When I was happy I had many friends, when times were gray I found myself alone… – Cato

In Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 A Space Odyssey’s, the scene of Astronaut Frank Pool (played by Gary Lockwood) running along the interior wall of the living quarters of the Discovery One is one of my all time favorite scenes. The piece played, Gayane’s Adagio, makes this a haunting and melancholy scene that visualizes the loneliness of what interplanetary space travel might be like.

I have always found the solitude of this scene to be inviting. There is a hidden strength in solitude, and those who can embrace it are hard to break.

The astronaut is able to run in a circular motion because he is using centripetal motion – the spinning sides create artificial gravity. For the film, Kubrick spent $750k on the set – approximately $6m in today’s value.

For an informative piece on the making of 2001 and its significance as a film read this piece by at Cinephilia and Beyond.