Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by TA (A) on July 05, 2003 at 10:54:48

In Reply to: There are still questions about it. posted by edta on July 04, 2003 at 12:14:37:

i like 2001 very much. it's a great trip.

yes, i think HAL the computer comes across as more human than the human characters. even in your questions, you look for and undertanding of purpose, motivation and other "human" qualities behind HAL. i think that's a statement about what kubrick sees human culture as.

in his other films, kubrick often shows his characters in longshots that show them as insignificant in a landscape. kubrick's films do seem to suggest inevitability beyond our control in the fate of our lives. at the same time, i think kubrick also suggests that there is something greater we are cablable of moving on to. so i'm not sure that kubrick sees human as souless. i think he sees our world as souless, but he sees humans as capable of much more.

i remember siskel and ebert talking about this film long ago on thier tv show. he saw the ending as the astronaut seeing himself in his next phase of life just as he became aware of where he was. siskel described the ending as something like, "do you want to die as a man in a room of material wealth, or do you want to become something more, a starchild?"

i haven't read the book on which 2001 was based. many who have seem able to "explain" this and that in the film. i think the film has to stand alone as its own work, reflecting more of kubrick's world view than the book's.