By The Butcher
You love ’em, he hates ’em! The Butcher carves up your favourite films, and this week, he applies his sharpened cleaver to Stanley Kubrick’s revered science fiction mind-bender 2001: A Space Odyssey.
The cleverest kid in my school was Tobias Winchester. I would cheerfully enter the classroom and say with a smile, “Good morning, Tobias. How are you?” To which he would usually reply, “None the better for your asking.”
Why this little jaunt down memory? Well, because if Tobias Winchester was a film, he’d be Stanley Kubrick’s sci-fi “masterpiece” 2001: A Space Odyssey. I hated Tobias Winchester, and I hate this movie. They’re both just too clever for their own good. 2001 is about the search for the origins of a monolith found on the moon, and the struggle between the investigating spaceship crew and their talking computer, Hal-9000, who tries to commandeer the ship to get the mission back on track. I know what you’re thinking. If that clap-trap hadn’t been directed by the ridiculously over-praised Stanley Kubrick, it would be included in one of those 100-movie DVD you find these days at junk shops.
This is a film that critics love to pore over. What does it mean? Where is mankind going? Does technology pose a threat to humans? I’ve got a question of my own: who cares? Accompanied by an intense soundtrack that includes Johann Strauss’ “Blue Danube”, I always imagine the audience that loves this film to be made up of the same idiots that you see crying at an Andre Rieu gig.
Now, I don’t want you to think that I’m some kind of philistine – I’m not – but is it so wrong to want a bit of action in a film? Even The English Patient had action, for crying out loud! It’s the tedious pace of 2001: A Space Odyssey that frustrates me more than anything; the fifteen-minute sequence of a spaceship docking is just pure unadulterated indulgence on Kubrick’s part, and serves the film in no way whatsoever. It’s like Kubrick made this entire piece just to give himself a big pat on the back.
The whole debacle is pseudo-intellectual nonsense and I, for one, can live without it. If I had my way, 2001: A Space Odyssey would be on the rubbish heap instead of where it usually resides: amongst the greatest motion pictures of all time. That, however, is life. We don’t always get what we want. Take Tobias Winchester. I hear that he’s done very well for himself, and is now a merchant banker. Oh, wait a minute, not a merchant banker, I heard wrong. It turns out that he’s still just a wa…
For a far more positive reading of 2001: A Space Odyssey, check out Peter Kramer’s book-length appraisal of the film as published by BFI Classics and Bloomsbury. Click here for more information.
