So.. Confused Matthew takes on No Country Old Men

[Harvey]

I'm sure Kubrick didn't say anything about his interpretation of the ending. He wasn't in the business of interpreting his films for the audience. Kubrick didn't see that as part of his job and when controversy erupted over A Clockwork Orange a few years later he wouldn't have a thing to say about it in public, either.

Claiming that the writers had no idea what was happening, though, seems incorrect. Clarke certainly had his own ideas about the ending, which you can read in his 2001: A Space Odyssey novel. Of course, Clarke later stated publicly that he didn't know what to make of Kubrick's ending, either, IIRC.

Regardless, the ending conveys enough information for me. Namely, that Bowman transforms into the star child. The presence of the monolith at the beginning of the star gate sequence and the end of the film rather firmly suggest that it is the same alien intelligence doing this that manipulated early man and planted the monolith on the moon. What this exactly means, besides (probably) being the next stage in human evolution (manipulated by an alien hand), though, is left ambiguous. On that point I don't have any problem with the film. To the apes in The Dawn of Man sequence, we would be completely incomprehensible. And so is the star child to us.

 

[sonak]

I'm sure Kubrick didn't say anything about his interpretation of the ending. He wasn't in the business of interpreting his films for the audience. Kubrick didn't see that as part of his job and when controversy erupted over A Clockwork Orange a few years later he wouldn't have a thing to say about it in public, either.

Claiming that the writers had no idea what was happening, though, seems incorrect. Clarke certainly had his own ideas about the ending, which you can read in his 2001: A Space Odyssey novel. Of course, Clarke later stated publicly that he didn't know what to make of Kubrick's ending, either, IIRC.

Regardless, the ending conveys enough information for me. Namely, that Bowman transforms into the star child. The presence of the monolith at the beginning of the star gate sequence and the end of the film rather firmly suggest that it is the same alien intelligence doing this that manipulated early man and planted the monolith on the moon. What this exactly means, besides (probably) being the next stage in human evolution (manipulated by an alien hand), though, is left ambiguous. On that point I don't have any problem with the film. To the apes in The Dawn of Man sequence, we would be completely incomprehensible. And so is the star child to us.

Right, even accounting for the movie's style, it should be obvious that what's happening is Dave is being transformed by the monolith.

But so what? I've read ALL of Arthur C. Clarke's "odyssey" books through 3001, and I've seen 2010: the year we make contact.


Even understanding what's going on doesn't make long, loving shots of a rotating space station interesting, just as I understand the plot and themes of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and ten minutes of loving shots of the NCC-1701 does nothing for me either.


You can "get" this movie and still find it a slow, tedious exercise in self-indulgence.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

You can "get" this movie and still find it a slow, tedious exercise in self-indulgence.

Well of course you can. But "getting" a movie is not the same as understanding the plot, obviously.

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

I think the main purpose of the long long shots of the space station and the various shots of the space vehicles is toreally remind us that the main adversary os man in the film is immensity of space itself, that intakes us forever to even maneuver into a docking port, totravel anywhere, to even open a door to a structure that would provide life support enough for us to live. These long shots remind us of how small we are. They also remind us that the mood we are supposed tone in is more meditative. We are not in for a snappily-edited jaunt, but a more immersive experience.

 

[sonak]

You can "get" this movie and still find it a slow, tedious exercise in self-indulgence.

Well of course you can. But "getting" a movie is not the same as understanding the plot, obviously.

fair enough, but one of the selling points fans of the movie often use is the mysterious, open-ended nature of the plot, that it leaves more questions than answers, etc.

I'm saying that the "answers" and themes are not so mind-blowing that one should assume if someone DIDN'T like the movie, that they didn't understand what was going on.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

fair enough, but one of the selling points fans of the movie often use is the mysterious, open-ended nature of the plot, that it leaves more questions than answers, etc.

Well, they shouldn't. The plot is fairly simple and straightforward. One of the selling points of the movie is that, if you're in the right frame of mind, it may move you, show you things you've never seen, give you a glimpse of things that usually are beyond of human reach.

See, I may be wrong, but from your observations in this thread, I get the impression that you think that 2001 is like a riddle, a puzzle that you're supposed to solve because it's sooo mysterious, and you rightfully think that it comes up short of these expectations. But it's not a riddle, it's not a puzzle, it's not an intellectual challenge: it's a movie. You're not supposed to solve it, to defeat it or to understand it, you're supposed to watch it, to experience it on an emotional and aesthetic level and to enjoy it.

You won't find any answers in 2001, and if that's what you're looking for, you're bound to be disappointed. A movie is more than its plot and its themes.

 

[Professor Zoom]

The problem with 2001 is a problem which is common to many works of fiction that are supposed to "make you think": even the people who were making it didn't know what it all meant. What did all the business with the moons being aligned before Bowman entered the Star Gate mean? And why did Bowman keep seeing and being replaced by his older self? Kubrick didn't know. Clarke didn't know. They just put it in the movie and let the viewer come up with an excuse.

Kubrick knew exactly why he showed the moons line up and why he showed Bowman seeing himself aging. The goal of the movie was to communicate an alien intelligence that is beyond human comprehension.

Really? Well, what was the significance of the moons being aligned, then? Why did Bowman see himself rapidly aging like that, within the internal logic of the film itself? Did Kubrick ever say? Or did he say, "It's meant to make you think"?

Moons being aligned: a lot of significant events--spiritual, supernatural events, are supposed to happen when planets align.

Why did Bowman see himself: because the monolith was transforming him into the Starchild, the next step in human evolution.

It's in the movie. This isn't hard. I think the only REAL mystery, is why HAL freaked out and killed the crew.

 

[Harvey]

You can "get" this movie and still find it a slow, tedious exercise in self-indulgence.

Of course you can. But that wasn't what ColeMercury was saying, and I was replying to him.

 

[Showdown]

at www.confusedmatthew.com

here

So, folks it's your chance to argue about this film. I wanna hear the defenders come out as this review goes on.

Not bad. It kind of reminds me of his 2001 review.

I like Confused Matthew's reviews. I don't always agree with him, but I find many of the reviews entertaining. He is like Red Letter Media, Nostagia Critic, Zero Punctuation, and Angry Video Game Nerd, where they would rip something apart. Really good if you hate the target of their attacks.

 

[J.T.B.]

Really? Well, what was the significance of the moons being aligned, then? Why did Bowman see himself rapidly aging like that, within the internal logic of the film itself? Did Kubrick ever say? Or did he say, "It's meant to make you think"?

Kubrick said that the alignment of the moons was to give the audience the feeling that something of great cosmic significance was about to happen, and to tie the monolith at Jupiter to the earlier ones. Bowman seeing himself aging was a time-compression device to show that he was living out his "mortal body" existence. They were just cinematic storytelling devices.

I understand the goal was to show a vast alien intelligence, but that isn't a good enough answer to the questions. I could make a movie which at the very end features five minutes of a tapdancing penguin, and claim "The goal is to show the futility and absurdity of the characters' existence" -- and maybe it does, but the real question to be addressed is "You've just made a movie which for the first two hours conforms entirely to real-world logic and now suddenly you've got a fucking tapdancing penguin! WTF, dude?"

Unless it was filmed and screened as part of the movie, you stating your film's goal would not really be relevant to the audience. Nor is it relevant to the discussion here because Kubrick did not make such statements AFAIK. But regardless, if the penguin in the movie made people feel the way you intended, then it was successful. I think that history shows that Kubrick has a strong record of success in that way.

And I would suggest that I never, ever asked for the film to "explain to the audience everything that happens and why". In fact, if you'll care to read my post again I said the exact opposite. My gripe is that even the filmmakers themselves didn't know what happened and why -- or even what could have happened and why.

I guess I don't follow. The filmmaker has to know why everything happens but it doesn't matter if that is communicated to the audience? If it's not communicated within the film, how would the audience ever know what the director did or didn't know? That seems like an odd criteria on which to judge a film. The vast majority of people who've seen 2001 have never read a Kubrick or Clarke interview, nor should they have to. What matters is the connection made to the audience in the theater. 2001 fails to make that connection for you, that's perfectly understandable. But for the average viewer what Kubrick or Clarke did behind the scenes never enters in to it.

--Justin

 

[Admiral Shran]

May I kindly suggest then that you NEVER read A Series of Unfortunate Events, because this is exactly what that author does.

Thanks for the heads-up.

You're welcome.

Seriously, I simply do not have the words to describe how much that series pissed me off! I won't give spoilers, as there might be people who do want to read them. But, I will say that the author resolves virtually NO plot threads over the course of 13 books! And I highly doubt that he himself had any idea as to how to do it anyway.

 

[ColeMercury]

Kubrick said that the alignment of the moons was to give the audience the feeling that something of great cosmic significance was about to happen, and to tie the monolith at Jupiter to the earlier ones. Bowman seeing himself aging was a time-compression device to show that he was living out his "mortal body" existence. They were just cinematic storytelling devices.

Okay, the moon alignment thing -- fair enough. The aging thing -- doesn't fly with me. If that were the case, then how come middle-aged Bowman is exploring the hotel room as if for the first time, and still wearing his spacesuit and helmet? Plus, he quite clearly sees & hears his older & younger selves each time.

I know this may seem like moving goalposts, but I do have another gripe with the ending. Now, in the book, there's a certain internal logic to what happens when Bowman goes through the Star Gate -- he actually enters the monolith itself. Not so in the movie, though -- as seen from his POV, the monolith vanishes and then he suddenly spontaneously gets yanked through the Star Gate which apparently exists in empty space.

I guess I don't follow. The filmmaker has to know why everything happens but it doesn't matter if that is communicated to the audience? If it's not communicated within the film, how would the audience ever know what the director did or didn't know? That seems like an odd criteria on which to judge a film. The vast majority of people who've seen 2001 have never read a Kubrick or Clarke interview, nor should they have to. What matters is the connection made to the audience in the theater. 2001 fails to make that connection for you, that's perfectly understandable. But for the average viewer what Kubrick or Clarke did behind the scenes never enters in to it.

The problem is it's dishonest. If you're creating some work of fiction -- film, prose, poem, whatever -- and you don't intend for it to have any specific meaning (or even any of a number of optional meanings, as open to interpretation) then you can't be credited for the meaningfulness of the work. It'd be like crediting someone who makes a Rorschach ink blot for their fine artistic skills in depicting a bat in flight (if you saw the blot as a flying bat). It's crediting the artist for being cleverer than they actually are.

(You may be wondering what I mean by "optional meanings open to interpretation". Well, to extend the previous analogy, they would be like the equivalent of the duck-rabbit drawing. Not the same as an ink blot.)

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

The problem is it's dishonest. If you're creating some work of fiction -- film, prose, poem, whatever -- and you don't intend for it to have any specific meaning (or even any of a number of optional meanings, as open to interpretation) then you can't be credited for the meaningfulness of the work. It'd be like crediting someone who makes a Rorschach ink blot for their fine artistic skills in depicting a bat in flight (if you saw the blot as a flying bat). It's crediting the artist for being cleverer than they actually are.

Except that the Rorschach test is patently not a work of fiction, doesn't claim to be and doesn't follow the same rules. Fiction never exists in a vacuum and always makes the assumption that the audience comes with its own baggage and its own angle. When we watch a comedy, we laugh because the writers are clever and the actors have great timing, but we also laugh because the jokes resonate in a certain way with our life experience.

You can intend for your work of fiction to have a specific meaning all you want, but don't expect people to fall in line, because they will all get different things from it. Admitting that is not being dishonest, it's being human.