A Space Odyssey

Fig. 1

A Space Odyssey was created in 2001 and directed by Stanley Kubrick. This film won many awards such as; Academy award for the best visual effects, BAFTA Award for Best Cinematography and another BAFTA award for the best art direction. The movie does not depend so much on dialogues, for example, there is no dialogue in the beginning of the movie for at least twenty-five minutes. Thus, attracting an active audience as we have to read the characters emotions and work things out.

An unexplained black structure in space delivers a connection in the present to the past and the future. Bowman, his friend and Hal who is known as a computer controlling the spaceship. Bowman’s friend dies because of Hal who is frightened that they would shut him down after achieving their goal, he also tries to kill Bowman. This became a race between a human and a computer to reach the monolith placers. Bowman wins by erasing the computer’s memory and now achieves the next step to evolution.

Fig. 2

Although this film has a small amount of dialogue the composers did an amazing job in creating the mood in every scene. Kubrick who understood the language of music and how the melody tells a story asked four composers to help him create ‘A Space Odyssey.’ Richard Strauss, Johann Straus II, Gyorgy Ligeti, Aram Khachaturian created a magnificent piece of music that was popularly known as “sunrise” and most of all the opening scene which was successfully popular then and now. The Opening song on YouTube has now two million six hundred ninety thousand five hundred and forty-eight million viewers. Not only is the music beautiful, however, the non-diegetic sound in this film goes with every movement they make creating a build-up of tension. The music was a clue to us active audience of what we should be feeling. However, Roberte (2016) argues that "the music is not used to emphasize a character’s action, emotion or dialogue, the music is practically on equal footing to the imagery." I partly agree with his statement as some of the music has a spatial mood however still going with my theory, this is because the music gradually goes in a faster tempo when is trying to alert the audience of danger following the action of the characters.

Fig. 3

At the end of the scene when Bowman reaches for the “next evolution” a range of colours started appearing in front of him. A point of view shot was used during this scene to make us as audience feel and see what he is seeing. The visual effects and cinematography were mostly taken in a symmetrical shot which was fascinating and most interesting as different colours kept merging and exploding. The deeper he entered the faster the colours zoomed past him or us (point of view shot). Most of the audience reaction was that they felt faint or drowsy when watching themselves enter this place, which was a success as that was what ‘Stanley Kubrick’ was trying to achieve, making the audience relate to the character. After reading all his awards it was very noticeable that he did not win any story directing awards only creative and visual effects awards. This was proven by Douglas Trumbull interview when he said “There was a certain level of inappropriateness to taking that Oscar. But the tragic aspect of it for me is it’s the only Oscar Stanley Kubrick ever won. He was an incredibly gifted director and should have gotten something for directing and writing and what his real strength was — not special effects” (Theguardian 2014). Agreeing with his statement, the story narration of the film was beautiful and understanding, however, there were a small amount of dialogue in every scene making it hard for a passive audience to understand, thus attracting an active audience which in general does not attract a mainstream audience, however, a niche. 

In conclusion, this film was beautiful and peaceful to watch. Not only did the film showed something beautiful, it also showed how people will become too reliant on technology creating a simulacrum which one day could end their lives. As R. Erbert (1968) said: "In any event, all the machines and computers are forgotten in this astonishing last half-hour of this film, and man somehow comes back into his own."

Video

Quickflick 2015- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjafElSJO-Y

Bibliography

douglas-trumbull 2016 https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/sep/04/stanley-kubrick-did-not-deserve-oscar-2001-special-effects-douglas-trumbull

Roger Erbert 1968- http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/2001-a-space-odyssey-1968

Illustration

Fig 1 https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1L6VaXd5DynijCBrl9Q4yN6qDtEoUjyZpcn6pf5Cc0oAdgCZww7Qj5LglXgLky2D-YJIQsYBBOrxq6ac17qLCfoXGWJhhjOF5Bf2MZaAWpzEdppYc7zlTX_WyDccb5Zv11vBpVC5qCKya/s1600/2001Kubrick.jpg

Fig 2 https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/1920x1080/p02ct7lb.jpg

Fig 3 https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DHR8oXBWAAA0-1s.jpg