SFX Cinema: Visual Poetry

***Spoilers Ahead***

I remember two years ago, excitedly sitting down with a university friend to show him 2001: A Space Odyssey for the first time ever. He had never seen Stanley Kubrick’s science fiction masterpiece before and I was thrilled at being the first person to show him. I don’t know why, but there’s something so magical about introducing someone to a film which you love and cherish. It’s almost as though you can feel their emotions toward that feature; like you are viewing it for the first time yourself.

During the opening moments of the film – where the sun rises behind the moon whilst Alzo Spak Zarathustra blasts into the viewer’s eardrums – I felt a rush of adrenaline. I was hoping that my friend was also feeling this exact same rush. Every time I see this opening shot, my heart races at a thousand miles per second. At that moment, I was convinced that my fellow companion was also experiencing that same jolt of euphoric wonder.

As the feature moved forward, my friend watched quietly. He sat through the dawn of man sequence, the shuttle docking scene and the introduction to David, Frank & Hal 9000. Then – around half way through the film’s runtime – my friend turned to me with a look of sheer annoyance and asked “what the hell is this crap?”

My heart sank like a brick in the ocean. Suddenly I felt a wave of embarrassment flood throughout my body. My passion and love for the film instantly drained from my existence. In the end, he turned the DVD off and decided that it would be better to watch some crappy reality television programme on channel 4 instead.

 The next day, I decided to ask my friend why he disliked the film so much.

“It was a pretentious pile of toss with zero story” was his cold and confident response.

A few months later, I decided to ask a few other friends of mine if they agreed with such an opinion. To my surprise, a lot of them did, saying that 2001: A Space Odyssey was a bloated, overrated, artsy fartsy flick with no story and no theme. Even several of my fellow film students agreed with such claims.

It seems that the magic of this film has faded with time. Numerous people today don’t seem to see the film for the masterpiece that I believe it is. However, I’m convinced that this film connects with its viewers in a totally fascinating way that can be found so frequently in cinema; in the sense that it ignites emotions on a purely visual level.

The opening sequence, the transition from alpha male’s club to 21^st century spaceship, the revelation of the moon’s monolith, Dave’s rapid aging sequence and the ending’s star child sequence moves me in ways which are too beautiful to describe with words.

The film, to me, is a visual piece of poetry. It tells the story of the evolution of mankind. It begins with our ancestors, moves on to our present physical form and ends with us moving up into the next stages of life. The whole film is an emotional journey from the dawn to the evolution of our race.

Just because the film doesn’t have a beginning, middle and an end in the traditional screenplay sense, does not mean that it hasn’t got a story. It does have a narrative; a narrative that is instead told through the art of visual filmmaking in its purest form.

I believe it was the film critic Rodger Ebert who said that this film is a philosophical journey told through the art of visuals (I am paraphrasing here, so I apologise about the inaccuracy of this statement).

2001: A Space Odyssey is not the only film that visually moves its audience. There have been numerous other features in recent years which have had a similar effect on me; even films with more traditional narratives have still had the ability to move my emotions due to their aesthetic achievements. The shot of Jack painting Rose in Titanic, the descent of the monstrous ship over Manhatten in Independence Day, the snakelike spacecraft in Alien, Elliot’s silhouetted bicycle flying in front of a silver moon in E.T, the folding up of the Paris skyline in Inception and the opening shot of 2019 Los Angeles in Blade Runner are all visual sequences which have moved me on a purely aesthetic level.

All of the films mentioned above have managed to achieve at least some sort of emotional reaction inside me as a result of the work that was put into their visual effects.

Now of course not all visual-heavy films are great (just watch a Zack Snyder or Michael Bay film to see how horrendous a special effects feature can get), however there are still many that are.

Sadly many of my friends are sticking firmly to their negative opinion’s toward Space Odyssey; however I must respectfully disagree. I think the film is a beautiful and romantic piece of optical art. The passion and labour which was put into bringing this feature alive ignites my emotions in similar ways to that of a piece of music, literature and/or painting.

2001: A Space Odyssey is a special effects piece which shows that visual poetry does exist within cinema and that it can be just as emotionally empowering and engaging as any other art form.