Stanley Kubrick’s acclaimed film, 2001: A Space Odyssey opens with a black screen and a haunting overture that spans the length of nearly three minutes. Eventually, the overture fades out, and the audience can see it’s first glimpse of color; a dark blue background surrounding the film studio’s logo before the film’s first act officially begins. The momentary silence created by the ended overture does not last for long. The beginning of the film’s first act is marked by an operatic title sequence that is quickly followed by the screeching of the man-apes that dominates this part of the film. It is this lack of dialogue that allows the audience to focus in on how truly stagnate the man-apes are. That is until they find the first monolith.
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The discovery of what, viewers cannot be entirely sure, but Kubrick does not seem to want viewers to be able to draw a perfect conclusion from the film itself. In fact, he once said, “You’re free to speculate as you wish about the philosophical and allegorical meaning of the film…but I don’t want to spell out a verbal road map for 2001 that every viewer will feel obligated to pursue or fear he’s missed the point,” (Playboy). Although, it seems fair to say that the monolith is intended to guide, not only the films characters but also its viewers, to the discovery of some kind of deeper meaning or …show more content…
While overtures and intermissions were not uncommon in lengthy movies during this time period, they were very rarely integrated as carefully as the ones in 2001: A Space Odyssey. The typical intermissions of the time were a feature used to make the movie feel like more of an event and sell more product at the concession stands in the lobby. Directors often did not take the plot or narrative flow of the film into account when choosing where to stop for the intermission. Kubrick, as several critics at the time noted,
The discovery of what, viewers cannot be entirely sure, but Kubrick does not seem to want viewers to be able to draw a perfect conclusion from the film itself. In fact, he once said, “You’re free to speculate as you wish about the philosophical and allegorical meaning of the film…but I don’t want to spell out a verbal road map for 2001 that every viewer will feel obligated to pursue or fear he’s missed the point,” (Playboy). Although, it seems fair to say that the monolith is intended to guide, not only the films characters but also its viewers, to the discovery of some kind of deeper meaning or …show more content…
While overtures and intermissions were not uncommon in lengthy movies during this time period, they were very rarely integrated as carefully as the ones in 2001: A Space Odyssey. The typical intermissions of the time were a feature used to make the movie feel like more of an event and sell more product at the concession stands in the lobby. Directors often did not take the plot or narrative flow of the film into account when choosing where to stop for the intermission. Kubrick, as several critics at the time noted,