The reappearance of Requiem in the entrance of the stargate sequence once again underscores its correlation with the limit of human intelligence. Clarke, any technology far in advance of our own will be indistinguishable from magic. Requiem’s quality of ambiguity is a representation of the humans’ inability to decipher messages from higher intellectual beings. Spectators may find it difficult to tell if the continual resonant voices are from the score or the ambient noises in the tunnel. The appearance of an extraterrestrial being is deemed as a mere disorder from humans’ perspective. The musicality of Requiem brings out an illusionary effect that symbolizes the limits of humans’ intellectual capacity. Requiem’s texture resembles a whirring sound that forms a thin line between harmonious sound and noise. The shrieking of apes interweaves with the score until it is completely drowned out bythe music. Without explicitly presenting the monolith at the beginning of the scene, Kubrick guides the spectators to speculate what causes primates’ restlessness by showing apes’ grating screaming along with the eerie music. In the sequence of The Dawn of Man, Requiem appears when the apes discover the monolith. Both the monolith and Requiem manifest when humans make significant progress in terms of evolution. Three out the four appearances of the monolith in the film are accompanied by Requiem. In both The Dawn of Man and the stargate sequence, music heightens the anxiety among spectators, creates an effect of suspense, and strengthens the implications to the motif of evolution.Īs the dominant sound of the scene which primates discovered the monolith, György Ligeti’s Requiem has a repeating pattern in the film. As Kubrick wished, 2001: A Space Odyssey is a nonverbal experience in which music plays a pivotal role in conveying emotional context. The 2-hour film has less than 40 minutes of spoken dialogue. Clarke’s short story The Sentinel, Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey is renowned for its groundbreaking visual effects and unconventional narrative.

2001 movie intermission