2001 A Space Odyssey by Stanley Kubrick free essay sample

Analyzes 1968 science fiction film as expression of social yearning for cosmic, mythic connection, using [E.T.] as another example. Janet Hocker Rushing refers to a yearning for wholeness in our time, something that all cultures have longed for in some degree. Our own age is seen as one of fragmentation, secularization, and an absence of unity, leaving us with a modern need for transcendence such as has been noted by a number of writers. Rushing finds that we seek this sense of the transcendent in our entertainment and our art, and she refers to the fact that our modern audiences find transcendence addressed in movies, notably science fiction films that make a cosmic connection in mythic form. She cites E.T. as one particular representative of this genre, and she applies what she calls the perennial philosophy to this film, as will be done here with reference to another science fiction film of an earlier era and one of the first to make this mythic connection most directly