 | 2001: A Space Odyssey is an allegory, concerning what drives and influences man and the very definition of "man." The film opens with the grandeur of Richard Strauss’ tone poem, <<Also Sprach Zarathustra>>, a theme that is played at other key moments in the film. The Moon, the Earth, and the Sun are in alignment. The story that follows is, therefore, of cosmic importance. The apes from whom man evolved live on the plains of a wasteland. They are at the level of the other animals, living amongst them, competing with them for food, and at the mercy of them and of nature. The apes are not in control. One morning, the apes awake to find a black monolith in the middle of their oasis. It is perfectly shaped and purposeful-looking, standing straight up, pointing towards the heavens. At first, the apes are frightened and scream and madly gesture towards the monolith. But one ape ventures closer to the monolith and touches it. The other apes do the same. The next shot is of the monolith from below, with the Moon and the Sun in alignment - another event of cosmic importance. The ape that first touched the monolith quickly learns to use the bone of a dead animal as a tool. Enthralled at his discovery, he smashes the rest of the bones with his tool, and when he strikes the skull, the shot cuts to a tapir struck dead - the victim of the ape’s new tool. The other apes adopt the tool: the forerunner of man has used his mind - his capability for rational thought - to improve his situation greatly. He no longer must scavenge for food, for he can more easily hunt it. The apes have abundant food and a method for defending themselves. A brawl occurs between two groups of apes, and the ape that first touched the monolith uses the tool to kill one of his enemies. He is in control. He throws the bone into the air, and the shot cuts to an orbiting nuclear weapons platform millions of years into the future. The bone and the satellite serve the same purpose - they are tools - but man has advanced considerably. (This famous cut deserves a little explanation, but feel free to skip to the next paragraph, as the following is a little esoteric: specifically, the cut is a cut on form, a subcategory of the match cut. It is also a perfect example of Sergei Eisenstein's application of the Hegelian Dialectic to editing: the shot of the bone is the thesis, the following shot of the satellite the antithesis, and the thought produced in the mind of the viewer the synthesis. Rarely has such a cut on form been used as effectively as it is here.)
Kubrick shows the majesty of spaceflight in the next scenes, as a Pan Am shuttle heads to Space Station Five, accompanied by <<An der Schonen Blauen Donau>> of Johann Strauss. The sole passenger is Heywood Floyd, a government official en route to the Moon. Once there, he and several scientists go to see the monolith. Floyd's companions act as the apes did though not as visibly frightened. Floyd, on the other hand, approaches the monolith and touches it. A piercing noise comes from the monolith, while the shot is again of the monolith from below, this time with the Earth and the Sun in alignment. Another important event, or phase, in the development of man. The radio emission from the monolith was directed at Jupiter, and just eighteen months later, man is on his way there. As a proto-human, he was inspired by the monolith, and now as a space-farer, he is influenced to venture further into space and to extend his reach. The monolith is the physical manifestation of that which drives and inspires man - his will and his reasoning mind, his most important tool.
The next section of the film concerns the Jupiter Mission and the spacecraft Discovery, another tool which has direct, visual connections to the bone: it is white and slender and even resembles vertebrae. The human contingent of the mission is Dave Bowman and Frank Poole, with three members of a Survey Team in suspended animation. The sentient computer that oversees the mission is HAL 9000, who states that the HAL series of computers has never made a computational error. HAL, though, is just another tool, but one to which man has relinquished his control. When HAL makes a mistake - for a computer is only as infallible as its creators - Dave Bowman and Frank Poole plan to disconnect it, effectively terminating its life. HAL defends itself, however, just as man would. There is an important comparison made between HAL and Dave Bowman: both make mistakes (HAL and the AE35 unit and Dave Bowman’s forgetting his space helmet before performing an EVA), but only one of them, Dave Bowman, survives. When he is trapped outside the Discovery without a space helmet, and HAL will not let him enter, Bowman reasons a way inside: he risks death in the vacuum of space by blowing the door off his space pod and entering through the Discovery's emergency airlock. Bowman then disconnects the murderous HAL.
Upon reaching Jupiter, Bowman encounters another monolith, which is shown in alignment with Jupiter, its moons, and the Sun. Another event of cosmic importance is about to occur. Bowman heads out in a space pod towards the monolith. He is unafraid, just as Heywood Floyd and the ape were. The monolith takes Dave Bowman “beyond the infinite,” a meaningless phrase, although it serves to imply the otherworldliness that awaits the space-farer and the audience.
Besides the title, there is another important allusion to The Odyssey of Homer, in which the epic hero, Odusseus, uses his cunning mind to survive and reach home. Dave Bowman’s surname is a direct allusion to a scene in The Odyssey and to an attribute of its protagonist: Odusseus bests the suitors at an archery contest, and, numerous times, Homer states that Odusseus “hits the mark,” a verb that originally applied only to archery.
After his incredible journey through bizarre, iridescent realms, Bowman appears in an unsettling recreation of “home,” which could be an allusion to the similar setting of Jean-Paul Sartre's play <<Huis Clos>>. Bowman sees himself age rapidly, and he even makes one more human mistake, viz. knocking a glass to the floor while eating. Finally, he lies in bed as an elderly man. Just as Heywood Floyd and the ape did, Bowman extends his arm towards the monolith, which stands like an old friend at the foot of the bed. Bowman transforms into a foetus, and accompanied by the stirring <<Also Sprach Zarathustra>>, the changed Bowman - the first member of a new phase of man - appears near Earth. Like Odusseus, he returns home.
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