JOHN ACEVES
Theatre Arts 306
2/28/07
“The Evolutionary Cinema of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey”
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), directed by Stanley Kubrick, is most well known
for being a science fiction epic. While the trappings of conventional SF cinema are
represented (spacecraft journeying among the stars, astronauts in danger, computers run
amok, the implacable alien presence) there is a whole other side to the film that can be
easily overlooked. For 2001 is more than a narrative of humanity’s adventures in outer
space, it is an evolutionary travelogue beginning with our ancient australopithecine
ancestors on the plains of Africa and leapfrogging through time to a near future where
humankind’s interaction with “superior beings” results in an actual rebirth, the enigmatic
final shot of the film. There is as much anthropology in Kubrick’s motion picture
masterpiece as there is genre mise en scene. 2001 is an evolutionary journey.
The film begins at the dawn of humankind. In the vast open wilderness
somewhere in Africa, a tribe of primitive humans struggles to survive. These “ape men”
are portrayed by a mix of actors in costume and makeup and a few live chimpanzees.
Kubrick cast dancers and other athletic types for these roles to give them a lean and
hungry look. All is silent. The landscape, the sun and the wind, are the adversaries of
these early protagonists. Suddenly, overnight, a mysterious black monolith appears
among their midst. It hums and vibrates. The proto-humans are at first afraid but then one
of them ventures to touch the enigmatic stone. The monolith exerts some kind of
evolutionary influence. The primitives seem to have gained intelligence through contact
with the “alien” object. While this encounter on the face of it seems benign, there will be
tragic and historic consequences (as there always is when humanity is juxtaposed with
new technology).
The next day another tribe arrives at the local watering hole. Now we have
caveman conflict. When one of the primitives learns to use an animal bone to defend his
territory, war is invented. Or is it murder? Is there any difference? As the ape finishes off
his enemy and tosses the bone/weapon in the air, it spins on axis in the sky. CUT TO: a
spaceship orbiting the Earth. This is one of the most famous pieces of editing in film
history and perhaps the most jarring and artistic cinematic “cut” as well: from ape man to
spaceman in less than a second of screen time. Kubrick will use time and space in such a
manner for the entirety of his masterpiece.
Why begin what is essentially a science fiction narrative with a sequence devoted
to the daily survival struggles of proto-humans? Perhaps Kubrick and his screenwriting
partner, science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke, believed that to understand humanity’s
place among the stars we must go backwards to journey “forwards.” While Darwinian
theory is mostly understood to be about “survival of the fittest” (certainly an obvious
factor in the “Dawn of Man” sequence that starts the film) and “natural selection” the
technological revolution of the last two centuries may have thrown a monkey wrench into
the equation.
The uses and abuses of high technology are a major theme of the film as well.
How humanity adapts to its own inventions and deals with their consequences is most
startlingly revealed in the struggle of the spaceship Discovery astronauts against the “out
of control” cybernetic brain that runs the ship, “HAL 9000.” A good part of the film
narrative is devoted to the battle of “man vs. machine.” Yet this too is an evolutionary
struggle. Has HAL evolved as a robotic being (A.I. in today’s terms) to the point where
he surpasses our own invention and cleverness? Kubrick and Clarke want us to think so.
HAL attempts to “save” the mission by killing all the astronauts. In the end, only by
shutting down the computer completely does the astronaut Bowman survive to meet his
famously obscure fate (thanks to the implacable alien presence).
Kubrick has dealt with the idea of technology run amok in a number of other
films but most famously in Dr. Strangelove (1964). In this cold war black comedy
nuclear annihilation is the “running joke.” The iconic image of the film is a cowboy
bomber pilot riding an atomic warhead like a bucking bronco aimed for the earth below.
While HAL is stopped in 2001 from his warped counter-mission of stopping the
astronauts, nothing can stop nuclear Armageddon in Kubrick’s cinematic cold war
landscape of Dr. Strangelove.
Back to the planet of the apes. In 2001 human misuse of technology begins at the
dawn of time. The ape-man simply discovers a new, more violent use for a discarded
animal bone. Is this how man’s inhumanity to man began? This is the question posed by
the sequence at the waterhole/battleground. The Christian Bible says it all began with
Abel and Cain. Kubrick and Clarke make it an even more primitive impulse: we need
water, we kill others who need it too. When the filmic cut happens and the bleached bone
thrown into the sky becomes a bleached-out spacecraft spinning in space, the evolution of
mankind from killer ape to master of technology is complete. Until the apes in spacesuits
encounter a far more “advanced” species.
Why did Kubrick choose to begin the film with such an anthropological
statement? Is he a strict Darwinist? Not if you take the final sequences of the movie into
account. As the surviving astronaut Bowman – after disabling the “malfunctioning”
cybernetic technology HAL – encounters the mysterious unseen alien presence he
apparently starts evolving all over again. First he falls through a “stargate” (the infamous
“psychedelic” special effects sequence designed by Douglas Trumbull) and then
materializes in an Edwardian flat. Bowman seems to age rapidly (or are we actually
witnessing many years passing) and as an old man encounters the enigmatic black
“monolith” that first appeared to the ape-men millions of years before (or at least a
simulacrum). Now we cut to the image that ends the film: the “star child” embryo
floating peacefully in outer space. Has he evolved or devolved here? The film does not
make this clear. Yet in a strange way the director comes full-circle. 2001 began with
primitive humanity and now concludes with an infant human being (although it can be
inferred this “star child” will inherit the traits of its alien influences). Overall there is a
quasi-mystical feel to the final sequences of the film. As stated previously the aliens are
never seen. They are a complex, overpowering, “god-like” presence. What did they do to
Bowman? How has he been transformed? Or is it indeed the astronaut we are seeing at
the end of the film?
Arthur C. Clarke has a famous statement that can be paraphrased here: “the
actions of any significantly advanced species are indistinguishable from magic.” Indeed,
the alien presence that influences the proto-humans with the black monolith (and another
monolith found by explorers on the moon, a sequence not discussed here) and then
effects an apparently evolutionary change on the astronaut Bowman does seem to be
engaging in “magic.” As if there were indeed a godlike influence at work. Yet 2001: A
Space Odyssey is not a religious tract – nor even a scientific treatise disguised as science
fiction epic. The film is a vast narrative of humanity’s place among the stars, which
includes our own home world. The journey from “primitiveness” to some kind of
advanced technological mastery of the universe is both ambiguous and magical. Every
day, humanity deals with the consequences of our own actions and inventions. Whether
Kubrick intended a more “rational” (i.e. non-mystical) depiction of history’s first murder
is moot in the long scheme of the motion picture’s overall narrative. Time is in flux.
Evolution is violent. Whether defending the old watering hole or battling for survival
against killer machines, human beings will find the way messy. Our slow evolutionary
journey is rife with disaster. Perhaps, in the end, Stanley Kubrick was merely suggesting
that even among the advanced technology of tomorrow the biological imperative dictates
our survival as a species. Whether we make it or not is up to luck - and the stars. Magic is
part of creation. Evolution is not an act of will but of wild, cosmic nature.
