Episode 2: 2001: A Space Odyssey

Justin:

I’ve never actually had this happen to me before, but I’m going to imagine a situation where someone comes up to me on the street and suggests that film as a medium is not art. Once I’ve picked myself up off the ground from being hit with this terrible take, I would drag this individual in front of a television set, ideally the largest one I could find with surround sound attached, and throw on Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. A 50 year old movie that hasn’t aged in any noticeable way, it cuts to the core of the human experience and does so in a way that inspires confusion and conversations and specifically in that order. 2001 is a film that not only suggests multiple viewings, but REQUIRES them in order to even START comprehending what it's messages and meanings really are (believe me, I’m at two in a week and am still just scratching the surface). For some, that is going to be a non-starter. But once that score hits and the stunning images of space grace the screen and HAL-9000’s dulcet tones start luring you in, I would argue it’s almost impossible to get away from its grasp.

Kubrick is operating at Peak Kubrick here and it’s really something to behold. There are so many highlights to mention, but I can’t help but constantly think about the final moments of the film, where we watch Dave become older and older and deader and then Star Baby-er. It’s been described in countless ways and has probably more meanings than there were versions of HALs, but at this moment, I want to posit it’s actually revealing us as viewers of this film. Only through succumbing to the monolith and giving in to Kubrick’s wishes, do we reach full enlightenment, a point of understanding not just this movie, but maybe what the purpose of movies in general actually is. So to that point, it’s hard to argue that from all of its brilliant crescendos and I’d still argue too-lengthy light shows, Kubrick created what can only be described with one little three letter word: Art.

Pete:

TBD