Thoughts to Keep: September 2024

Such a bold and inventive style. Godard's use of jump-cuts really stands out with this film in my opinion, especially with how he uses them in dialogue scenes. It makes me feel like I'm cutting through bits and pieces of the conversation, much more from a point of observation than immersion. The character of Michel too brings a lot of personality into the film with how he expresses his passions and distastes, you can tell that he cares about what he observes despite his delinquency. The most memorable scene to me is the one with Michel in Patricia's apartment. There's a really nice sense of intimate laziness in how they lie in bed crossed over each other as Michel caresses Patricia while they talk and smoke a cigarette. The fact that the scene goes on for so long too makes it feel like you're really with these characters in this one moment. Godard could have easily cut down the dialogue or the more repetitive parts of the scene but the choice to show it's whole entirety sells Michel and Patricia's relationship precisely because of that intimate laziness mentioned before. Overall it's very charming and feels fresh with how bold Godard is with his shot and editing choices.

Wow. That's how you start a movie. The sweeping music rising up as the moon, earth, and sun all rise too really sets the atmosphere for the strange, dreamlike setting within the film. I love how the reactions to all three sightings of the Monolith are mirrored between each of the stories. The hesitation, the slow walk in, finally touching it, all of these things are shared showing how even as technology advances, we will always be human. The fact that Kubrick broke the movie into multiple different stories each shows society coming closer to the Monolith, up to the final one where Dave encounters the Monolith from it's origin. It's as if the Monolith is calling to humanity, asking for us to find it to get to the next step. As technology improves, we can make technology faster. But what happens when technology becomes so good it ends up moving faster than what we can do as humans?

The first story with early man introduces us to when humanity started. The use of bones as weapons is the most primal form of technology and it really adds to the totality of how far we have come since then, enough to explore beyond our own planet. The match cut of course signifies this best, but the triumphant tone from the very beginning being used again as the chimp discovers the first tool really helps sell it too. I also like how in almost every instance of the monolith appearing it has that same extreme upshot that mirrors the very beginning of the film as well. The monolith was there in the beginning and it will be there in the end, much like God.

When the match cut happens into the next encounter with the monolith, Kubrick really establishes the setting of space. I love how he doesn't just sell space because of the props or the lighting, or even the scale, but also with the way it's shot and edited. The pacing is slow, methodical, hypnotizing, much like how it would feel in space with zero gravity and no real sense of depth or time. Shots will be framed very symmetrically and dialogue scenes will continue through with very minimal coverage and cutting. In contrast however, the Waltz of the Flowers provides a great contrast as the soundtrack for these scenes. It mirrors that same triumphant theme from the overture but it's also a bit more playful and bombastic, almost as if it's bragging about how far we've come. However, once we encounter the monolith again things shift, and we as the audience start realizing just how prominent this character is throughout.

With the third story it's interesting because the monolith doesn't appear, but in place there's Hal 9000. Both have that rectangular shape that make them distinct throughout the whole film, but Hal is much more personalized and directly talks to the crew on the Jupiter mission. The thought of a computer being able to act like a human but still have that cold, calculating brain is really prominent here with how Hal talks and the way he always watches and observes the crew. There's a real silent horror aspect to how this story is treated because of these character aspects. Seeing shots directly within Hal's point of view indicates to us that he's watching and observing, and at any moment where there's a mistake he can catch it. This feeling of surveillance and never being completely safe peaks in the scene before the intermission when Dave and his friend discuss how they could get rid of Hal. The way that their conversation is shot within the pod fully until they mention how Hal could hear, and the punch-in to Hal as we start to see it shot from his POV instead sets in this dread that tells the audience "they are not safe."

I think that existential dread is what made this part of the story so memorable to so many audiences. It must have been a scary but also technologically booming when the movie was made, we were just about to land on the moon and it truly raised the bar on what we humans could achieve. Because of those feelings I can see how many people would find the idea of the irony in technology outsmarting the humans who made them. Again, because of Kubrick's very graphic and stiff, symmetrical style of shooting it further heightens the control and uneasiness that Hal brings to the climax of this story. The use of color too makes the scene where Dave deletes Hal insanely strong, with intense red and hints of green filling up the whole screen. We are completely within Hal's brain. Furthermore, the silence of the scene as Dave unplugs Hal's memory makes it even more haunting as Hal slowly loses his mind. As Dave slowly kills Hal, I start to feel more empathy for him, because in his own way he was a child too and it makes me wonder how easily humans try to connect with each other because our way of living depends so much on our relationships.

The final story really ramps it up. We return back to where we started from at the very beginning, back to where the monolith came from. The surreality of this film reaches it's peak here with experimental flashes of patterns and colors to show Dave entering the world of the Monolith. When he finally lands he travels through time of all the years he lives within Jupiter until he finally reaches the end only to see the Monolith one last time. He hesitates, he reaches out, and falls into the next stage of humanity.