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| Moon-Watcher and his friends encountering the mysterious monolith. |
God’s Smart Phone?
After the water hole incident, Moon-Watcher and his
companions retreated back to their hole, and entered another round of symbolic
death. Only this time, it was going to the last time of this familiar ritual
for them – because when the sun rose again, everything would be different...
The next morning, Moon-Watcher was the first to wake up. Out
of the blue (it literally was), he saw something strange in front of his hole.
It was a dark, rectangular, shiny, and smooth block-like monolith, appearing
out of no reason amidst the sand-covered landscape. Its appearance almost bore
an uncanny contrast to the dry and sun-lit environment. Moon-Watcher alerted
his companions, and when the others woke up, everyone was in awe. Through a
very beautiful middle / long shot, Kubrick documented the first interactions of
the group with the monolith. Multiple emotions erupted from all the ape-men –
there were screaming, chattering, and the expressions of fear and wonder. Some
immediately ran away and retreated from this unprecedented experience. A few of
them started touching the surface of the monolith, registering a sensation they
have never had before. Some of them were looking up to the top of the monolith,
and through this perspective, we had one of the most iconic scenes in ‘2001’ –
in the very first low-angle shot of the film, the end of the monolith pointed
towards the sky, and almost aligned with the moon. Not only as a foreshadowing
of Man’s ultimate voyage to the moon, the low angle shot also signified the
possibility of control. It would not be
the monolith’s last appearance. As we would see, the monolith would appear
again a few more times, whenever a significant milestone in the story of
humanity has reached.
The monolith is possibly the most enigmatic and iconic thing
in Kubrick’s cinema. There are numerous interpretations and analyses regarding
the significance of this particular item. It is really interesting to read a
lot of these explanations because they provide nice windows into other people’s
perspectives on this ambiguous issue. I will provide my own view and
observations, yet before that I want to give an opinion about a certain point
of view regarding the issue. Soon after the release of ‘2001’, co-writer Arthur
C. Clarke has written a novel which was based on the film, in which he provided
some clarifications regarding the ambiguous narrative evident in the film. I do
respect Mr. Clarke’s opinion, yet I feel that his view is only one of the
possible explanations to interpret ‘2001’. Kubrick’s and Clarke’s original
intentions to make the film ambiguous were because they wanted to leave the
film open to interpretations, and not just wanted to provide a single,
straight-forward answer. In Clarke’s treatment of the story in the novel, the
monolith was implied to be sent by some highly intelligent aliens from the
outer space, yet I feel we do not have to stick to this particular viewpoint
when we think about ‘2001’. There is a similarity in ‘The Shining’, too. Obviously,
we can simply understand Jack Torrance’s madness is caused by the spirits and
ghosts in the Overlook Hotel, yet it is only one way of looking at such a great
story. Kubrick has painstakingly put in so much more to his version of ‘The
Shining’, because he wanted us to look beyond the obvious answer and to think
about what all the mise-en-scenes really symbolized.
So what is the monolith? To me, I think it symbolizes
inspiration. And, it often comes without warning, like a sudden spark from
nowhere. The inspiration may sound weird at first, and there is no way you can
use any established conceptual frameworks to make sense of it. Like in
Moon-Watcher’s case, you need curiosity and observation to recognize it. Like
the ape-men, some people are afraid of these new and weird ideas, and will immediately
retreat or stay away from them. True, there is often a fear associated with
these new inspirations. In a group, you have to have courage to challenge some
rigid concepts and likely bear the stresses of being marginalized and isolated.
Only a few individuals can succeed and lead everyone to a new world. There were
a few members of Moon-Watcher’s tribe who were willing to touch the monolith
and interacted with it out of curiosity. In this primitive setting,
Moon-Watcher was one of those who had the quality to bring some important
changes to his world. Kubrick used this stunning sequence to show the audience
that, inspirations could come at any time, any place. It is you who have to
have the initiative and the willingness to be inspired.
While the audience may see the monolith resembling nothing
more than a black rectangular block, to Moon-Watcher and his companions, the
monolith seemed really weird and out of place. The appearance of the monolith
signified the arrival of a new paradigm, a new way of thinking. The design of
monolith was so different from the surrounding environment, which was cluttered
and disordered. The shiny, smooth monolith represented the arrival of order and
control, a concept that soon the ape-men would be able to grasp. In history,
when a new paradigm has arrived, many would be shocked and they had to
re-assess their way of looking at the world or organizing their knowledges. When
Copernicus and Galileo told others that our planet was not at the center of the
universe, there certainly would cause an existential despair in many people. When
Newton ’s
theories were challenged by quantum ideas in the early 20th century,
it appeared as if rationality has been thrown to the wolves which were known as
uncertainties. Yet, we don’t have to despair. We have to engage and be open to
the new ideas, and to prove – or disprove – the validities of these new ideas, thus
achieving a better understanding. It really is a will to explore that is
required to discover new things which will be beneficial to humanity as a whole.
When Kubrick shot the monolith scene, he used a low camera angle
to approach it. In this way, the monolith looked like a jumping board, and it
served a symbolic meaning. The arrival of the monolith signified a moment for
the ape-men to jump out, and had a very significant change that would
completely change the meaning of their existences. In Kierkegaard’s terms, it
is sort of a leap of faith (though it may not be religious in this context),
that will lead us to the uncharted seas. This jump would definitely lead to
uncertainty, yet it was an inevitable action, if the ape-men all retreated from
it, they would very soon be diminished. The low-angle shot of the monolith
would appear again in the later part of the film, always signifying that
humanity had to leap and to transform to another realm of existence.
Moon Watcher’s first high
Upon their encounter with the monolith, something has
significantly changed for Moon-Watcher and his friends. When hanging around as
normal near their hole one morning, Moon-Watcher was toying with some of the
remains from the corpses of other animals. All of a sudden, he found himself
thinking of something. It was a monumental moment for him, because he has never
before had the possession, ability, or awareness of, using his cognitive
abilities. Maybe he was the only one who had an appreciation of his existential
dread long before his friends were aware of them, yet it was not out of a
logical or rational consideration, but more of an instinctual concern. Clearly,
the monolith has given him an ability he never had in his life so far. He
picked up a bone, which he never had any appreciation about what this piece of
junk could do, and started hammering it on some of the larger piece of bones on
the sand. First, he just hit them quite randomly, yet at the same time, a
concept was forming in his mind. At this point, Richard Strauss’ ‘Thus Spoke
Zarathustra’ could be heard on the soundtrack, and the subsequent scenes
basically immortalized this piece of brilliant music. This masterpiece in
classical music was written when Strauss was inspired by Nietzsche’s
existential classic ‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra’, just like Kubrick was inspired by
the same source when he was writing ‘2001’. When it reached the most heightened
part of Strauss’ musical score, we came to the most iconic moment of the ‘Dawn
of Man’. In a very bold and magnified scene, we saw Moon-Watching bashing
euphorically on a few pieces of large bones, completing controlling his actions
and fulfilling his desires. For the first time, we saw excitement on
Moon-Watcher’s face, and an intercutting fantasy of beating down a large
herbivous animal, which was almost impossible before all these. Through this
episode, Moon-Watcher has invented the concept of ‘tool’, and humanity’s
victorious advances to their world took off from here.
Kubrick has employed a number of techniques to portray the
significant moment of Moon-Watcher’s discovery, and the result is a heightened
feeling for both the ape-man and the audience alike. First, the use of the
classical music was ingenious because the themes for both the movie and the
music just fitted some well with each other, they were also made for each
other. For Strauss’ masterpiece, the ritualistic use of the three notes – C – G
– C’, symbolized an inevitable ascension of humanity, and also allegorized
Nietzsche’s ideas of the three metamorphoses. While the first verse symbolized
a fear or awe due to inspirations or a self-understanding of one’s lack (like
the falling down in tone by the two notes), the second verse of the music was
more akin to a questioning of change and possibility (thus the rising up in
tone by the two notes), and the final verse of course suggested an optimistic
transformation and possible transcendence. When Kubrick used this music in the
film, we could see that the verses of the music were fitting – almost
synchronizing – very well with the plot at the given moment. That was why Strauss’
score could heighten up the emotion of the audience, because it addressed so
neatly with what was being portrayed on the screen.
Through the use of a wide angle lens, Kubrick has provided
significant distortions to the scene when Moon-Watcher was bashing happily on
the bones. The scene appeared to be very magnified and distorted, and it was
also the first few rare instances where the camera was held in close-up to an
action, and later, even an extreme close-up when Moon -Watchers facial
expression was shown. Coupled with a bold low angle shot from the extreme close-up,
Kubrick portrayed neatly the idea of control. Indeed, directors like Orson
Welles and Stanley Kubrick loved to use low angles as a significant motif in
many of their films, when they wanted to convey a sense or control or pin-point
the power dynamics in a given scene. Taken together, Kubrick’s design of the
scene was shot in a such a way that an euphoric feeling could be felt by the
audience.
Indeed, in the next scene we saw the ape-men had a newly
found appetite. Their dietary practices have changed after the encounter with
the monolith. Moon-Watcher and his friends were seen eating meat, after they
have devised the technique of hunting by using
their newly discovered tools. With the added nutrients of carbohydrates,
proteins, and fat found in meat, our ancestors experienced a gradual change in
their bodily constructions, and were no longer weak and vulnerable against
their natural enemies. Though it has been suggested by some critics that the
era Kubrick intended to portray were one when the ape-men were supposed to be vegetarians
rather than meat-lovers, I suppose Kubrick should be allowed dramatic liberty
in his screenplay. Anyway, the narrative was supposed to be ambiguous and
Kubrick often created diagetic worlds that allowed some deviations from the
‘reality’, so this was not a big problem.
The bone episode proved to be extremely significant not only
for Moon Watcher and his friends, but also for humanity in general. As some
critics have put it in a poetic manner, this scene represented the metamorphosis
of man into machine. It was the first time a pre-human could achieve an aim by
using a machine, albeit an extremely simple tool. It was this first spark that
would lighten up humanity’s imaginations to develop more advanced tools, such
as technology. Our ancestors were first lifted up from a chaotic fate through
the appreciation of order, and through an ability to control and organize
things. In Kubrick’s terms, the word ‘machine’ did not just mean computers or
any things that was made of iron or steel - he meant it in a far more general
context. It is more appropriate to use the word ‘mechanism’ or its adjective ‘mechanistic’
to make sense Kubrick’s use of the word. Thus, there can be a cultural machine,
a social machine, a war machine, and even a ritualized sequence of actions can
be called a machine. In many of his films, Kubrick intended to show us how these
man-made systems worked, and how their actions affected us eventually.
Through the use of the bone as a primitive tool, Moon-Watcher
first experienced the notion of ‘power’. While Moon-Watcher and others were
fighting for food and suffering their fears to in silence, it was out of a base
instinct to persist. In Schopenhauer’s words, it was a will to live. Now, transforming
from ape to pre-human through the rational use of a tool, Moon-Watcher has
evolved and now he was aiming for a will to power, as Nietzsche would have put
it. Nietzsche believed that this change was an inevitable step to be taken by
humanity, and yet in either Nietzsche’s or Kubrick’s view, the transformation
sequence was far from complete. I will address this issue again in my last
article regarding ‘Dawn of Man’.
Another important aspect is that Moon-Watcher and his
friends have now grasped the meaning of ‘control’. No matter one believes in
fate or not, a meaningful life is often about the exertion of self-control and,
to some extent, a control to the environment around us. The monolith has not directly
illustrated the potential application of a bone to Moon-Watcher and his
friends, what it has done was to inspire the ape-men with intellectual
abilities to be able to conceive of ideas such as ‘tool’ and ‘control’. For the
first time, Moon Watcher and his enlightened friends realized that they could
control to some extent the environment around them, rather than passively being
controlled and overwhelmed by it. This advancement also gave our ancestors a
first found courage to face the world. They knew that in order to live in a
fulfilling way, they had to be able to interact with their world in an active
manner. It was through the use of understanding that has led our ancestors from
their ape-y appearances to a status we could label as a precursor of humanity.
Full Bone Jacket
Moon-Watcher and his friends were no longer afraid of the
night. Because they knew when they woke up the next day, they would be able to
fight for themselves in a more active way. They were confident that not only
they would not be hungry anymore, they also had a better standing in this universe.
The inspirations from the monolith have also led them to grasp human-like
characteristics such as memories, compassion, imaginations and community. Armed
with their new found weapon, an insignificant bone by today’s standard, would
Moon-Watcher and his friends be able to fight back for the water hole that has
been taken from them?
(To be continued.)
by Ed Law
18/3/2017
Film Analysis
