2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) Film Review

Francis Carolan

Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) is an extremely influential masterpiece. Kubrick’s intention behind his beautiful cinematography is definitely not trying to grasp the viewers attention, as he instead makes every single scene real. By which we are not being forced to feel a certain way by flashy special effects or loud, suspenseful music, as we are instead left in our seats to gaze into this beautiful piece of cinema and accept it into our minds on our own terms. “The genius is not in how much Stanley Kubrick does in 2001: A Space Odyssey, but in how little.” - “He reduces each scene to it’s essence, and leaves it on screen long enough for us to contemplate it, to inhabit it in our imaginations.” This film lead the way for Sci-Fi film, influencing films such as Interstellar.

Kubrick was extremely strict with everything that he wanted in this film, and how he wanted it to look. Which can be said for all of Kubrick's other films, he is fairly well known for being extremely precise and thought out. As such, this film took quite a while to film, as filming actually began sometime in 1965. Much of the lengthy shooting time is of course, derivable to the heavily detailed special effects that were used in this film. One of the most fascinating and technically daring sets of 2001: A Space Odyssey is the rotating Centrifuge. “This set was a huge drum, nearly forty feet in diameter and twenty feet wide, constructed to exacting standards at a cost of $750,000. The actual shooting set inside the middle was considerably narrower: sandwiching it on either side were all the lights and electrical equipment that made the astronauts hub look so convincing.”

The story follows a group of astronauts that have been sent on a very mysterious mission. The story’s main antagonist is the strange artificially intelligent computer, HAL, who takes it upon themselves to dispose of the humans and complete the mission. For me, this story was very strange yet extremely intriguing. I really enjoyed the idea of a calmly spoken artificially intelligent computer that murders multiple astronauts for the sake of the mission. As sick as that sounds. I think my favourite scene within this film is when David is making his way back into the ship to find HAL’s centre room in which he could destroy him. On the way there, HAL is heard saying ‘You don’t have to do this’ and ‘I know everything hasn’t been quite right with me’. This made me feel so much sympathy for HAL as the entire movie, they presented him as this perfect computer that has never made any errors, which HAL also took pride in. But now he is seen as extremely vulnerable and admits to his faults, which I found very intriguing.