A Stanley Kubrick Retrospective - ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’

Written by John Edward Betancourt 

When we talk about careers as a whole, we often talk about the hard work that goes into them, and how people who choose a specific field need to hone their skills and their craft in order to become a master at what they do. Yet while that is important advice, sometimes it’s necessary to acknowledge the fact that some people are outright made for their respective career fields and excel in them from the get-go and when it comes to cinema, one person who was truly born for the industry was the late and incredible Stanley Kubrick.
 
Because his ability to understand the medium, and how movies should be made, allowed for him to create some magnificent motion pictures, the kind that we revisit time and time again because there’s something new to be found every single time we settle in to enjoy them and well, seeing as to how I’ve been on quite the cinematic kick as of late in my spare time, several of his films have been finding their way into my Blu Ray player and well, I thought it would be fun to kick back and highlight some of my favorites when it comes Stanley’s body of work, starting with the 1968 classic, 2001: A Space Odyssey.
 
Now, before we dig too deeply into this retrospective of his work, let me pause and say that I will do my best to not cover elements that others have written about in detail when it comes to his films. Because there have been plenty of articles over the years that try and uncover exactly what message or notion Stanley was trying to convey, and honestly, with some of these stories, I’d rather just appreciate them in simpler fashion. And for the sake of today’s review, we won’t discuss the plot, because if you’re here, you’ve seen this movie and if you haven’t, get on that. Instead, today I want to talk about two key elements that wow me every time I watch this one; the fact that it is outright art, and Stanley’s perspective on man and technology.  

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​In fact, let’s start there, since such a topic seems nearly hypocritical in nature since I promised to not dig into this move too deeply. But what blows me away when it comes to this part of the film is the sheer fact that it doesn’t offer commentary or deeper meaning on this matter. Kubrick simply envisioned a world as it is today, where technology and mankind are in essence tied at the hip and we complement one another in every sense of the word since our lives are easier with technology at our fingertips and it needs us to exist and the symbiotic relationship here, and the humanity that the HAL 9000 exhibits is eerie and prophetic and I’ve always appreciated how Kubrick saw this without blending some kind of warning into the fabric of the film.
 
Yet, it is that very technology and its appearance that quite frankly, lends credence to the artistic look and feel of this movie since it is in many ways, a painting that comes to life for two hours because my goodness, the visuals here are just breathtaking and I love how Kubrick takes us from our messy and violent beginning from eons ago to a sanitized and carefully curated world filled with technology that allows for travel to the stars and really, these visuals consistently take my breath away. They’re simply unrivaled in cinema, and I’ve yet to find a single director who has been able to replicate the look of this film in the slightest, and many have tried but this movie really is a true work of art visually and well, one simply cannot re-create something this perfectly curated when all is said and done.
 
But despite those two fascinating elements, one cannot forget that there is also a quality story to be found here as well since it does give you characters you’re invested in, an adventure for the ages and the whole notion of the Monolith and what it stands for is intriguing to say the least and really, this one has a fond place in my heart simply because this is a movie that I saw in my younger years and it allowed for my imagination to go to incredible places since it inspired me to seek out more science fiction and well, it’s simply a magnificent film from a magnificent director, one who was able to branch out in cinema and do anything with a story…

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