I Went to See 2001: A Space Odyssey

A year ago

I went to The Plaza to see 2001: A Space Odyssey about a year ago. Afterwards, I came home and wrote down my thoughts. I’m posting these entries in support of all that is “fake deep” and in the spirit of adolescent discovery. Anything that becomes yours, a thought, an art, may, maybe must, go through the stages of 

obvious

common, 

embarrassing, 

and 

if you go far enough into 

wondering, doing,

maybe you’ll get a piece of you, 

for you,

to share.  

7/1/23 

It’s like a dream. You have to capture the contents while you are still encased in the aura or it is lost, even if you are awake, most of it is gone from you. 

This is what seeing a film should be like: You are inside of the art, outside of consciousness, for the duration of the film. That’s not what happened for me when I saw 2001: A Space Odyssey, though I wish it was. 

I was excited when I saw that it was being shown at The Plaza here in Atlanta. I thought it was one of those films that is best seen for the first time on the big screen, and even better in the 1930s(ish) decor that aids in the trance, the ceremony of film viewing. 

I’d wanted to arrive early to have a drink and a snack to accompany me, to heighten the pleasure of moviegoing. But the concession line was long. When I glanced at the goods, I told myself I wasn’t interested anyway. I’d walked in right at 8, but I knew the movie hadn’t started yet. Most of the movies start late at this theater, at least in my experience. It’s something annoying about The Plaza, but also more human—I’ve come to like it because I want to be annoyed by people in a way that suggests community, familiarity, and outside of the public space, intimacy.

I sat about 4 rows from the screen, off to the right in the seat closest to the aisle. I had the row to myself. The movie started in darkness, with only sound. It’s interesting to see a film that is so ingrained in culture that it feels like I’ve already seen it. I knew it started with the apes. I knew certain aesthetic shots because of the internet and one elevator in a New York City hotel. Really, I knew nothing. 

The opening instrumental is one I’ve heard many times, but did I know that it originated with this movie? Did it? As I watched the film, I understood how important the use of music, sound, and silence is in cinema. There are many layers involved in telling a story via  film, and I wonder how the suggestion in literature of these affecting, immersive visuals and sounds can make the story all the more real to a reader. I wonder. I ask the question. I’d even like to talk about it. I will not have an answer though. An answer would only be an opinion, and besides, I’ve got a lot of thinking years ahead of me  before I can make any proclamations. 

The introduction to the quiet and wild earth, or what  I assumed to be earth, was slow in the film. I thought the silence and pacing was a thoughtful choice because it made me remember (based on my imaginative memories) a time before time. It feels natural to use "we,” especially since I saw it alongside an audience, but I can’t guess what everyone else got out of the film, so I’ll use “I.” I felt that ancestral place—a silence and quality of intimacy with the soul of nature that still exists, surely, we’ve just layered over it.  There’s an imaginative memory and a gut feeling. 

I didn’t feel that the apes learning to use weapons meant that the animal in us, that we are, is inherently bad. They needed water. They needed to defend themselves to get to that water. Why weren’t we creatures who could have worked it out, shared? I don’t know. If violence is so inherent in our nature, it’s surprising that any of us are able to restrain ourselves. I suppose the scale and skill of violence in this world makes up for all those who grieve the ant they squash. 

I felt like I was transported into a typical 1960s sci-fi film when we moved to “2001.” I enjoyed it, but I usually relish this aesthetic because of nostalgia for a time I never knew, but my loved ones did. There was also the sense of knowing, almost smugness, because as a modern audience, we know what 2001 looked like. Good try, though. Nice aesthetic. Wow, how prescient. 

I slipped into “we” again. Why does “we” feel natural when discussing movies? Am I insecure about my opinions, or is it (also) something else? As I said, no answers here. 

I enjoyed the film, but I found my mind wandering all the way through the doctor traveling to Clavius base, through the astronauts on their mission to Jupiter with HAL, who did not seem to be benevolent from the start. I chastised myself for my roaming thoughts. I found them going to the everyday, the trivial. I wondered how much of the movie was left.  I was frustrated by my restlessness. Some other part of me wanted my mind and body to mind me, the parent. I wondered if peoples’ minds always wandered so much, if they were able to be more engrossed. 

Though much of the space odyssey felt familiar, the cinematography was special. The angles were thoughtful. They put me into a perspective where up and down are relative, where space is not the same as earth, of course it’s not, but the frames reflected this. I won’t be so jaded and film-versed to not find the angles clever. The same thing can induce the satisfying shock of fresh when done well. 

I was surprised when the intermission was announced on the screen. A sense of superiority rose up within me.​ There’s an intermission because these people don’t have the attention spans for a nearly three hour long film, I thought. Well, I do (I don’t). Then, I Googled if 2001 had an intermission in the past. Yes, it did. Many long films did up to the 1980s, Wikipedia told me. Was this because it was treated like a stage performance? Was it about attention spans and bladders, perhaps some popcorn? 

I looked up more information about the movie during intermission because I can’t consume any type of content without lazily researching it, which I’ve discovered to be a flattening addiction—help. As I scrolled, I saw a few sentences from Christopher Nolan describing his first experience of seeing 2001 at seven years old. He described being totally immersed. I was jealous. I wished I’d seen the movie earlier. Would it have been more impactful? Is it because my focus and mind has been destroyed by social media/technology, or is it my aging? Please tell me I can be consumed by a story, that I have the ability to be so immersed. 

I spiraled along this thought until the film picked up after intermission. HAL was clearly trying to kill them. We’ve never had any trust in AI. I thought the display of emotion from HAL was interesting. It’s typically depicted that AI is wholly logical, and that’s why we see it as threatening, though we value logic above all else today, at the cost of earth and humanity. Anyway, HAL at first seemed only to care for the mission, that is until his life was put at risk. When we speculate about AI becoming sentient and turning on us, we think it would be because we’ve enslaved it. This could be. But maybe not. Rather, I think AI would wage war on us because we gifted it with the fear of mortality. 

Oh, the feeling of entering the last part of the film, the finale. Dr. David Bowman nearing Jupiter and suddenly being thrust into lights and shapes, geometric, structural. This was an emotional experience for me. Moving through the lights, being transported to slit-scan, negative Jupiter, the eye, the freeze frame of David’s face, his arrival to the room with the lighted floor I had seen stills of before, but did not know. 

As I was moved through the landscape accompanied by the music that is now associated with more cerebral, highbrow horror films, I remembered that so much of what may seem dark and ominous, just is. There’s no need to be afraid of its natural form. I felt at home in this dark, uncanny scenery. My eyes welled up with tears. Did I will them? 

Already, I was thinking of what I would tell people about the film. I shouldn’t use art to superficially make me a person. I should be in relationship with art to become a numerous, numinous mixture that adds up my personality, my shy soul. How else could I be a vehicle for creation? I chastised myself. “Should” is my personal curse. Still, this worry has stuck in my mind. 

David, older now, encountered his even older self, then his old self encountered his dying self, which encountered the monolith. Back to the beginning, as we hope and expect. Was the fetus his soul? Where did it all begin? Is it a loop that makes sense if you have an understanding of quantum physics? As I watched, I understood intuitively I was moved. The questions didn’t begin until I drove home.

I drove in silence, wanting to be with my thoughts. As I dodged people running from bar to bar in Virginia Highlands, I thought about how all films, art, stories that must be made are still bound by the constraints of their time. Perhaps this is necessary so that the eternal can furtively get through. 

I was still full of feeling when I got home. I let the dogs out in the lit backyard. I swear the ice cream cone I ate tasted better as I walked along the broken concrete path, looking up at the hidden moon and the full leaves of mature summer above me. 

Again, I thought about being a vehicle for art. This thought drove fear into me. I want the monotony, the physical, the safe everyday, too. Then, I thought that allowing silence, being wholly with a story, all of the things that aid in creation, may make for a healthier, more peaceful and joyous human experience. 

Then I burned myself with a lighter. 

What am I missing? Already, most of it has left me. 

7/6/23

So many of these movies, films, pieces of art that formed us were first encountered in our youth. Of course, it is common to be introduced to classic and contemporary works as we enter our teen years and adulthood, go to college, meet new people, but why does this slow down as we age? Certainly we don’t experience all the classics before the age of 25. 

Now that I’m 30, I’m surprised and a little embarrassed by how many classics I haven’t experienced. But then, I’m grateful that I have much to read, to watch, to look at the old and new. I think that embarrassment plays a part in why we don’t allow ourselves to be deeply moved by a new work, why we don’t let it to shape us, because we are always being formed—consciously or not. We feel silly. We anticipate the “you haven’t seen that yet?” 

We worry that we will be made fun of, seen as not-so-unique if we allow a classic, well-loved work to become our personality until it becomes integrates into us. As adults, we roll our eyes at young people who become obsessed with that which we are familiar with, that which is a part of our cultural consciousness, even if we haven’t experienced it for ourselves. We roll our eyes with love, and longing, and envy. 

Social media plays a part in why we don’t let a work consume us. Every joy is torn apart on social media if we share it. We read reviews of the work before ever seeing it, reading it, listening to it. We learn too much about it before, of the problematic artist, the problematic plot—I still don’t know how to feel about this. And this isn’t my point.

I was deeply moved by the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey. I was moved like I was when I read Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Giovanni’s Room, The Illustrated Man, and so many others that were part of culture before I was born. I didn’t care about that. I wasn’t special for liking these stories, and I didn’t want to be. I was purely happy to be introduced, to become a part of all those who loved the stories. Really, it was selfish. I loved the way the stories made me feel and the special relationship I formed with the work. 

Sometimes, I think my writing was better when I was 21 or so. I was deeply influenced at the time and unashamed. I had a capacity for deep focus, wonder, and feeling. I understand as adults that our busy days, the circumstances of our lives make it difficult to focus on anything that isn’t easy to consume. I get that. I’ve been there. I usually am there. But I wonder how it has affected my work. How it has affected my heart, my experience of life. I want to make something I find wonderful, highbrow, lowbrow, new or old, my whole personality until it becomes part of me and filters through my perspective, becoming something new.