A beautiful, confounding picture that had half the audience cheering and the other half snoring. Kubrick clearly means to say something about the dehumanizing effects of technology, but exactly ^Iwhat^R is hard to say. One of those works presumed to be profound by virtue of its incomprehensibility, 2001 is nevertheless an astounding visual experience--one to be enjoyed, if possible, only on the big screen. The film is based on a short story by Arthur C. Clarke. He and Kubrick wrote the screenplay, and Kubrick spent the next three years shooting it, beginning production in December 1965. The story can be synopsized, but can it be understood? For the first half hour or so, we are treated to the sight and grunts of a tribe of apes, circa 4 million years ago. Kubrick uses actors in ape suits plus a few real animals, and they happily cavort as vegetarians in their prehistoric world. Then a large black monolith appears and seems to be calling to the apes. The moment they touch the ebony slab, the peaceful simians become carnivorous, territorial, and begin using the bones of their prey as weapons to keep other apes away from their small domain. A bone is tossed in the air, begins to revolve in slow motion, and the film jumps 4 million years forward to 2001. The rotating bone becomes the rotating spaceship ^IOrion^R. Sylvester is a scientist aboard the spaceship on his way to a lunar station. When he is questioned by Russian colleagues about why they have been banned from the space station despite having an agreement with the US, Sylvester says he has no idea why they are not allowed. He arrives at the station and talks to several Americans. It turns out he knows full well why the Russians have been kept in the dark, but he has been forbidden to speak of it to anyone other than people cleared on the highest classified level. There has been a tremendous discovery, and the US government fears that any leak of the "discovery
