On balance, “2001 : A Space Odyssey” is probably my favourite film of all time. I first saw it in about 1973 as a 12 year old at the Trak cinema in Toorak. It was ‘only’ 5 years old at that stage, so still fairly fresh.
Two things stick out about that first viewing. A mate had said it was about “a journey to Jupiter” (true) and secondly, when the Star Baby floated into view and the credits rolled…I sat there waiting for the next bit. You know, the bit that finished it up. Explained and closed things out. It, of course, never came and the lights came on. At least in the cinema.’,’I won’t sit here and lie, expressing how – as a 12 year old – I researched into what the movie meant and ‘got it.’ Nope, didn’t happen. But nor did I forget the impact it had on me.
I saw it again at university a few years later in the late 1970s. This was the full show; music playing before the curtains parted and even an interval. Subsequent readings and study gave me some further clues as to what it ‘meant’. These – and my own insights and multiple viewings – have served me quite well in the 20 years since. Until last week that is.
A reading of Leonard F. Wheat’s “Misconceptions about 2001” article added a whole new level to the thinking.
Wheat is expanding upon ideas in his own book Kubrick’s 2001: A Triple Allegory. I didn’t study the classics nor philosophy, but he explained enough background in the Misconceptions article, that I wasn’t disadvantaged.
To summarize the starting point of the article, Wheat is suggesting that 2001 depicts not one but three allegories. An allegory is a “a surface story whose characters, events, and other elements symbolically tell a hidden story. One story tells another.” (source link: ibid)
(As an aside I’d first hit allegories as a teenager when I “got” what Lord of the Flies was alluding to. A year later I’d “worked out” Animal Farm. )
To summarize Wheat’s opening points, he proposes that the three allegories depicted are:
- Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s work, “Thus Spake Zarathustra”
- The classical epic poem from Homer , “The Odyssey”, and
- Arthur C Clarke’s theory (expanded by Kubrick) that man and machine will one day merge into a symbiotic entity, a sort of humanoid machine. (source link: ibid)
I find it fascinating reading. The piece is well written and well argued. I offer no judgements apart from to suggest that you take a look at it for yourself, plus his subsequent “Fresh Insights into 2001” article. Keep an open mind and I’m sure you’ll find them rewarding.