2001: A space odyssey:A warning before its time

1 September 1984

journal article
research article
Published by Taylor & Francis in Critical Studies in Mass Communication

Vol. 1 (3) , 311-322
https://doi.org/10.1080/15295038409360039

Abstract

This essay examines the visual text of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Since previous commentaries lacked a rhetorical framework sufficiently complex to explain the nuances of 2001, this essay develops a formal model from a subset of Kenneth Burke's perspective on rhetoric, and uses the model to integrate the four basic symbolic elements of the film into a coherent message. It is argued that 2001 is essentially a “religious” film, a cinematic warning against our dependence upon the machines and tools we have created. The film's climactic sequence is explained as the visualization of ultimate transcendence.

Keywords

This publication has 2 references indexed in Scilit:

Kubrick and His Discontents
Film Quarterly, 1976
Language as Symbolic Action
Published by University of California Press ,1966