The Transcendence of 2001: A Space Odyssey

I’ve watched this film I don’t know how many times. I was probably nine or ten years old when I saw it first, most likely nine. My father took me; and 2001 gave me a life-long love of classical music. Among other things.

I’m prompted to write this piece by a mention of 2001 in the New Yorker profile of Arthur Jafa. “The lights go down, the movie begins, and it’s like being buried alive. … Even now, I’m still searching for an art experience capable of matching the effect this film had on me.” (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/12/21/arthur-jafas-radical-alienation) Jafa must have seen the movie right around the time I did, and just a few hundred miles away from where I was. Geographically, that is.

2001 is still my favorite movie. I know every bit of it by heart, and yet it still surprises. There’s nothing like it. What does it mean? That’s kind of a silly question. No one knows. That’s why Kubrick directed the movie in the first place. He had something to say that couldn’t just be said. Only making 2001: A Space Odyssey would do.

There is something inexpressibly exhilarating about 2001. It’s quiet, slow, creepy, and you can’t look away.

Stanley Kubrick is that way. A lot like Andrei Tarkovsky, whom I discussed two weeks ago.

And guess who Jafa places at the top of his list of directors? Tarkovsky.

Stalker is a slow film, unspectacular, but deeply affecting, in a way you don’t notice. 2001 is a slow film, but spectacular. You notice, but you don’t know what you’re experiencing. Familiar, yet alien. One reason for that no doubt is that 2001 has no special effects, at least not the kind we’ve gotten used to. It was all analog. That is, shot on sets. Stalker and Solaris are the same in this very way. You can’t look away.

And in both cases the camera work is precise, slow, with carefully framed shots that make a world that is familiar, believable, yet deeply alien. There are long, careful takes. Which blow your mind. And are not afraid too jump millions of years in one frame.

You can’t look away.

These films don’t rely on technical wizardry or charismatic actors. Nor is there a sexual component. In Stalker, the elegant girlfriend is dismissed early in the movie.

Which is why 2001 is transcendant. Because transcendance is what goes beyond the effable.

You’re a different person afterwards. You can’t go home again.