Though only a boy of 13 living in a small Midwestern town, I was deeply affected by these world events--brought to me via film, TV, through popular music and in person. In May of 1968, Robert Kennedy, campaigning for president, visited my home town. I saw him speak and, as his car passed, shook his hand. A month later he was dead and his death hung over me for years, coloring my outlook on life almost as much as the threat of nuclear annihilation. (Which did not lift until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1998.)

That summer also saw the release of Stanley Kubrik's film, 2001: A Space Odyssey. My oldest brother is an aeronautical engineer, and so as a boy I was fascinated by rockets and the race to the moon. (This was before I realized what a waste of money this was, designed to divert attention from fixing the world's ills.) So when that film came out, I desperately wanted to see it.

One day at the dinner table, I asked my father to take me to see the film. My sister, who was about 20 at the time, piped up and said she didn't think it would be appropriate for me to see it. "He might not understand it," she said.

Thus, I did not get to see the film until they showed it at my university many years later. My sister had bought the sound track, however, and I used to sneak into her room and play it while she was at work. The disk featured the works of two contemporary composers, Gyorgy Ligeti and Aram Khachaturian. The latter's Gayaneh Ballet Suite convincingly captured the barrenness and solitude of the lunar landscape.

Later in college when I did see the film, it seemed dull and wooden. At the time I did not believe in Bergson's idea of guided evolution, having revolted against the catholic church and all things spiritual. Nowadays, with two children and in search of a moral compass based on spirituality, I say, "sure, why not?" But I don't think that message reached the general public, especially considering how they're still trying to get creationism taught in the public schools.

What got people's attention was the psychedelic light show at the ending, which critics at the time likened to a trip on LSD. Maybe that's what my sister was afraid I'd be susceptible to. At the time there was dire anti-drug propaganda out that warned of "bad trips" that ended in insanity or defenestrations. I only know that the one time I did anything like that--in the Roman ruins of Tipasa in Algeria--it was much more fun than 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Khachaturian Biography
Recording Soundtrack to the movie 2001

Enjoy
top