Thursday, February 17, 2011

2001 and the Pledge, the Turn and the Prestige

Recently I popped my Blu-Ray copy of 2001 for a quick review because something has been in the back of my mind for quite a while. A very long time ago I read an interview with Stanly Kubrick which discussed making film as a process of assembling scenes. The scenes are of course parts of the story. As I recall the goal was six to nine major scenes made the skeleton of movie. Additional scenes were for pacing or clarification and seldom for plot or character development.

This is the simplest explanation about the structure of 2001. A number of people believe it is an unstructured and plot less experience. I am only addressing the structure in this post and contend that it is one of the most highly structured films ever made. The movie consists of four titled segments. In reality, the fourth segment is just a continuation of the third segment. Each of the segments has three parts.

I'll borrow a term from vaudeville magic (and the wonderful film, The Prestige) and label the three parts of each segment as the pledge, the turn, and the prestige. In a magician's illusion, the pledge is the presentation of the trick about to be performed. The turn is the actual performance of the trick. The prestige is the reward such as applause the magician receives.

The "Dawn of Man" segment clearly has three parts. One group of early man displacing another at the watering hole is the pledge. The displaced ones are enhanced by the arrival of the monolith in the turn. The displaced one regain the watering hole with the aid of the superior technology makes the prestige.

The discussion with the Russians about the mystery on the moon (the Pledge), the discovery of the radio signal in the monolith (the Turn) and the introduction of the Jupiter mission (the Pledge) all form the next triptych. I blurred the line between segments but that is the art of film making. It may appear that there is no immediate connection between the moon scenes and the first shot of the spaceship Discovery but one is the direct result of the sum of what was before.

The final segment is not so obvious until the end. It is technology vs humans in that tools or equals. Hal is not going to appreciate the encounter at the end so the pledge and the turn are not so simply getting rid of Hal's higher functions. The prestige is the monolith and the next level of alien anointment.

That's it. In a nutshell aliens created the intelligent life on earth and then pointed the more adventurous ones out to Jupiter to pick up the next step. The astronaut becomes the super-baby in the last scene.