2001: A Space Odyssey

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) by Stanley Kubrick is a classic movie that combines nearly every cinematic element imaginable into a single movie that was revolutionary for its time. Right off the bat, the movies captures your emotions with an iconic score, and strong, vibrant visuals. At the very beginning of the movie, the watcher is given a pitch-black scene, while music plays in the background for several minutes, gradually intensifying until it builds to a climax. The music itself takes the watcher on a journey of their own, causing mixed emotions to be felt as the music changes volume. The iconic opening theme catches your attention immediately, setting the tone of the movie. The movie is split into four different sections, each following its own storyline, with all four eventually coming together. All four sections carry great significance, but perhaps the most interesting is “The Dawn of Man”, which occurs at the beginning of the movie. The use of dialogue, or lack thereof, gave the film a twist that at first, seems impractical, but works in Kubrick’s favor. Whereas most films rely on witty banter and emotional speeches to carry the movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey instead follows a completely different path, taking advantage of ground-breaking technology to create visual masterpieces with a classic score to match, as well as silence at times. In one scene, the apes discover a black monolith, which is arguably the biggest source of confusion throughout the movie, as its true purpose is never revealed. The apes circle around the monolith in confusion before finally approaching it, with the sun and moon positioning to echo the visual at the introduction to the movie. When the apes become self-aware, and discover tools and how they can be used to solve the issue of food, one of them kills a fellow animal, and the scene cuts back and forth between the bones of the dead animal and the living animal following to the ground, juxtaposing it. This scene brings into