2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Country: GB
Technical: col/scope 141m
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Cast: Gary Lockwood, Keir Dullea, William Sylvester, Leonard Rossiter, Robert Beatty, Douglas Rain (voice)
Synopsis:
A mysterious monolith appears at key moments in Man's evolution to spur him on to higher things.
Review:
From the first act of murder with a weapon to the creation of the Space Child, few films can have as broad a canvas as this one. It caught the imagination of the hippy era through its neglect of coherent narrative form and its psychedelic imagery, and it remains a staggering technical achievement for its time. Kubrick avoids stars in his casting, perhaps to draw attention to the transcendental nature of the screenplay, with its blankly delivered dialogue, not without humour. The most human character is in fact a computer, the HAL2000 (wonderfully imitated in Dark Star): Man, who has managed to dominate the emotional side of his being in favour of the rational has nevertheless created a computer in his own image which is a failure because of the imbalance in these elements and the absence of a moral framework. The monolith holds the secret of the Infinite and of Man's destiny; Bowman is the initiate, the first 'superman'. 4 million years culminating in HAL: with Bowman, who conquers HAL, the test period before the final stage in evolution is complete.
Country: GB
Technical: col/scope 141m
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Cast: Gary Lockwood, Keir Dullea, William Sylvester, Leonard Rossiter, Robert Beatty, Douglas Rain (voice)
Synopsis:
A mysterious monolith appears at key moments in Man's evolution to spur him on to higher things.
Review:
From the first act of murder with a weapon to the creation of the Space Child, few films can have as broad a canvas as this one. It caught the imagination of the hippy era through its neglect of coherent narrative form and its psychedelic imagery, and it remains a staggering technical achievement for its time. Kubrick avoids stars in his casting, perhaps to draw attention to the transcendental nature of the screenplay, with its blankly delivered dialogue, not without humour. The most human character is in fact a computer, the HAL2000 (wonderfully imitated in Dark Star): Man, who has managed to dominate the emotional side of his being in favour of the rational has nevertheless created a computer in his own image which is a failure because of the imbalance in these elements and the absence of a moral framework. The monolith holds the secret of the Infinite and of Man's destiny; Bowman is the initiate, the first 'superman'. 4 million years culminating in HAL: with Bowman, who conquers HAL, the test period before the final stage in evolution is complete.
Country: GB
Technical: col/scope 141m
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Cast: Gary Lockwood, Keir Dullea, William Sylvester, Leonard Rossiter, Robert Beatty, Douglas Rain (voice)
Synopsis:
A mysterious monolith appears at key moments in Man's evolution to spur him on to higher things.
Review:
From the first act of murder with a weapon to the creation of the Space Child, few films can have as broad a canvas as this one. It caught the imagination of the hippy era through its neglect of coherent narrative form and its psychedelic imagery, and it remains a staggering technical achievement for its time. Kubrick avoids stars in his casting, perhaps to draw attention to the transcendental nature of the screenplay, with its blankly delivered dialogue, not without humour. The most human character is in fact a computer, the HAL2000 (wonderfully imitated in Dark Star): Man, who has managed to dominate the emotional side of his being in favour of the rational has nevertheless created a computer in his own image which is a failure because of the imbalance in these elements and the absence of a moral framework. The monolith holds the secret of the Infinite and of Man's destiny; Bowman is the initiate, the first 'superman'. 4 million years culminating in HAL: with Bowman, who conquers HAL, the test period before the final stage in evolution is complete.