2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Directed by Stanley Kubrick. Starring Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, and Douglas Rain.

All fans of this film know how amazing it is, and how audacious it remains even today. Who other than Stanley Kubrick would have the sand to tackle a subject as huge as the rise of mankind? To say nothing of the way he completely bypasses the present tense outright, by cutting from the discovery of technology by apes to the titular year, which for all its imperfect details (for example, Kubrick's prediction that Pan Am would still be flying proved incorrect) for the most part still has yet to come to fruition. Back in 1968, the space race had heated up, but since then has cooled considerably, and it's due to this fact that we still don't have colonies on the moon, commercial space transport, and so on. This tendency for striving, which has fallen by the wayside somewhat in the intervening years, is at the center of 2001. The film is mind-bending in its presentation of big ideas, not the least of which is the somewhat frightening and unpopular notion that modern-day man is but one rung on the evolutionary ladder, and that we will one day evolve beyond this stage into something greater (the film's psychedelic coda resembles nothing so much as the prenatal progression of the new species). Yet the most enduring reason for the film's immortality is Kubrick's commanding direction. The film's detractors tend to call the style lugubrious, but a hugely ambitious narrative like this one must be told in a manner that does it justice, and Kubrick's masterstroke was to focus not on longwinded discussions of the film's ideas, but to illustrate them and let the audience glean them from viewing the film. It's entirely possible to appreciate the film without consciously acknowledging the ideas it contains, becoming enveloped in the intoxicating duet of image and sound that Kubrick presents. Few films so intoxicatingly mingle beautiful visuals with a soundtrack that complements them so well- a recent example is WAKING LIFE, in which the animation sings and the words become the music. Really, this is such an amazing film that it's a strong contender for the greatest ever made, and I was toying for a while with the idea of putting it at the top of the list, although sentiment ultimately won the day...