2001: A Slow-Paced Odyssey

While director Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey is commonly regarded as one of cinema’s greatest achievements, this adoration is often focused on four specific aspects of the film: (1) groundbreaking special effects, (2) the use of classical music in lieu of a conventional film score, (3) a philosophical dilemma in which science fiction becomes a question of “what if?” instead of merely “what next?”, and (4) the deliberate, almost painfully slow pacing.

For the sake of this discussion, we’re going to focus on the latter…Kubrick’s pacing. Film critic Roger Ebert attended the film’s premiere in 1968 and recalls the screening:

“To describe that first screening as a disaster would be wrong, for many of those who remained until the end knew they had seen one of the greatest films ever made. But not everyone remained. Rock Hudson stalked down the aisle, complaining, ‘Will someone tell me what the hell this is about?'’ There were many other walkouts, and some restlessness at the film's slow pace (Kubrick immediately cut about 17 minutes, including a pod sequence that essentially repeated another one).”

Needless to say, not everyone is pleased by the pacing of the film when they first see it. Many people think it’s slow and boring, never getting to the point. The truth is, however, the pacing is the point. The slow pacing is what the film is ‘about.’ Ebert describes the purpose of Kubrick’s pacing:

“The genius is not in how much Stanley Kubrick does in 2001: A Space Odyssey, but in how little. This is the work of an artist so sublimely confident that he doesn't include a single shot simply to keep our attention. He reduces each scene to its essence, and leaves it on screen long enough for us to contemplate it, to inhabit it in our imaginations. Alone among science-fiction movies, 2001 is not concerned with thrilling us, but with inspiring our awe.”

And that’s the key. Kubrick is not simply telling us a story; he is allowing us to actually participate in a story. Scratch that. More than a story. A cosmic event. And as we all know, when you participate in anything - a family picnic, a volleyball game, Thanksgiving dinner - there's always a lot of waiting between climatic happenings. Most of life is waiting, in fact, but that’s what makes the happenings so interesting – we’ve been anticipating them, waiting for them to occur. And when they finally do, we feel what Aristotle called a 'catharsis'; we have an emotional reaction to the events. We feel 'fulfilled'.

There’s no denying that Star Wars, The Matrix, or Terminator 2 – great films all – are more action packed and thrilling sci-fi adventures than 2001. And there’s no denying that each of those films contain interesting philosophical dilemmas: What makes a hero? How credible is our perception of reality? How are we contributing to our own destruction? But none of them – in fact, probably no science fiction film before or since – has cut to the core of and debated mankind’s central dilemma more thoroughly: “Who are we, and why are we here?”

And that is a question one simply cannot rush.

So Kubrick’s pacing of 2001 is slow and deliberate. And it’s not a great film despite its slow pacing; it’s a great film because of its slow pacing.

Here are two questions for you to discuss: (1) In what specific moments of the film is Kubrick’s slow pacing particularly effective, and why? (2) What other films can you think of that use similarly slow and deliberate pacing for similar dramatic effect?