats me! (a nagging question I have is this, Can anyone clarify?) But yes, That's why HAL started to really malfunction, logical circuits were disturbed. Two goals that clashed disturbed his logical circuits, his 1s and 0s ( we know that only one master can be served in all mathematical programs with an objective like, in the area of optimization) The mission that had to accomplished was his ultimate logic circuit and superseded everything else and nothing could tamper with it … Throw in his new found sense of self, and you can understand why he wanted to eliminate all men on board. They threatened to disrupt that goal itself!
Man builds his tools. Spaceship navigating to the moon. All kinds of machines humming and puffing carrying out millions of tasks. A computer that thinks like him. But the creation can never override the Creator. An intelligent computer is only a metaphor for man's innate intelligence, not a substitute. Dave manages to use his innate intelligence to enter the ship. Then proceeds possessed to disconnect HAL. HAL is helpless. It tries to persuade him otherwise, it even promises Dave it'll reform! It plays at a human level for effect. Dave's unmoved. As its memory is erased, the last (sp)utterings of HAL are moving. I felt like watching a slow termination of a fellow human. The sombre voice adds to the melancholy touch. Still, HAL's ultimate goal is the mission and before it completely dies it manages to pass on to Dave details about the mission and the goal. Touching!
It activates a monitor where Floyd comes on talks about his visit to the Moon where a monolith was sighted and where signals (those annoying signals) were received from Jupiter. Hence these men were on board to Jupiter to investigate. Now Dave was well on his way to Jupiter.
What is the Monolith? What does Jupiter have to do with all this?
On to Part - IV
- From: kevin Toal (@ hlfx32-56.ns.sympatico.ca)
on: Tue Dec 11 17:39:44
2001: A Space Odyssey; An Interpretation.
by Kevin Toal
The movie is open to many interpretations, but upon a recent screening, a new, cynical version seemed apparent. There is no doubt that there is a recurrent birth motif throughout the film. It begins with the Dawn of Man, followed by Heywood Floyd's daughter's birthday, and then Frank Poole's birthday greetings from his parents. This theme continues when David Bowman is in the process of disconnecting HAL 9000. At one stage HAL reverts back to his 'birth', informing Dave that he (HAL) was born on January 12, 1992. The choice of words is important. HAL does not say he was created, or activated on that date, but was 'born'. The last birthday is that of the Starchild at the very end of the movie.
In keeping with the birth motif is the imagery of reproduction. The spaceship docking with the space station is an obvious sexual metaphor, played out to a romantic waltz. Other images include the lunar module landing at the moonbase as the egg-like dome opens to allow the 'seed' access, and the Discovery itself is both phallic in nature as well as being a womb. In design, the ship is clearly likened to the male organ. Yet, contained within the safety of the bulbous living quarters are the sleeping bodies of three astronauts linked to the ship by a computerized umbilical cord. The EVA pods within Discovery are the seeds, or sperm (More on this later). Lastly, when Bowman enters the Stargate we see the beginnings of the universe. The 'Big Bang' takes place before his eyes. Watch this sequence closely and see what appears to be a sperm, tail and all, in one scene swimming through space.
Birth and sex are combined in surreal and imaginative ways, but what lies behind the sex? This is an area I do not feel has been tapped. Maybe it has and I've missed it, but I have yet to see anyone discuss the possibility that we are witnessing acts of violence, deception, and rape that culminate in the sexual act and birth of successive evolutions in mankind.
When the apemen come into contact with the monolith they have just been ousted from their watering hole. The monolith interferes with the natural order and sparks their imagination and we watch as an apeman finds out what can be done with a large bone. Rather than seek an amicable solution to the dispute, the apeman leads his tribe back to the watering hole and engages in an orgy of violence. He, and his kind, continue beating on the inert body of their foe, deriving pleasure from their actions. After forcefully retaking the watering hole the apeman tosses the bone skyward, passing on the torch to the next generation.
Our next step on the evolutionary scale is Heywood Floyd and his ilk. They have discovered something of colossal importance to mankind, but hoard it. They lie to keep secret what should be shared. During this part of the film we witness a couple of metaphoric sexual acts (as discussed earlier) before we see the unearthed monolith. Heywood and other American astronauts stand before their conquest, proudly awaiting to have their picture taken, but the camera does not work and soon they are all incapacitated by the beacon's activation.
Cue: Discovery heading through space towards Jupiter. A loving shot along the length of Discovery, from its head, down the shaft, to the base. Note, that the engines are shaped and flattened like a base. Discovery could probably stand upright.
Here we skip ahead to Dave Bowman, stuck in his pod without a helmet. He has no protection. HAL will not let him enter. Bowman uses the pods mechanical hands to force open a slit-like airlock in Discovery. Then, using the pod's explosive bolts, Bowman forces himself inside Discovery amidst a cloud of smoke. The scene is like watching a ejaculate explode. Bowman seals the airlock and starts his next phase; the rape of HAL.
Bowman takes the only thing HAL has, his mind. Again, Bowman must force an entry to get inside HAL. Once inside HAL's memory banks, Bowman systematically strips HAL of his identity, reducing him to his bare essentials. HAL can now do only as Bowman commands. Bowman has asserted his control over HAL and the computer is left with mundane tasks.
Mankind may now move onto the next level of evolution, but at what cost? Must advances be the expense of others?
One interpretation of the movie is that, due to alien interference Man obtained the idea of God. This is still a valid point, yet I think there is something else that Man received. Each evolutionary change was the result of violence, deception or cunning with sexual overtones. From the monolith did Man receive his nature? Is Kubrick saying that Mankind is born of unsavoury means and that is why we wage war (hot and cold)? Perhaps that is why we need an image of God, to help us come to terms with our dark nature.
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