Music, Structure and Metaphor in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey

By David W. Patterson

When asked to explain the inner meaning of his predominantly nonverbal film, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Stanley Kubrick once deflected:

How much would we appreciate La Gioconda today if Leonardo had written at the bottom of the canvas: "This lady is smiling slightly because she has rotten teeth"or "because she's hiding a secret from her lover"? It would shut off the viewer's appreciation and shackle him to a "reality" other than his own. I don't want that to happen to 2001.

On other occasions, the director described just as abstrusely the film's ultimate effect as that of a "mythological documentary" or a "controlled dream." Indeed, in the history of mainstream cinema, 2001: A Space Odyssey stands in many minds as the quintessence of the filmic Rorschach.