Today is the first few important days in my movie-watching career. I was born in 1994 and I was so excited that I could sit in a British movie theater and watch the 50th anniversary re-screening of the most admired director’s most important work. This article will conduct a personal, non-professional analysis of the film (the article I wrote a few years ago can now be invalidated), interspersed to share some of today's viewing experience.
Stanley Kubrick, every time the name is typed, it feels ritual in it. A few years ago, when I first started to study him, I used to praise and recommend it. Later I found that most people did not understand his work. More than half of his fan groups almost put on airs. Later, I gradually stopped. mentioned. Kubrick has been controversial from his time to the present, from the person himself to his works, including his fan Nolan and other big directors have almost similar reputations. They are not only offered on the altar, but also Repelled by the public. (Hereinafter referred to as Kushen)
"Space Odyssey" is an early work of Kushen’s creation. From its title "Space Odyssey", you can see Kushen’s ambition: Homer’s epic "Odyssey" tells of Odyssey’s adventure The story is about how humans use their own wisdom to fight against nature. This book is the foundation work of Western literature.
If "A Space Odyssey" has to tell the story (because there is almost no story in fact), it also tells a similar adventure story: in 2001, humans wanted to land on Jupiter, and in the process they felt the irresistible mysterious power of the universe (black stone) , The central system robot HAL9000 of the spacecraft betrayed and "murdered" human beings. The only survivor, Astronaut Poman, followed the mysterious Black Stone to realize the true meaning of life and experienced reincarnation.
The first time I watched this film was a freshman year. At that time, I watched "A Clockwork Orange" and I really liked it. I downloaded the Kushen Blu-ray Collection and watched it in the dormitory. The interesting book Kushen only shot more than a dozen works in his life. There are no movies of the same type. Even back then, I thought that each of his movies had a different style, but I could tell that they were made by one person. The first time I watched me, I was dumbfounded and sleepy. I didn't think this film was good until I simply pulled the film, but I couldn't tell why.
Today, I went to the cinema half an hour earlier. The advertisement hasn't even started. The whole hall is already very solemnly full of audiences. Most of them are middle-aged and elderly audiences. Everyone is chatting about the movie regardless of each other. Only two seats were left on my right side. After the advertisement started, I saw a young boy slowly walking into the theater with the white-haired grandmother. After the old man sat down and asked me if I had missed something, I said there was no commercial for 20 minutes, and then asked her if she had watched the screening 50 years ago. She said: "Yes, I never watched a science fiction movie back then. In that era, it was Kubrick who showed us what space looks like. It's a pity that all the friends who watched this movie with me have passed away. To be honest. , I don’t remember what this movie is talking about, I haven’t actually read it, but watching it is like a ritual. Are you ready to fly for four hours?"
There was a few minutes of blank time before the movie. The BGM flowed out slowly. I thought it was a special arrangement of Kushen. The old man told me that watching movies in that era was very precious. Leave a few minutes in front of the movie for everyone to warm up and brew. . In these few minutes, I calm down completely.
Then the familiar "So Zarathustra Says" sounded (this song is based on Nietzsche’s philosophy book of the same name), and the film enters the first chapter: "The Dawn of Mankind" (I will translate the English name of the four chapters casually. See Figure 3). This chapter is very subtle, describing the life of the ancient apes. To put it simply: 1 Two groups of orangutans rob the territory, whoever is ruthless, who is violent, who is savage, can get more 2 Orangutans are social animals 3 Orangutans are full of fear and curiosity about nature and the unknown (Blackstone) 4 (Inspiration from Blackstone Bottom) The apes who learn to use tools evolve into adults.
At this time, the tool (bones) was thrown into the sky, and the screen turned into space in 2001, and the bones were switched to the aircraft heading to Jupiter. (Picture 4 poster) The scene of this matching transition is very classic. Kushen skipped the human civilization for thousands of years, omitting all the foreshadowing, and directly shifted from a metaphor to the main plot.
The arrival of the music of "Blue Danube", the description of space is very minimal, whether it is a planetary vehicle or the sleeping man in the cabin, the pen floating in the air, the "Stewardess" walking slowly on tiptoe, is so elegant . It seems that the universe is peaceful and friendly to mankind. This is very similar to the later "Interstellar" said "Don't walk into that gentle night easily".
Chapter 2: TMA1. This chapter finally has some lines to narrate the purpose of humanity's trip. It mainly shows people's daily life on the spacecraft. After watching countless sci-fi movies in 2018, I won’t find the descriptions so amazing, but the details are still very interesting. For example, eight flavors of juice for $1.6 can give family members on the earth a phone call...
What needs to be noticed is what the human image looks like in this passage? I think it can be summed up in only three words: indifference, boring, hypocrisy. Everyone has an indifferent attitude towards themselves and their colleagues, and even talking to family members is almost perfunctory and polite language. The daily life of the astronaut is very boring. Checking the parameters with the computer and checking the details repeatedly, running and exercising in the cabin, eating a boring meal.
Most of the shots given by Kushen are from an objective perspective of God, which can also be understood as the perspective of Blackstone. All the images reveal indifference to human behavior and human civilization. This model runs through all the films of Kushen. He has always been very skeptical about the rapid development of society and the pursuit of mankind. He even has a tendency to anti-modern society. (So there will be many uncomfortable shots and sound effects, although calm but cold and scary)
The second chapter ends with a 15-minute intermission in the movie. This is the first time I have encountered a movie and an intermission. Although I was in a good state of mind, it was too troublesome to watch the scenes and human beings’ emotionless lines. It was also very sleepy, so I bought popcorn and forced my life to last.
The second half of the movie started to be very exciting.
Chapter 3: Jupiter Mission.
Here comes an interesting plot: the computer HAL read out the lips of Portman and others through monitoring. In order to protect himself, he killed A outside the cabin first, led Portman out of the cabin to search for A's body, and at the same time deliberately modified the sleeping cabin. The data killed the remaining astronauts and refused Portman to return to the cabin. And Bowman used the manual valve to enter the cabin again to the central system to remove the hardware equipment of HAL.
This is the most ten minutes of lines in the whole show. HAL, as a machine, speaks language full of human emotions. From suspicion to "torn" to pleading, and even finally singing, it seems to be the real expression of human nature. Kushen gave many second-person close-ups on the camera’s red dots. The inanimate objects seem to be human eyes, in which the audience can directly feel the emotions of the machine.
This is a huge irony. The humanity lost by human beings is replaced by artificial intelligence. Even if humans can control the technology they make, they cannot defeat nature. Human nature is still like an ape, brutal violence has infinite desire for nothingness, and at the same time, human beings are extremely fragile social animals. Boman became the only human in the huge universe, and he killed the only computer that accompanied him. Then came the fourth chapter: Jupiter, the end of eternity.
The fourth chapter is absolutely unforgettable. The feeling of watching is probably: drinking too much wine and starting to dream of flying. Music and noise are intertwined, and Black Rock emerges in the dark space, and Bowman's aircraft traverses time and space madly along with Black Rock, traversing various intentions.
The garbled lights and shadows that I understand may be multiple worlds in the multiverse and chaotic time. In short, what Kushen wants to express with these montages may be that this world is far beyond human understanding. In the later period, there are many strange color patches of geography and landforms, which should also express the world outside the world. What people see and feel is not true. There is an eternal existence that overrides people.
In the end, Portman came to a gorgeously decorated hotel. The idea of this paragraph was very brilliant, symbolizing a cycle: the young Portman of the moment saw the middle-aged Portman in a spacesuit, and the middle-aged Portman walked to the bathroom to look in the mirror and found himself. Halfway through his life, looking back, the elderly Boman was sitting at the table for a meal. The wine glass fell to the ground accidentally, and he was about to reach out to find that the dying Boman was lying on the bed. The black stone appeared in front of the bed of the dying person and "illuminated" the deceased without light, and Bowman was reborn as a baby, transformed into a planet in the universe, looking at the distant earth.
What is Blackstone? After watching the movie, the old man also asked me what I think. I think first of all, the perspective of this movie is that of Blackstone. Secondly, Blackstone should be a GOD, the intention of God. The "Bible" often warns that if people live without faith, they will only believe in themselves and become arrogant and blind, because human instincts make us want to be our own gods. But if you believe in the existence of a god above everything else, then you will find a major transformation in your body: you are no longer your god, and you accept the other to become your god and become self-disciplined.
Blackstone asked Boman to read the truth of this world and his life in ten minutes, and then resurrected him to start again. This concept of rebirth is also indispensable in religion.
I was thinking, what exactly does Kushen want to express in this movie? The first thing to confirm is that he is not preaching.
Combining all the works of Kushen's life, what he wants to express is that he despises the hatred in the human soul and hates the indifference and selfishness of people in modern society, and he is eager for quick success. However, he even despises and hates the loss of oneself. What he wants to say is that people should deeply reflect on themselves rather than confused with the times and society and follow the trend. Every choice of people has to bear the price. Fate will give you both evil and good, and at least know yourself clearly whether you care about it or not.
Self and society I think this is the theme of Kushen's works. And in "A Space Odyssey", more philosophical propositions have been added. I don't know much about philosophy and I won't repeat it for the time being (I haven't finished reading "The Saying of Zarathustra" by Nietzsche, which my friend gave me). This is the second time I have written a film review for this film. I hope that in a few decades, I will write better.
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