TF Issue 201: Is It Just Me? 2001: A Space Odyssey...

[Lizhawkins]

On page 147 of TF issue 201, Stephen Kelly asks:

"Is it just me... or is 2001: A Space Odyssey the most overrated film of all time?"



Perhaps I’m wrong. Perhaps it’s just something I don’t understand – like vegetables or Stoke. Perhaps, I’m just that guy jabbering on about the emperor’s balls when he is, in fact, wearing a rather nifty three-piece suit. But I doubt it, so here it goes: Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey is a film that no one actually really likes.

Now, judging from all the jaws that have just hit the floor, I’m guessing that may have come as a shock to you. “Of course I like it!” I hear you cry. “It’s a masterpiece!” But do you really like it? Or are you merely a victim of pop-culture doublethink – the natural defence of the sacred cow? Because all I ever hear are excuses for what is, essentially, an atrocious mess.

“It’s all about the visuals,” argues one friend, adamantly. “The artistic nuances – the iconography!” A popular point, of course: a space station waltzing across the Earth, the pristine purity of a white space ship interior, HAL’s bleeding-red central core: Kubrick’s vision is striking, and would serve as a template for many others to follow. But looks don’t make an enjoyable film, any more than a polished Cadillac drives without an engine. A point hammered home by the fact that the aforementioned Ms All-About-The-Visuals has never been able to stay awake for the final 30 minutes. (She still insists on it being a masterpiece, though.)

That’s the thing with 2001: A Space Odyssey: it looks lovely, but it’s soulless – a film devoid of warmth, plot or point. All of which could be vaguely forgiven if it wasn’t such a dick about it. For, you see, 2001 is a film that enjoys itself far more than anyone else does. It detaches itself from the audience with a sense of arrogance – sneering from a great height, taunting with half an hour of monkeys, meandering shots of shit floating around and a pace so brutally oppressive it’s like trying to run a marathon while dragging a dead cow behind you. And all for what? A bafflingly boring beginning, a mildly promising middle – with the sinister execution of HAL being the closest Kubrick gets to an actual plot – and a truly catastrophic ending. Three acts that not only bear hardly any narrative relation to each other, but also no reward.

And that’s what grates: it’s one thing to be ambiguous with your storytelling, it’s quite another to hold explanation back from a script in a pretentious attempt at faux-depth and profundity. A trope that, as anyone who’s seen Prometheus can attest, has filtered down to the very worst aspects of science fiction just as much as its aesthetic has informed the best of it.

Can I accept that it’s a worthy foundation for the very best of serious science fiction to be built upon? Sure. But can I call it a classic? I’m sorry, Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that. Or is it just me?

Issue 201 of Total Film is on sale 23 November 2012.

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