Movie Greats by Philip Gillett

Author:Philip Gillett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Berg Publishers
Published: 2008-08-31T16:00:00+00:00

–12–

2001: A Space Odyssey (GB/ US, 1968): The Long Voyage to Destiny

Production company: MGM

Producer/ Director: Stanley Kubrick

Screenplay: Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke

Source: Arthur C. Clarke (short story: ‘The Sentinel’)

Photography: Geoffrey Unsworth

Production design: Tony Masters, Harry Lange, Ernie Archer

Art Director: John Hoesli

Editor: Ray Lovejoy

Cast: Keir Dullea (Dave Bowman), Gary Lockwood (Frank Poole), William Sylvester (Dr Floyd), Douglas Rain (voice of HAL)

Synopsis

The opening ‘Dawn of Man’ section portrays a world where animals and apes compete for food. One ape is disturbed at night by the coming of a monolith. The others crowd around, fearful yet curious. Daylight again and the tribe discovers that bones can serve as weapons. A bone is thrown into the air, where it spins. A cut transforms it into a spacecraft.

In the second (untitled) section, Dr Floyd is in a spacecraft visiting a space station orbiting Earth. There he attends a meeting with Russian scientists, who quiz him about an epidemic occurring at the Clavius station on the moon. He refuses to discuss the issue with them, but later he attends a briefing at Clavius, where the epidemic is revealed to be a cover story. The sudden appearance of a monolith is the real cause of the security alert. He joins a party visiting the strange object. They treat it like a tourist attraction, until it emits a high-pitched noise which makes them recoil in discomfort.

The third section, ‘The Jupiter Mission’, takes place eighteen months later. Astronauts Frank Poole and Dave Bowman are on a voyage to Jupiter, accompanied by three colleagues in suspended animation. The onboard computer, HAL, predicts the imminent breakdown of a component. It works normally when it is retrieved and tested, leading mission control to advise that the computer prediction is wrong. HAL recommends that the component be put back into use so that when it fails, the fault can be located. The two astronauts are undecided what to do. They go into a communications pod where HAL cannot monitor their conversation and decide that the computer is unreliable and should be disconnected. HAL reads their lips through the observation window and severs Frank’s oxygen supply when he goes outside the ship to put back the component. Dave takes out another pod to retrieve Frank’s body, giving HAL the opportunity to turn off the life support systems of the other three astronauts. When Dave returns, HAL refuses to let him re-enter the ship on the grounds that he might jeopardize the mission. He gains entry through an emergency hatch and disconnects the computer.

In the final section, ‘Jupiter and beyond the Infinite’, Dave continues with the Jupiter mission and is drawn into a new dimension. In a period bedroom, he confronts himself as an old man. The monolith is seen again. In the final frames, a foetus looks down on the solar system.

Cultural Context

The film was developed from a short story by Arthur C. Clarke, which itself owes a debt to Olaf Stapledon’s novel Star Maker (1937). Clarke and Kubrick worked on the screenplay together, at the same time as developing the scenario into a novel which was published under Clarke’s name.

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