Saw the recent re-release/new 70mm print and was awestruck at how rich 2001
is.  With this viewing, my first in 10 years, I found a more "narrative"
reading of the film.  The monolith brings the first step in evolution,
opening the mind of the leading ape to using the first tool, in this case to
kill and eat.  The famous time-jump cut is from this primitive tool to the
orbiting nuclear device (Kubrick's script makes it clear that the first
spacecrafts we see are actually nuclear satellites), our most advanced tool,
capable of destroying all life on earth, a killing bone for the computer age.
 The monolith has been planted on the moon in such a fashion that only once
our civilization is technologically advanced enough to follow its signal back
to Jupiter will we find it.  The ensuing Jupiter mission is man reaching out
farther than ever possible, with the most advanced resources possible in
human history.
 
Hal is a tool essentially designed to replicate or replace man, a tool that
can reason and operate other complex tools.  However, as in all of Kubrick's
films, this man-made design is flawed and gives an opposite result than what
was intended (the plot in The Killing, the conditioning in A Clockwork
Orange, the military training in Full Metal Jacket, etc.), evidence of our
basic humanness (which can be construed as strangely optimistic).  This is
Kubrick's sardonic Bronx-bred wit, which I believe movie audiences relate to
very well, but in this case it also leads to the final test of whether man is
ready to evolve one last step.  In this view, Bowman's battle with Hal is
final proof that man is ready for the evolution.
 
Robert Phillip Kolker has written about the influence of John Ford on
Kubrick, particularly in Paths of Glory.  Here it appears in Bowman.
 Although this is underdiscussed in film crit, probably due to the
intentionaly lack of Hollywood star casting, he does become the Western hero,
a well-bred cowboy in space who takes breaks rules and risk his hide in a
live-and-death struggle with an evil enemy.  As we all know, astronauts are
specially selected and trained to be both mentally and physically the "best"
we can possibly offer.  Hal's failure comes from the competitive human
quality in Hal that wants to be the receiver of the evolution, of which he
has a priori knowledge (Bowman only learns the true purpose of the mission as
he disconnects Hal).  Bowman's very success against Hal and in reaching
Jupiter is material proof that mankind, thru it's ideal representive, has
earned the transition to the next stage.  He comes close to losing his mind
but survives the trip through the inner and outer trip to the white room, and
the elliptical time passage, to be reborn and sent back, perhaps never to
need physical tools again.
 
Read this way, the story is a straight narrative, however the protagonist is
the human race.  (How small all the rest of today's films seem i comparison.)
 Following good narrative practices, Kubrick shows us the turning points.
 Plus some local color along the way, as the minimalist narrative of Dr.
Floyd's trip to the moon is basically low-key, slo-mo exposition.
 
On the more metaphorical side, isn't the monolith reminiscent of the movie
screen turned on end, before the film begins?  We all look to the empty movie
screen, expectant, with increasing yearning to receive narrative meaning, for
it to be projected on just as so many have projected meaning onto the
monolith these past 30 years...
 
Mark Netter
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