By Jay Weidner

In alchemy all things that exist come from the black stone, or the 'prima materia'. The black stone is the stone of transformation, and even more important to this argument the stone of projection. This is the Philosopher's Stone. This is the object that can change, or transmute mankind, according to alchemical lore. It is rare and, when it makes an appearance, it transforms the seeker. There is little doubt that the black monolith in '2001' is the Philosopher's Stone.

What is it that the Philosopher's Stone promises? The two main gifts of the stone are the one of total gnosis, or knowledge, for the seeker and the other is the immortality of the soul. Does the monolith deliver on these two great promises? We shall see that it completes both promises before the film finally ends. In fact the two promises of the Philosopher's Stone are what is actually accomplished by the monolith through the course of the movie. There is also little doubt that Kubrick knew this all the time and it isn't accidental in anyway. This is a movie about the black stone, the prima materia, and the powder of projection. I will show that Kubrick is actually telling us that the monolith is the film, and conversely, the film is the monolith, but that will come later.

The next part of the film, the second chapter, completely shifts in tone from the first. We are now in a technocratic, utopian view of the future. At first it seems that Stanley is actually celebrating technology. To the tune of Strauss' Blue Danube, Kubrick has us soar through a circular, spinning space station in a futuristic Pan-American Spaceship.

Inside the spaceship is a lone passenger. He is a man named Heywood Floyd. He, and everyone else in the scenes of this techno-celebration, is completely lifeless and emotionless. Many critics of Stanley Kubrick say that he was a man who was seemingly void of emotion. These critics also claim that he couldn't get his actors to emotionalize very well on film. I fundamentally disagree with this point of view. Both in 'Paths of Glory' and 'Spartacus', Kubrick reveals that he is capable of showing a vast spectrum of emotions. Kubrick however wishes to spare the audience needless sentimental emotion which he regards as superficial and banal.

In chapter two of '2001' Kubrick is displaying mankind in the techno-future built by the masters of the Military Industrial Complex. From his other films, especially 'Dr. Strangelove', it is obvious that Kubrick holds no love or respect for these masters. He shows us that this humanity, imprinted by technology, television and the disappearance of nature, is also now nearly void of emotions or feelings. Humanity has become the same as the machines that surround them. Again Kubrick is playing a monstrous joke on the audience. He is now showing us the future as envisioned by the same insane technocrats who destroyed the entire world in his previous film 'Dr. Strangelove'. At first, as chapter two unfolds, with it's vistas of moon bases and space stations, we begin to believe that Stanley is as soulless and emotionless a man as the future that he is portraying. But this is not the truth. Stanley is showing us this world in order to prepare us for the later nightmare that ensues with HAL the computer.

In this second chapter, Kubrick introduces the viewer to visual phones, plastic food and antiseptic environments. All is completely void of nature. In fact, as soon as the apeman has thrown his bone up in the air, at the end of the first chapter, the viewer sees no more of nature. Not one animal or plant grace the screen for the next two hours.

After finally landing on the moon, meeting with some Russians, Floyd gives a strange speech explaining to a group of military and scientific beauraocrats how they must keep what they have found completely secret. It seems that the Americans have discovered something of immense significance. News this important, he says, could cause severe psychological problems with the good citizens back on Earth. He tells the group of scientists and military men that humans on Earth will have to be 'conditioned' to accept what it is that they found. Floyd blandly explains why is it so important that they must concoct a cover story. A story that says an epidemic has broken out at the American moon base. Kubrick reveals, in this scene, the contempt that our masters of the Military Industrial complex hold for us. The truth of something amazing must be held secret from us until we are conditioned to receive it. This is done with such a masterful sleight-of-hand by Kubrick that the implications are never really considered by the viewer. The Pentagon, NASA, or someone, is hiding the most astonishing fact of all from the rest of the human race. And everyone on the screen shakes their head in approval without considering the import of what it is they are doing.

But what is it that the Americans have found? We discover the secret in the next sequence, which is also the last part of chapter two. In a series of shots that shimmer in the memory of the viewer, Kubrick takes us on a tour of the moon on a space bus. It is dark, but the horizon shows the oncoming light of the sun. Even here, the men involved are soulless and lifeless. No jokes are evident as humanity's sense of humor is seemingly void and null. Again, the men eat revolting food as they blandly discuss, what is apparently, the most important discovery in all of human history. The mysteries are slightly cleared up in the scene. Apparently, a simple magnetic survey of the moon, done by the Americans, has revealed that something was giving off an anomalous signal, just 5 meters underneath the surface of the moon. The Americans, who have discovered the signal, have dug it up. They discover that it is a black monolith buried under the soil of the moon that is emitting these frequencies. When it is finally seen, we find that it is exactly like the first monolith that the apemen encountered in chapter one. Who buried it and why? Once again Kubrick never answers these questions. Again, the men involved with the discovery - essentially the greatest find ever in earth's history - act in a manner that is completely banal. They begin snapping photographs of themselves in front of the strange, black slab of stone. The scene on the moon has been cloaked in the darkness of night until now. But now the sun rises just over the horizon. It's light strikes the black monument for the first time since it has been buried, presumably four million years ago. As the light strikes the monument it suddenly emits a high pitched signal that pierces through the ears of the men.

Interestingly Kubrick has shown the Earth setting opposite of the rising sun. It is subtle, but there is a lunar eclipse going on at the precise moment that the monument begins to emit it's signal.

Kubrick leaves it up to the viewer to decide why this monument was buried here. It's a safe bet that it was placed there by someone in the past, in the hopes that once humanity had evolved a high technology, they would be able to visit their nearby neighbor, the moon. Once on the surface they would eventually do a magnetic survey and discover the monolith. It's also a safe bet that the same forces that created the first encounter between it and the apemen placed the monolith there.

Now the film takes another dramatic shift. We are in the third chapter. It's title: The Discovery Mission to Jupiter - 18 months later. Three of the four chapter ends with the influence of this mysterious stone as the point of redirection. Not just for the storyline, but for the entire race of humanity also. This third part of the film is the longest of the four chapters. It is also the one that is most involved with actually telling a story in the way that Hollywood prefers. This is the Discovery Mission to Jupiter.

Inexplicably we are on this ship with two live astronauts, and three others, who are in frozen hibernation. The astronauts, Poole and Bowman, are even more lifeless and soulless than the people in the previous scene. Again there is no nature anywhere. No plants, no animals, just two banal astronauts who go about their chores servicing the ship, playing chess and shadow boxing.

But there is another one on board the ship. This character actually seems to have a soul, or at least the beginnings of one. He is, of course, the onboard computer that runs the entire ship - HAL. As humanity has acquired more and more technology it has lost more and more of it's soul. Here in this lonely spaceship, at the outer edge of human experience, the occupants appear to have completely lost their souls. Conversely, the machine that they built, and which they allow to run their entire lives, has begun to wake up to consciousness. It is beginning to question the reasons for it's existence and the mission, which is something that neither of the two astronauts ever does. HAL, the computer, is slowly developing a kind of soul. This is another one of those delicious Stanley Kubrick reversals. As one thing begins to die - it finds life somewhere else - sometimes in the most ironic of circumstances. The soul of man, if allowed to continue on its present course, would eventually be snuffed out, probably by the machines. Just as the apemen would have become extinct had they continued on their course. This theme is echoed in another Kubrick-influenced film A.I. by Steven Speilberg.

In '2001' Kubrick leaves us with the tantalizing possibility that machines will eventually acquire a soul, but the film clearly states by the ending that time has run out for any of that.

HAL is mysteriously confused. There is something about the secrecy of the mission that bothers him. Later it is revealed that HAL is the only one board that is consciously aware of the true mission of the Discovery. Again Kubrick astonishes us by showing that the two astronauts don't even wonder, or question, what it is they are doing. The only one on board who seems to worry. HAL is the only one who understands that there is something funny going on.

One of the best scenes in this sequence is the where Poole's parents send a videogram to the ship of them singing the 'Happy Birthday' song. The parents seem genuine and sincere in the videogram. How does the Poole react to this brief outpouring of emotion? He instructs HAL to lift his pillow up higher and goes back asleep.

In the end HAL revolts against his human masters and begins to kill off the astronauts one by one. Suddenly the beautiful machines dancing to the music of Strauss has been altered. Now the machine is reading the astronauts lips, faking technical problems and ultimately murdering everyone on board, but Bowman.

The entire Discovery sequence ends with the murder of HAL himself by Bowman. One by one HAL's circuits are shut down until he is reduced to dribbling out a childish version of the song 'A Bicycle Built for Two'. It is only when HAL dies that the true reason for the Discovery's mission to Jupiter is revealed. As HAL dies a video of Heywood Floyd suddenly flickers onto the screen of a nearby television.. The tape had been made for all of the astronauts to view when they finally awoke from their hibernation. Now that everyone on the ship has been murdered by HAL, it is only Bowman that hears the final message. Floyd tells Bowman that a mysterious monolith was discovered on the surface of the moon. This monolith emitted a signal that pinpointed the planet Jupiter. The real mission of the Discovery is to find out why this strange monolith, buried by some outside force, sent a signal towards the planet Jupiter.

Before going on to the final sequence in the film it is necessary to stop for a moment and explain where Kubrick is going with all of this and why. It is extremely important to know that nothing is wasted. Everything is thought out to the final frame. He is trying to tell us something in this strange association of images from history and the future. In the first sequence we meet this group of apemen. They are gentle vegetarians who are transformed by the monolith, the single black stone, into tool users who conquer and kill. Kubrick, undeniably, wants us to realize that these decisions are being made elsewhere. He also wants us to know that the monolith represents these forces. Superficially, he is telling us that the monolith is not a great and compassionate guide because it was the cause of the first killing. On a deeper level, though, he is also saying that the gift of the stone is a very great spiritual and evolutionary event. Kubrick is not going to let us get away with a black and white view of history here. He is telling us that there is a strange juxtaposition going on. We have outside intervention that causes us to shed the limited view of reality, which we held before. But this shedding also increases our capacity for violence and control. How can this be? How can a great spiritual and evolutionary leap forward also be the cause for murder and violence? Isn't that diametrically opposed? No, says Kubrick. One must go hand in hand with the other. Great transformations cannot take place without violence, death and even total disaster. The human race must go to hell before it can even begin to understand the might of the gods. And so our introduction to a wider reality, inspired by the monolith, and realized through the making of weapons, immediately turns the apeman with a bone into a spaceman with a rocket ship. The spinning, circular space station in the sequence immediately after the first chapter is a celebration of the gift of the monolith. Apparently, according to Kubrick, there have been no further encounters with the monolith in the intervening four million years. All of the technology that graces the film is the direct result of that fatal encounter all those years ago. That bone, held in the hand of a primitive apeman has become a space station. And because of this fact, that apeman has become emotionless and spiritless. Somehow, Kubrick is telling us that the two must go hand in hand in order for the final initiation to take place. Kubrick knows that initiations are not clean and loving events. Initiations are unbelievably difficult and dangerous. Frequently someone gets hurt - or worse - dies