Insofar as the film is about the evolution of mankind, hence the opening
music "Thus Spoke Zarathustra", which Richard Strauss wrote to commemorate
Nietzche's essay in which Zarathustra asks, "What is ape to man - a laughing
stock, thus will man be to the superman," the monolith in the film in its
very shape makes a direct reference to this concept. Where in the music the
three levels of evolution, ape man superman, are symbolized by a dominant,
its fifth and its octave, the monolith is a black slab 1 X 4 X 9... 1, 4, 9
is a geometrical series, equal to 1 squared, 2 squared, 3 squared. It can be
implied that it continues into other dimensions. (The music too takes the
first two harmonics of the fundamental and can be implied to continue...).
In a French essay entitled "The Astral Fetus," Jacques Monod analyzes the
film using semiotics to arrive at some interesting conclusions. One example
is the distinctive feature of objects having jagged or smooth edges. Jagged
edges include the Dawn of Man landscape, the bone, meteors, etc. Smooth edges
include space ships and monoliths. The introduction of the monolith into the
Dawn of Man is the first appearance of a smooth object. This distinction
leads him to an interesting reading of the end of the film, in which,
contrary to the beginning of the film, almost all objects are smooth except
one: the broken wine glass. This glass has always been a serious controversy
in reading the film, some going so far as to evoke a Jewish wedding! Monod,
however, sees it as one in a series of shells that man loses on his way to
rebirth. In effect, when Dave arrives at the other end of the star gate, he
is envelopped in technological cushions or shells which he loses one by one:
first the pod disappears, then his space suit. As he ages he sheds these
streamlined skins. The glass breaking in this way represents the loss of a
simple tool, a metaphor for technology or the use of tools in general. As
Dave reflects on this jagged shattered glass, he becomes aware of his last
incarnation in the bed, who in turn is facing the black monolith. Symmetry,
all important in Kubrick's films and camerawork, is thus achieved (the first
and last half hour have no language, we complete a transition from jagged to
smooth, the film begins and ends with a dawn, spheres align themselves,
etc...)
-Pip Chodorov <[log in to unmask]>
 
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