2001 explained.
It's not possible or intentional that 2001: A Space Odyssey be "explained." This Flash animation (warning, it takes about ten minutes) offers some new insights.
I dearly love this film. I saw it seven times in its initial run, in Cinerama. For those of you who have never seen a film in a theater like this, I can't explain how overwhelming the experience is. This film and that theater are largely responsible for my love of cinema.
For example, this website illustrates how the Pan Am flight to the Moon shows Man losing control of his tools; learning to walk again; and eating baby food. As with all great works, each scene in 2001 is put there for a reason, to make a point.
As Grace Slick once said, "I like things I don't understand."
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movies
3 comments:
Is it just me or does the first section just loop indefinitely? I sat there for 5 minutes watching the same graphic over and over for the "Arrival". Yawn.
Anyway, 2001 is an awesome movie. I actually read the book first but the movie was far better, especially in the portrayal of the interaction with the monolith and prehistoric man. In the book, a bullseye, of sorts, appears on the monolith giving the monkeys a specific target. I just always imagined the monolith with a big Target logo on it. Not very sexy.
dvwleunl
The toilet instructions still kill me.
What's there to understand? Western movies are so caught up in narrative and closure that often there's nothing left to think about days or even minutes afterward. That being said, 2001 starts with our ancestors making a significant cognitive leap and ends with Bowman transforming into a higher life-form - perhaps our next evolution as a race? What's not to understand?
I confess I missed the baby food motif. That's so fab.
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