Editing in 2001: A Space Odyssey

The scenes I selected were the ones at the end of the film; where we saw Dave growing old at a rapid rate. First of all, the director began with an establishing shot. With this shot he showed the audience the setting of the next scenes. In these scenes, the director followed the 1800 rule. The camera positioning and the camera movements were impeccable. The camera never passed through the axis of action maintaining the spatial and temporal relationships between the shots, making it impossible for the audience to get lost.
The overall rhythm was established by the director in an excellent way. The duration and frequency of these shots were suitable enough to fulfill the requirements of the content curve. Each shot lasted the time needed for the audience to absorb the information provided in them. The director also used ellipsis, shot/reverse shot and point-of-view editing. He utilized and combined these techniques to present jumps of stages of Dave’s aging. With this, he skipped the necessity of presenting time linearly and continuously, making it easier to portray his aging. Using point-of-view editing, the author showed us what each Dave was watching in each stage and his subjective view.
In conclusion, the director combined all of these techniques with the purpose of giving his shots their due importance in the movie.