外宇宙の奇妙愛博士

Nicholas Barber “Why 2001: A Space Odyssey remains a mystery” http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20180404-why-2001-a-space-odyssey-remains-a-mystery


スタンリー・キューブリックの『2001年宇宙の旅( 2001: A Space Odyssey )』*1は謎に満ちた映画である。その幾つかについては、映画のシナリオを共同執筆したアーサー・C・クラークの小説版の『2001年宇宙の旅』で種明かしがされているが、キューブリック自身はそれを最終的な回答とはせずに、オーディエンスの自由な想像や解釈に委ねている。

2001年宇宙の旅 (ハヤカワ文庫 SF 243)

2001年宇宙の旅 (ハヤカワ文庫 SF 243)

ニコラス・バーバー氏は映画『2001』を読み解くに当たって、『2001』の前作に当たる『博士の異常な愛情*2との類似性を指摘している。

Seen from a distance, the two films could hardly appear more different. One is a farcical black-and-white arms-race satire featuring Peter Sellers in multiple roles; the other is a richly coloured, contemplative, interstellar sprawl, described on the original poster as an “epic drama of adventure and exploration”. But look at the similarities: the Cold War secrecy between the US and Russia, the boardrooms packed with middle-aged men in suits, the supposedly infallible machine which is intent on slaughtering the people who built it. Look at the Dr Strangelove scene in which General Kong (Slim Pickens) rewires his plane’s bomb-bay doors, and the almost identical 2001 scene in which an astronaut deactivates his spaceship’s computer.

And look at the convictions which underpin both works: that humans are intrinsically, self-destructively violent, and that anyone who believes himself to be 100% right is probably a dangerous maniac. It may be going too far to call 2001 a cynical political comedy, but if Kubrick hadn’t wanted us to laugh, he wouldn’t have focused on a “zero-gravity toilet”. And he wouldn’t have had a chapter entitled The Dawn of Man, in which man, having dawned, bashes another man’s brains out with a club.


In this opening sequence, our hairy ancestors (played by mime artists in costumes) eat nothing but roots and berries until they happen upon a towering black slab which was once compared to a tombstone but which now brings to mind an oversized iPhone. This mysterious monolith accelerates the ape-men’s learning, and one of them has the idea to use a bone as a weapon. After he has killed both a tapir and a fellow ape-man, he flings the bone high into the air, and Kubrick brings us the edit which always pops up when you type “match cut” into a search engine: the spinning bone is replaced by a satellite orbiting the Earth. Except that it’s not a satellite, as such. According to Clarke, the craft which takes the place of the bone is “supposed to be an orbiting space bomb, a weapon in space”. Here, at least, we can see what Kubrick is getting at: by his reckoning, human progress has all been about developing bigger and better ways to murder each other.

In this part of the film, we meet Heywood Floyd (William Sylvester), a scientist on his way to the Moon, where another alien monolith has been unearthed. But Floyd is no conventional sci-fi boffin: neither a crazed nerd in a lab coat nor a dashing intergalactic hero. Instead, he is a complacent, all-American breadwinner who is tended to by pretty stewardesses, and who misses his daughter’s birthday party because he is ‘travelling’. When he compliments his colleagues on their discovery, you wouldn’t think they had found proof of extra-terrestrial life; you’d think they had composed a new advertising jingle. “Well, I must say,” chuckles Floyd, “you guys have certainly come up with something.” Whether it’s the American generals in Dr Strangelove, the French generals in Paths of Glory, or the Minister of the Interior who claims to have the cure for crime in A Clockwork Orange, Kubrick enjoys pointing out that the men in charge of our fates aren’t necessarily the most imaginative or intelligent people in the solar system. And it’s always men. The only female character in Dr Strangelove is a US General’s bikini-wearing secretary; in 2001, the women have more clothes, but they don’t any have more dialogue.

映画の第3部。コンピュータ、HAL9000と宇宙飛行士たちの対決及びHALの勝利;

It’s here, especially, that 2001 could be retitled ‘Dr Strangelove in Space’ because it’s here that Kubrick zeroes in on our puffed-up certainty, and of our absurd faith in any system or machine which seems to have all the answers. In the 1964 film, a ‘doomsday device’ that was supposed to guarantee world peace is actually going to wipe out civilisation – and it has been programmed to ensure that no one can stop it. And in the 1968 film, the ironies pile up even higher. A HAL computer makes a mistake. A mission controller confirms that is a mistake – because his own identical HAL computer on Earth says so. But HAL remains as sure of himself as the generals in Dr Strangelove: “Well, I don’t think there is any question about it,” he purrs, in his soothing, almost-emotional voice. “It can only be attributable to human error.” Listen closely and you can hear Kubrick groaning in despair.
そして、『2001』に『博士の異常な愛情』のたんなる続篇以上の独自性を与えているのが、最後のサイケデリック・シーンとデヴィッド・ボウマン宇宙飛行士の「宇宙胎児」への転生ということになる。