0 Page 8- The Michigan Daily -Thursday, February 8, 1990 2001: A spaced-out BY TONY SILBER How can I enjoy a motion picture that makes me feel like an idiot? That is the question I have asked myself after each time I have seen the legendary 2001: A Space Odyssey. I feel like I'm part of a miniscule minority, but I have to say it: I hate this film. Critics have celebrated it as a landmark since its release in 1968 and I can't understand why. Do I need to take a course on Stanley Kubrick before viewing this picture or do I need to read the Arthur C. Clarke novel? I wanted to like this "classic," but I just don't get it. As far as appearances go, 2001 is breathtaking. The cinematography, special effects, and that huge 70mm feel are riveting. The opening seg- ment of the film, on ancient Earth, portrays a lovely, simple world shrouded in cloudless sunsets. The scenes on the moon and in space are equally magnificent and countered with the awesome musical selections by Richard Strauss, Johann Strauss, and Aram Khachaturian. This film looks great, but that's where my "love" of this odyssey ends. Every film tells a story. Motion pictures have traditionally been pop- ular because of their amazing capac- ity to tell stories with pictures. But what is the story in 2001? Perhaps only Kubrick (the director, producer, and writer) knows for sure. The film has four distinct segments: "The Dawn of Man," the mission of Dr. Floyd, the Jupiter mission and HAL, and the final "Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite." All four of these "chapters" could be films in themselves as they are thematically very different from one another. "The Dawn of Man" tells the story of evolution of humanity on Earth several million years ago. One tribe of apes controls a watering hole and another tribe challenges for control of it, but they are driven off. Soon after, the exiled band encounters a tall, black monolith. They are, at first, frightened as they encircle the mysterious object, but gradually move in closer and touch it. This is a mesmerizing episode in the picture as these apes, after their enounter with the monolith, gain the ability to walk upright and grasp objects which can be used as weapons. They return to the watering hole and conquer the "unevolved" apes. The film then transports us into space in the year 2001 to the melodic tones of "The Blue Danube." Dr. Floyd and his team of scientists have dug up an object on the moon that they believe has been buried there for four million years. The object is a monolith, exactly like the one our simian friends just encountered. Kubrick doesn't waste this opportunity to commercialize the space environment with a Howard Johnson's Earthlight Room, a Hilton space station, Whirpool meal machines, and IBM spacesuits. This segment, like the first, ends without a real conclusion. The Jupiter Mission is the next seemingly unrelated piece in this in- creasingly confusing intergalactic puzzle. Frank Poole and Dave Bow- man are two astronauts who are en route to Jupiter on a historic flight when their on-board computer, HAL, >ddity goes berserk, killing Poole and three fellow astronauts who are in hiber- nated sleep, and threatening the mis- sion. This begins the compelling man vs. machine segment of 2001 as Kubrick seems to be issuing a warning to us not to let our ma- chines become too sophisticated. When threatened, machines will react the same as people, as evidenced when HAL tells Bowman, "I know that Frank and you were planning to disconnect me and I'm afraid that's something I can't allow to happen." The last half hour of 2001 goes off the deep end. There is no dia- logue, only Dave's journey into the interior of Jupiter and what he dis- covers there. This sequence is visu- ally unbelievable; it is very difficult to discern exactly what is happening here and why. It is even more diffi- cult to figure out what the final chapter of this mammoth film has to do with the other very different ones. There is no answer, I fear, except in Kubrick's and/or Clarke's fantastic imagination. Granted, the film is far ahead of its time, but does that jus- tify it as a "great" motion picture when it is impossible to grasp any semblance of meaning or purpose? 2001 is a "cool" film to watch - there's no question about that - but it is bound to leave many scratching their heads, wondering. Sure, there are a million theories for what the space baby symbolizes or how HAL represents the future domination of computers in our lives, but no one really knows what's going on here. I feel like lifting my arms in frustra- tion and exclaiming, "Okay, Stan- ley, you win. I'm an idiot." How can I like a film that makes me feel like that? 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY is playing at the Michigan Theater tonight at 7 p.m. and Sunday through next Friday. Author See rides on Golden Days BY CAROLYN PAJOR CAROLYN See has no reason not to be effusive: Alice Adams proclaimed her latest novel, Golden Days, was "ferociously funny and furiously brave," a sentiment echoed by many reviewers. See says, "I'm doing exactly what I want to do; it's so wonderful, I'm so lucky." She is modest, too. It is not likely that fortunate circumstance is the only factor that enables See to be a novelist, a weekly book reviewer for the Los Angeles Times and an adjunct professor at UCLA. See is a woman of substance and ideas with a definite opinion on judging fiction. She says, "I don't apply high flown literary standards to judge the latest Jack Higgins novel. I don't get out of shape that it's not 'literature."' These are curious words for a woman who received her Ph.D. in American Literature, but See says that "critics who only mess with literature miss the fun because a lot of the best books don't come under that title." Unsurprisingly, See has written three novels with two coauthors under the pen name Monica Highland, taken from the corner of Santa Monica Blvd and Highland Avenue in LA. See calls the books "airplane literature for smart people" and says they have "beautiful men and women who lead adventurous lives, are never at a loss for words, have orgasms at the same time and always have their shoes polished." But there is thought behind the gloss, as See explains that the novels' central ideas revolve around happiness within the limits of the human condition. "If there is happiness, what is it made of?" she asks. "I take the suffering out of interesting lives.and see what will happen. My characters have fun and a prudent amount of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll without the damage." See says her first two novels (The Rest is Done With Mirrors and Mothers, Daughters) have fallen under the rubric of women's literature. "Women would come up to me and say my novel changed their lives," she says. She is pleased that this isn't so with Golden Days, a novel that "looks at the universe and how it works." She presents the world with a terrible tragedy - a nuclear attack - and shows that it might not be all it seems. See says she wants the widest audience possible, simply because "it is more fun." And if See would actually want to be anyone else, she says she would be "Peter Jennings, reporting from Mongolia. I want to see what's going on in the larger world, have the adventure of travelling and not being bogged down in your own sorrows." Her advice for young writers is clear: "1000 words a day, 5 days a week, a charming note to an editor for the rest of your life. Be sure you're having a good time and writing stuff you're crazy about and you can't miss. You're a writer, exactly the person you want to be." There is no doubt that Carolyn See is doing exactly that. CAROLYN SEE will be reading from Making History at Rackham Amphitheatre at 5 p.m. today. 11 0 JOSTENS GOLD RING SALE IS COMING! I DON'T BE UNINFORMED! READ THE DAILYI DAILY! I I SPY NITE Order your college ring NOW. Stop by and see a Jostens representative, Wednesday, Feb. 7 thru Friday, Feb. 9, 11:00a.m. to 4:00p.m., to select from a complete line of gold rings. A $20.00 deposit is required. YEARS 56 R549 E. University (at East U and South U) Ann Arbor, Ml 662-3201 MORE THAN A BOOKSTORE I Jl I a I~lai': Af 'r AO~g 0 6 O ELEMENTS Continued from page 7 order that exists within chaos. The music in Vital Elements creates various moods integral to the communication of ideas. The ac- companiment presents different tones and speeds of electronic music and acoustic piano, as well as sounds imitating actual environmental oc- A d in Auditions for Maria Irene Fornes' The Conduct of Life: Friday, 5-6:30 p.m. and Saturday, 12-3 p.m. Copies of the script available in room 2550 Frieze. Prepare short monologue if possible. Audition sign up in Green room, Frieze. For more info call Ann at 663-3089. * curences. Sparling says the choreog- raphers intend Vital Elements to in- stigate thought and emotions, but, he adds, "it is not political or propa- ganda, but simply making art speak for the times." VITAL ELEMENTS takes place tonight, tomorrow and Saturday at 8 p.m., Sunday at 2 p.m. at the Power Center. 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