Here's my tedious "reading" of 2001: Hal is basically a cosmic abortion/fetus, a "step" in evolution which is conditioned but not made by the humans' contact with the monolith, which is just a place-saver for the condition which "sepearates people from animals." It (the monolith) is not in any significant way the token of a divinity or a "superior" intelligence (although you can figure the thing it is that way if you want to). In the place of the monolith, you can just place the words "we don't know." Its a big question mark, or "the phallus" or whatever you want (but not, that is it isn't any of these things in a positive way). Hal is the product of the human political relationships of the second segment of the film in the exact same way the bone-club is in the first--that is as the next logical "step" in the story we make for ourselves. The ONLY difference is that neither Kubrick nor anybody else knew what happens after we generate an intelligence--that is, after we occupy the position we find it necessary to posit as the very divinity/intelligence that the monolith is(n't). Do we become divine? Does the intelligence we create resolve the questions that make us exist and just kind of turn us off? Do we step forward into some new exciting stage of existence? Do concepts like time and space become meaningless and confuse our unready sensibilities to the point of immobilizing us? The film offers all of these possibilities, but anyone who tries to tell you that they know that answeris (I think) barking up the wrong tree. I think what's so interesting about 2001 is that it fields its complicated set of signs, some of which are pretty blindingly obvious after all, and ends up in the process utterly destroying any "reading" of those signs which can be made into a unified text. I understand that Kubrick has claimed that he felt like the making of the film was more or less a fiasco and that he didn't intend all of the connections which people see in the film. That's clearly untrue (whether or not he said it), but in saying it he tells the story of the film--which resolutely refuses to "mean" in the way that we as filmgoers expect it to. Enjoy teaching it, I think its a far, far better film than the arrogant critical response affords it. Sean Desilets Tufts University ---- To signoff SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]