File:2001 A Space Odyssey -- Dr Heywood Floyd Moon Base Briefing

Description
Heywood Floyd, having arrived at the Clavius Base, briefs the crew there. For me, this is the central scene of the movie.

Floyd relays the message from control, stressing the importance of utmost secrecy. The crew's concern over the invented rumours of an epidemic, and how their loved ones might react, is "noted" but, beyond the pleasantries, ignored. They are voiceless, conditioned.

2001 has more in common with PATHS OF GLORY than any other Kubrick film. It is about systems of control.

This was the scene minutes earlier. The warm father's humanity is gradually displaced (or, revealed as a mask) by his duties and the hierarchy. https://youtu.be/PlPMxgHQKg8

From the dominance of the animals in relation to each other, to the crew's relationship to 'the mission', and HAL, we have a compelling throughline with the same critical stance that characterises Kubrick's war films.

HAL is not so much an expression of technophobia than the creeping realisation that a system created to benefit man has instead overrun it. Clancy Sigal described the computer as "far, far more human, more humorous and conceivably decent than anything else that may emerge from this far-seeing enterprise".