My personal last film at the Shanghai International Film Festival this year. Its greatness need not go into details, this article is just to express my understanding of the movie.
1.
The first part should be the most interesting part. Kubrick gave his definition of human evolution: taking up bones as weapons, strictly speaking, should be tools. Looking at this view alone, it’s really nothing new, but the wonderful thing is that the tool is bone, that is, death. Therefore, this metaphor breaks away from biological evolution in the simple sense, and forms a profound sociological implication. Human evolution and development can only be based on death, and death must be a tool. For humans, there has never been a pure biological death. Every death can be used repeatedly.
The other object is the black rock. Whether it is an alien or not, it is an abstract object. It is an object that Kubrick has simplified to describe the long history of man. I prefer to understand it as wisdom. In human history, it has appeared in many images: God, that is, religion, reason, contract, and knowledge. Its appearance is the inducement of human evolution and Kubrick's explanation for the sudden possession of wisdom. Perhaps you can choose to use accident as the reason, but Kubrick obviously wants to give it more meaning. This is reflected in the two appearances of Black Rock behind.
So the main clue of this movie is people and tools, how tools are used by people to promote the evolution of people to tools that eventually become murderers of people. From bones to HAL9000. In this long history, human beings created gods and killed gods, created emperors killed the emperors, and created rationality killed rationality, but wisdom has never disappeared. These constant deaths and creations are the incarnation of tools and wisdom. The gift given to us after the first coming has never been cut off.
2.
The second part of the movie is the most boring, probably because fifty years ago, in order to show science fiction, life in the spacecraft cabin was described in extremely detailed, but aside these lengthy and unattractive content nowadays, the second Part of the core is the discussion at the meeting about whether the discovery of Black Rock should be kept confidential.
The interesting part is the word infectious disease. The film does not describe the situation of infectious disease. Combined with the above understanding of the black rock representing wisdom, it can be speculated that the so-called infectious disease is actually a stigma of contact with wisdom. Just like Adam and Eve who ate the fruit of wisdom in the "Bible", mastering wisdom from being considered sinful to being sick, maybe all the so-called evolution of mankind lies in this. This so-called disease is a manifestation in the eyes of outsiders, and scientists know the significance of this discovery in the history of science, but they still choose to keep it secret. Just like God forbids people to eat the fruit of wisdom, people always take care of themselves. I am blocked from wisdom. To humans, wisdom may be like truth, never reachable.
3.
In the first half of the third paragraph, the struggle between humans and HAL9000 is almost the core question of all humanities and social sciences in the second half of the last century: can humans control technology, and can humans endow technology with wisdom? These problems and discussions continue to this day, and increasingly become real problems to be faced. In the movie, the game between humans and HAL9000 almost perfectly predicts the future confrontation between Deep Blue and Kaspanov, Alpha GO and Li Shishi Ke Jie: human beings have been losing. The movie did not give the final answer to this question head-on, but created a dilemma. From the perspective of the plot, it seems that humans have mastered the fate of AI, but this is not an answer at all. People and tools seem to have not been in history. The dimension is truly opposite, so it can't give a real answer.
When he landed on Jupiter, the black rock appeared, and David entered an extremely chaotic state, which seemed to mean that he, as a representative of humanity, had a glimpse of wisdom in the duel with HAL9000. What follows is a lengthy and inferior segment that now appears to be inferior in special effects. But the scene after waking up in the room seems to be what Kubrick wants to express in the whole movie.
As a person, David faced the ultimate battle between man and tool. He saw Heiyan, that is, in a sense, he possessed wisdom. So here comes the question:
1. What is wisdom? In Kubrick's view, it may be the star child: people always have to realize their insignificance, and so are human beings, even if they keep exploring outwards, to the moon, to Jupiter. The largest area we reach may be just a cell of a larger living body. There is a kind of excessive pessimism behind this kind of view, but on the road of human exploration of wisdom and truth, has there really been even one step away? The wisdom we are talking about is just to help us do our best in the society that we have created. The so-called outward search, the result of each step is to incorporate it into our society. Our true world truth, Know nothing.
2. What will happen after a person has wisdom? Kubrick's answer is that four lonely Davids appear in a gorgeous room: middle-aged, old, dying, and baby. At this time, Black Rock appeared. Perhaps the wise man was just the one who discovered that life was nothing more than accepting the cycle of life and death alone in a gorgeous cage. Loneliness is the main color of life, and life and death cycle forever.
4.
The title is "2001: A space odyssey", 2001 is just the first year after the so-called end of the world, heralding the new era that mankind will face. Odyssey is the great Greek epic Odyssey, the name destined that the spacecraft flying to Jupiter will experience the same great journey. Among them, every appearance of Black Rock is accompanied by a noisy sound. Compared to the Odyssey, the only thing I can think of is the siren's singing. Wisdom appears with the singing of a witch. This is an extremely strange metaphor, but this metaphor does not affect the greatness of the movie itself.
This is Kubrick's only science fiction film, but what Kubrick really wants to express is only one theme: people, of course, this is the common theme of all great movies. Whether it’s "A Clockwork Orange", "Full Metal Case", "Barry Linden" or "Dr. Strange Love", Kubrick made all his understandings of people into movies, and 2001 is his best for people. Macro cognition is also his most macro cognition of human beings.
Everyone's life is a lonely and comfortable roaming.
The advancement of mankind is a roaming in the boundless universe without a way forward.
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