Kubrick Cut By Cut: ASO001 to ASO120 – 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY – 1. Act: THE DAWN OF MAN

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The 1968 motion-picture 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY STANLEY KUBRICK'S WORK

Warning: Spoilers ahead! This post contains furthermore copyrighted material for the purpose of research, commentary and eduction as per fair use provisions.

SPOILER WARNING

The 1968 motion-picture 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY ­ ­ ­ ­

This is first instalment of my "Kubrick Cut By Cut" series for Stanley Kubrick's film 2001: A Space Odyssey. In this post I will cover the first act with its twenty minutes – the "prehistoric" scenes – plus the short one minute Entr'acte that serves as a bridge to the second act.

Going cut by cut (and making notes as to the time of the cut) allowed me to discover some important hints which helped me to better understand the film, and Kubrick's mode of work.

The first thing I want to highlight is how methodical Kubrick is: A casual viewing of the first act might give the impression that we are simply seeing one long unstructured narrative being played out on the screen. However, after the notes I took so far, I can say that Kubrick has clearly structured the first act:

• 1. Act: THE DAWN OF MAN (Twenty minutes in four settings)
• 1. Setting: The Formation of the Solar System (Five minutes)
• 2. Setting: Huminids: Animals among Animals (Five minutes)
• 3. Setting: The first Monolith (Five minutes)
• 4. Setting: Tools and the first Murder (Five minutes)
• Entr'acte: (SPACE) BOMBS (One Minute) 

Furthermore I suspect that the settings are further structured by the cuts, e.g. that the 1. setting is divided into the time pre Solar System – aka Formation of the Universe – and the actual Formation of the Solar System. For a lack of time I have not investigated this any further, but I may revisit that question once I have noted all cuts in the film.

The second thing I want to highlight is that Kubrick does place his cuts with care. Four individual cuts stand out in the first act, which each cut marking the end of a setting, and the beginning of the next setting or the entra'acte – I will refer to these cuts as "delimiters":

• 1. Delimiter: 0:05:02 (cut ASO009)
• 2. Delimiter: 0:10:00 ("audio-cut" ASO049)
• 3. Delimiter: 0:15:01 (cut ASO073)
• 4. Delimiter: 0:19:53 (cut ASO117)

What immediately stands out: While the ten minute delimiter (an "audio-cut") is "on the mark", the other three delimiters are not. One is 2 seconds "late", the other 1 second late, and the last is 7 seconds "early" (but the cuts are "precise" in so far as they seem to fall exactly on their respective second, as far as I can tell).

What is the meaning of the cut-times? With regards to the last cut-time (ASO117), I have good reason to believe that Kubrick is making a reference to the year 1953.

With regard to the first delimiter and the third, I think Kubrick is highlighting the number "2" and the number "1", which together make the number "3". Later on in the film we will see other examples were Kubrick shows a set of 3, made up of 2 similar and 1 slightly different element – e.g. 3 buttons on a pen, 2 of which are white, and 1 is red (ASO125-01). By the way, this ties in nicely to the title of the film.

The time of other cuts so far may be important as well, however I again lack time to do this now, and would rather first transcribe all cuts in the film.

And the last thing I want to highlight for now is that there is a scene 114 in this film – ASO114 here – which holds special, pivotal meaning, and quite likely that there is a scene 114 in other films by Kubrick as well.

Some notes: I make mistakes – maybe even here. With regards to the number of cuts in this sequence, I found two mistakes before publishing – there may be still mistakes lurking here.

So, let the games begin. (And in my next life I'll rather choose to do Hitchcock's Rope…)

1. Act: THE DAWN OF MAN (Twenty minutes)

1. Setting: The Beginning of the Solar System (Five minutes)

ASO001 (0:00:00) Black screen, music

Extraordinary:

ASO001-01:

And in the beginning there was darkness – we are witnessing the formation of the Solar System.

ASO001-02

Music begins at 0:00:04 and ends at 0:02:52. (Possibly two more cuts to be counted.)

ASO002 (0:02:58/N) MGM logo

Extraordinary:

ASO002-01

The ignorant Renata Adler asserted quite rightly (in what was possibly her only bright remark on the film): EVEN the M-G-M lion is stylized and abstracted in Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey.

As we are witnessing the creation of the Solar System, the MGM logo symbolizes either the Sun, or possibly the disc of the entire Solar System. In the beginning there was darkness, now there is light. The beginning of the film symbolizes literally the beginning of time. Stanley Kubrick is giving us an highly artistic allegory about the beginning of the Universe and of the Solar System, and Renata Adler is shouting from the peanut gallery: "BORING!"

ASO003 (0:03:07/FO/~2sec) Fade back to black

Extraordinary:

ASO003-01

Crossfade starts at 0:03:06. 36, 63?

ASO004 (0:03:15) Thus spoke Zarathustra – Moon, Earth, Sun aligned – Title

Extraordinary:

ASO004-01

Black screen from 0:03:15 to 0:03:17 – Moon fades in at about 0:03:17. (Possibly one more cut to count.)

ASO005 (0:04:28/FO/~2sec) Fade to black

ASO006 (0:04:38) Still black screen, sounds from Africa

ASO007 (0:04:42.5/FI/~1sec) Fade to pre-dawn sky – title card THE DAWN OF MAN

ASO008 (0:04:57)

2. Setting: Huminids: Animals among Animals (Five Minutes)

ASO009 (0:05:02) Sun-rise

Extraordinary:

ASO009-01

The cut at the 5 minute mark is an delimiter between the 1. setting and the 2. setting of the 1. act. We will realize that more clearly at the next delimiter, the 10 minutes cut in ASO049-01, and then at the 15 minutes cut (ASO073-01) and the 20 minutes cut (ASO117-01).

In ASO008 the Sun hasn't risen yet – and there was only the Sun, the Moon and the Earth. After the cut, we see in ASO009 the Sun climb over the horizon and start illuminating the steppe/savannah and with its wildlife including the early (pre-Monolith) huminids.

ASO009-02

However, the 5 minute cut is an full 2 seconds late – we will later see why this is of importance.

"… finds her door hacked with an axe …"

I stumbled across something interesting:

Who was Kubrick's co-writer [for The Shining]?

After rejecting King's own efforts at turning his novel into a screenplay Kubrick turned to Diane Johnson, an American novelist and critic who published a number of novels which Kubrick admired, including "The Shadow Knows" which he considered making into a film.

So what is this book about, that Kubrick considered making into a film?

The Shadow Knows by Diane Johnson

The anonymous heroine, N, is a young woman who has broken free of a constricting marriage and is struggling to raise four children alone in a housing project. Coming home one day N finds her door hacked with an axe and smeared with what appears to be a mixture of blood and crankcase oil. A few days later a strangled cat is left outside her apartment door. Everyday, she is plagued by mysterious, disturbing phone calls. Playing detective and attempting to figure out who her enemy may be, N's real fears merge with paranoid fantasy in this fascinating story which rivals the best of Henry James's dark, psychological gothic tales.

I would suspect that one will find more references to The Shadow Knows in Kubrick's The Shining besides the axed door…

A Slight Misdirection

What is a misdirection anyway?

STANLEY KUBRICK

By the way, just to show you how interpretation can sometimes be bewildering: A cryptographer went to see the film, and he said, "Oh. I get it. Each letter of HAL's name is one letter ahead of IBM. The H is one letter in front of I, the A is one letter in front of B, and the L is one letter in front of M." Now this is a pure coincidence, because HAL's name is an acronym of heuristic and algorithmic, the two methods of computer programming… an almost inconceivable coincidence. It would have taken a cryptographer to have noticed that.

Please carefully notice what Kubrick says:

• "Interpretations can sometimes be bewildering" [but "bewildering" interpretations are not necessarily wrong]
• It is "an almost inconceivable coincidence" that HAL is one letter ahead of IBM [yes, it is almost not imaginable to be a coincidence, once someone pointed it out]
• "It would have taken a cryptographer to have noticed that" [because nobody else did notice it before – is Kubrick mocking the rest of us here that we are a bit slow?]
  

With regards to misdirections: What is computer programming? Let's ask Wikipedia for help:

Computer programming is a process that leads from an original formulation of a computing problem to executable programs. It involves activities such as analysis, understanding, and generically solving such problems resulting in an algorithm, verification of requirements of the algorithm including its correctness and its resource consumption, implementation (or coding) of the algorithm in a target programming language, testing, debugging, and maintaining the source code, implementation of the build system and management of derived artefacts such as machine code of computer programs.

So computer programming is "a process that results in an algorithm" – at least today. However I suspect it was the same when 2001 was made. There might have been a theory back then that implementing AI might need heuristics – but heuristics is a field in its own right (ask your spam-filter), and one would need to implement the heuristics as algorithms.

So either Kubrick is imprecise with his statements, or he is giving us misdirections – both of which is conceivable, as I want to point out. Make up your own mind about Kubrick's films.

One more thing: Of all the words in the English language, would the word "bewildering" come to your mind for the HAL=IBM interpretation? Or is it not rather bewildering (at least from Kubrick's point of view) that it took an cryptographer to come up with such an interpretation rather simple observation?

Council of Astronautics

In our series of coincidental anagrams we bring you today:

Council of Astronautics

A Iconoclastic Fun Tours

A Fascist Colonic Outrun

A Laconic Futurist's Coon

2001: A Transoceanic Gutsy

One of the anagrams for Astronautics Agency is:

A Transoceanic Gutsy

In that summer of 1964, the "movie outline" document evolved to the size of a short story now called Across The Sea Of Stars. The "sea" metaphor was again used by Kennedy in the aforementioned 1962 speech, when he called space "this new ocean":

We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people. For space science, like nuclear science and all technology, has no conscience of its own. Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man, and only if the United States occupies a position of pre-eminence can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new terrifying theater of war.

Resources for Kubrick's 2001

In this post I collect some of the resources I found worthwhile – by no mean complete, I hope I will expand this a bit over time…

A Transcript of 2001

Sundry: 2001 Transcript

Leonard F. Wheat (Triple Allegory)

 "Kubrick's 2001: A Triple Allegory" by Leonard F. Wheat

Excerpts available here, and here.
Additional material here, here, and here/here.

Todd Alcott (What Does the Protagonist Want?)

Viewers sometimes find 2001 to be opaque, baffling, boring, slow, tedious and pointless. I find it the opposite — it’s fascinating, suspenseful and, when one considers the wealth of narrative packed into its running time, quite fast-paced indeed, almost humorously so. What baffles people about 2001 is not in the nature or purpose of its collective scenes, but in the choices Kubrick made early on in the devising of the screenplay.

Depending on the way you approach narrative, Kubrick has done one of two extraordinary, innovative things in the narrative of 2001. One, my personal belief, is that he’s created a narrative in which the protagonist never appears. The other, a slightly more conventional way of looking at it, is that he’s created a narrative with three protagonists, three protagonists who never meet but are related thematically and whose motivations all revolve around the same item, the maguffin of the piece, the mysterious black monolith.

"Prequel", Part 1, part 2, and part 3. (He has also put other Kubrick films through his treatment.)

Hans Morgenstern (Independent Ethos)

How Stanley Kubrick broke the rules of Classical Hollywood cinema and made a better film with ’2001: A Space Odyssey’: My MA thesis redux

Part 1, part 2, part 3, and part 4.

From the Internet to followers in my hometown Miami, I have long been asked to share my MA thesis that capped off my studies in American Literature at Florida International University, something I titled “the Sublimation Of The Classical Hollywood Cinema Form In 2001: A Space Odyssey.” This was a 76-page paper based on the work of eminent film scholar David Bordwell’s theory of classical Hollywood cinema. I contrasted the seven rules of his theory with criticism both scholarly and popular on the film as well as published interviews with both the film’s director Stanley Kubrick and its co-writer Arthur C. Clarke. The point was to reveal how the director achieved a more profound film— philosophically, spiritually and artistically—  by breaking the rules of classical Hollywood cinema.

2001Italia (blog by Simone Odino)

With The Stroke Of A Pen (ASO123-02)

COPYRIGHT DISCLAIMER AND FAIR USE NOTICE

The 1968 motion-picture 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY STANLEY KUBRICK'S WORK

Warning: Spoilers ahead! This post contains furthermore copyrighted material for the purpose of research, commentary and eduction as per fair use provisions.

SPOILER WARNING

The 1968 motion-picture 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY ­ ­ ­ ­

We have arrived in the second act of 2001: A Space Odyssey – the TMA-1 sequence. It is the 1. setting of the act, the Orion III Spaceplane, with which Dr. Heywood R. Floyd travels to his first stop, the Space Station, while on his way to TMA-1, the second Monolith of the film.

What do we see on the very first cut to the interior of the Spaceplane? We become witness of an assassination – an purely symbolical assassination, of course.

First we see Dr. Heywood R. Floyd sleeping in his seat – some movie can be seen on the TV screen in front of him:

The movie we see shows us cars on what resembles an airfield:

His pen floats into view:

The movie zooms in on a car, which seems to be (what I presume) some futuristic version of the Corvette Sting Ray:

The pen's tip is visibly blood-red:

In the car we see a woman and a man. The woman sits on the left side, the man sits on the right, and they talk with each other:

As the pen floats in front of the TV screen, the man in the car is beheaded, he gets his head cut off – symbolically, of course – by the tip of the pen. This is the stroke that orders an assassination:

We see the pen drifting for a little more:

What's interesting to note is (again) the formula 2+1=3: The pen has 3 buttons: 2 white buttons, and 1 red button (ASO125-01):

We see the Stewardess enter …

… with the famous velcro-boots:

The woman on the TV screen, as we can see, looks vaguely like Jacqueline …

… while he looks vaguely like John Fitzgerald:

The stewardess comes by, grabs the pen and safely tucks it away into Dr. Floyd's pocket – how nice if the personnel shows initiative and acts on their own.

Finally she turns the TV off – all is well again.

The very first close-up shot of a modern human in the film, and what do we witness? An (allegorical) assassination – with the stroke of a pen. We have seen a murder before in the film, but the early humans had to use crude weapons to slay one-another, to club each other to death – now humans are civilized, and their murdering has become civilized as well.

The pen's tip is red, symbolically covered in blood – from the look of it we can presume that this wasn't the first assassination ordered with the pen. It is Dr. Floyd's pen – the pen is Dr. Floyd's murder weapon.

However, Dr. Floyd is sleeping, he knows nothing of what his pen does. In the surface narrative Floyd would have known better than to let his pen float freely around at zero-G. In the hidden allegorical narrative Floyd has not openly ordered an hit, it were Dr. Floyd's underlings that acted on their own – but Dr. Floyd need not be concerned. And after all, (to paraphrase) Dr. Floyd knows his men "do things the way Dr. Floyd wants them done", Dr. Floyd doesn't even have to give orders:

FLOYD

Thanks, Ralph. Oh, by the way, I wanted to say to both of you I think you've done a wonderful job. I appreciate the way you've handled this thing.

HALVORSEN

Well, the way we look at it it's our job to do this thing the way you want it done and we're only too happy to be able to oblige.

Dr. Heywood R. Floyd is in the surface narrative of 2001 the head of the "National Council of Aeronautics (NCA)", and for the purpose of the surface narrative he is a mix between Wernher von Braun and McGeorge Bundy. In the hidden allegorical narrative the agency he heads will carry out an "wet operation" without his overt knowledge – but he does not need to worry, as people will step in on their own initiative – without need for orders – and set things straight: the pen is put out of sight, and the TV is switched off. At the end Floyd will be able to plausibly deny any knowledge.

An personal intermission: Let me make it clear while I think that what Kubrick portrays here is not far from reality (the assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem and the behaviour by Lucien Conein* come to my mind), I however think Kubrick had another specific example in mind, and I think Kubrick might have gotten that specific example wrong.

Kubrick gives us quite striking images at the beginning of the TMA-1 sequence – here the replay:

Zapruder, eat your heart out.

We will see where this leads further in the film – or so I hope.

-- 
* By the way, Lucien Conein has served as Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.'s liaison officer with the coup plotters. Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. in turn was the first to hold in 1960 a speech for a presidential rally at the University of Illinois – in Urbana, Illinois – before JFK spoke there as well during the same year. Amusing coincidence, but likely not relevant, as it is doubtful whether Kubrick could have known the extent of the role of Lucien Conein. 

Aspect Ratio – Monolith – Punch Card

2001: A Space Odyssey

2.21:1

1.913 in × 0.866 in

Monolith

2.25:1

9 × 4

Punch Card

2.27:1

7.375 in × 3.25 in

What is interesting to note:
Clarke gives the dimensions for the Monoliths as 9 × 4 × 1. However the Monoliths depicted in the film is much thinner, I would guess the dimensions of the Monoliths in the film are closer to 9 × 4 × 0.25.

Furthermore:
Initially Clarke wanted to depict these "things" as pyramids, but Kubrick changed them to the Monoliths we see in the film.

And:
Kubrick initially wanted the Monolith to be completely transparent. He even went so far as ordering the production of (at that time) the supposedly largest piece of PMMA (aka "acrylic glass", aka "Plexiglas")*. Keep that in mind when you see Bowman removing HAL's memory modules.

--
* Alas, the test footage of the transparent Monolith didn't turn out the way Kubrick wanted (I guess he could not get rid of the reflections), so he changed the Monolith to the complete black ones we see in the film.

Kubrick: Speaking Through His Characters

So far, I have found two quotes in Kubrick's films that give the viewer an hint what they should do, if they want to decode some of his hidden messages:

HAL

Well it's rather difficult to define. Perhaps I'm just projecting my own concerns about it. I know I've never completely freed myself of the suspicion that there are some extremely odd things about this mission. I'm sure you'll agree there's some truth in what I say.

…

HAL

… I never gave these stories much credence. But particularly in view of some of the other things that have happened I find them difficult to put out of my mind. …

Put the individual "oddities" together. Are they random? Or does an picture emerge?

ULLMAN

… Oh, about the things you saw at the hotel. He told me they've really gone over the place with a fine tooth comb and they didn't find the slightest evidence of anything at all out of the ordinary. …

Take a fine tooth comb, and look for anything out of the ordinary, and you (unlike the police in the deleted ending of The Shining) will surely find something.

I'm sure there are hints in his other films, alas, I am now stuck at 2001 …

Kubrick's 2001: A Triple Allegory – by Leonard F. Wheat

There is one very excellent resource for understanding the film 2001: A Space Odyssey:

Leonard F. Wheat's book "Kubrick's 2001: A Triple Allegory".
(You can read excerpts here, here, and more here, here, and here/here.)

In the book Wheat covers three themes (what Rob Ager calls "hidden narratives") of 2001:

• The Odysseus Allegory
• The Zarathustra Allegory
• The Man-Machine Symbiosis (Allegory)

If you want to understand Kubrick's 2001, you have to read Wheat's book, there is no way around it. Alas, the book has some flaws (which however do not impede on the usefulness of Wheat's work):

• He calls the "The Man-Machine Symbiosis" theme an allegory to Arthur C. Clarke's work, when it is more preciously one of the (not particularly hidden) themes of 2001.
• He doesn't distinguish between rather certain hypotheses (like say, that there is a Odysseus Allegory), plausible but not quiet certain hypotheses (like say, his interpretation of TMA-1), and somewhat more far-fetched hypotheses (like say, his take on the name Heywood R. Floyd) – everything he has gathered is presented on equal footing.

One could probably find other flaws, but all in all it is an excellent work and for those of us who do not have intimate knowledge of Greek mythology (I know, I know, what on oversight…) or Nietsche's work, this book is immensely helpful.

And while I can not prove it (yet), I think Wheat has missed (at least) one more theme in Kubrick's 2001 – more of that later… Until then, don't take his three Allegories as an exhaustive list.

Kubrick and Severed Heads

COPYRIGHT DISCLAIMER AND FAIR USE NOTICE

The 1968 motion-picture 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY The 1980 motion-picture THE SHINING The 1980 documentary MAKING THE SHINING The 1999 motion-picture EYES WIDE SHUT STANLEY KUBRICK'S WORK

Warning: Spoilers ahead! This post contains furthermore copyrighted material for the purpose of research, commentary and eduction as per fair use provisions.

SPOILER WARNING

The 1968 motion-picture 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY The 1980 motion-picture THE SHINING The 1980 documentary MAKING THE SHINING The 1999 motion-picture EYES WIDE SHUT ­ ­ ­ ­

What is it with Stanley Kubrick and severed heads? While George Lucas is contempt with severed hands (mostly, anyway), Stanley on the other hand seems to aim for the full monty.

Dr. Strangelove:

For Strangelove Kubrick contemplated using a "weird, hydra-headed, furry creature" snarling at the camera during the main title card. This is from the original script:

MAIN TITLE CARD - A WEIRD, HYDRA-HEADED, FURRY CREATURE SNARLS AT CAMERA

ROLL-UP TITLE

"NARDAC BLEFESCU PRESENTS"

Dr. Strangelove:
or
How I Learned to Stop Worrying
and
Love the
BOMB

a
MACRO - GALAXY - METEOR PICTURE

2001 – A Space Odyssey:

Then, in 2001 we get several examples. First of all Kubrick contemplated to use a lion's head prop, which would have been mounted atop a tree by Moonwatcher to instill terror upon a rival tribe:

In an early version of the script a lion's head was to be shown mounted atop a tree branch by Moonwatcher and his tribe, to instill terror upon a rival tribe. Kubrick was probably examining an early attempt to render such scene filmable; but whatever the lion's head was to be used for - clearly its phony condition was never improved enough for the director, as it doesn't appear in the movie and Richter doesn't even remember to have seen it - Kubrick turned to real wild beasts for the shooting of the most menacing scenes.

Then as we see in ASO124-02, the very first example we get in the film (not counting the numerous skulls in the "THE DAWN OF MAN" sequence) is, while allegorical, quite striking nonetheless:

With the stroke of a pen.

But there are more:

Three bodies suites, three severed heads helmets – looks a bit like a hydra, doesn't it? (And did you notice that the number Three plays a role in that film?)

A severed yellow head helmet in the de-pressurized pod bay…

… while the yellow body suite is at another place. (How exactly would Dr. Frank Poole get his helmet from the de-pressurized pod bay, if he actually needed?)

And of course later on, we see the memorable Dave Bowman getting severed from his head helmet.

Bowman thankfully manages to get a green helmet – don't worry though, he'll have his red helmet back once he checks in at the Monolith Hotel.

The Shining:

A still from Making The Shining:
Supposedly Kubrick was shooting test-footage to see how the prosthetic head would read on 35mm film. For whatever reason, but the head never made it into the released film.

And of course there is the Saint Winifred reference:

JACK

Mr. Halloran, I'm Jack, and this is my wife, Winifred.

HALLORAN

Glad to meet you, Jack.

HALLORAN shakes hands with WENDY.

HALLORAN

Glad to meet you, Winifred.

WENDY

Nice to meet you.

A few moments later then Hallorann severs the name Winifred:

HALLORAN

Mrs. Torrance, your husband introduced you as Winifred. Now are you a Winnie or a Freddie?

WENDY

I'm a Wendy.

HALLORAN

Oh Wendy. That's nice. That's the prettiest.

(Not to mention the complete mind-boggling question the viewer now has, if he hasn't missed the mumbled "Winifred"s in the Ballroom: Why the heck does Jack call Wendy "Winifred"???? But Dick Hallorann doesn't ask such insightful questions…)

Full Metal Jacket:

Kubrick allegedly shot (however didn’t use) footage of “Animal Mother” (played by Adam Baldwin) using his machete to cut of the head from the dead female Vietcong sniper for the ending of Full Metal Jacket.

Shot for Full Metal Jacket, but not used in released film.

Eyes Wide Shut:

While not a horse head, this is an equally memorable warning.

Other films of his?

I wouldn't be the slightest bit surprised if the theme of severed heads was either used or contemplated for use in his other films as well. However, I haven't seen them all – yet…