2001: A Space Odyssey as a Work of Experimental Cinema: Focused on Its Convergence of Technical Innovations and Aesthetic Challenges

Abstract

Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film titled 2001: A Space Odyssey has generally been considered as a monumental piece of mainstream epic science-fiction. However, this film can be evaluated as having properties of experimental cinema by boldly trying technical innovation and aesthetic experiment in various aspects. From the filmmaker’s process to filmic structure, technical innovations, screening method, mise-en-scene, cinematic style and its (auto-)reflexivity, 2001: A Space Odyssey is highly experimental. We will attempt to separate out aspects of 2001: A Space Odyssey that derive explicitly from traditions in experimental cinema, whether adopting those traditions or innovating within them, by identifying the film’s experimental strategies and relating them to other experimental films that came before and after. This will show that the purely formal characteristics of the film’s conception carry meanings on their own relating to Kubrick’s personal expression, ideas about cinema and philosophy that go beyond the scope of the film’s narrative.