achinery in thespacecraft. The sound design also contributes to the dialogue. Most ofthe dialogue is small talk between the characters. Bowmanand Poole rarely talk to each other. Nothing is even saidduring the space walks. It seems Kubrick wanted to isolatethe characters from each other. Miller suggests that the future society in kubricks 2001resembles that of the apemen in the first section of the film.The music seems to enmphasise this : at the start of the filmwe are presented with grand, majestic music, yet as the shiftoccurs to the future, the music becomes more gentle, morerefined. This however does not represent the humans buttheir machinery. The modern day apemen seem just asclumsy as their ancestors, while they shuffle around theconfines of their spacecraft. In contrast, their machinesmove with precision. As Miller puts it, the ape and the manare one and the same.Quote Thus the hypnotic circularity of strausss waltz applies notto the euphoric roundabout of any dancing couple but tothe even wheeling of that big space station. Thus while thosetrancendent items sail through the void with the eternalgrace of seraphim, the stewardess attending doctor Floydstaggers down the aisle. 2001: A space Odyssey is built up from cycles, and is itselfan encompassing cycle. Eating, birthdays, water,returning...even the ships themselves, everywhere the imageof a circle appears. The music also performs the samefunction : we start with thus spake zarathustra and itbecomes our last image as the credits begin to roll....
