<P> Perhaps there is a certain element of the lumpen literati that is so dogmatically atheist and materialist and Earth - bound that it finds the grandeur of space and the myriad mysteries of cosmic intelligence anathema . </P> <P> The film has been seen by many people not only as a literal story about evolution and space adventures, but as an allegorical representation of aspects of philosophical, religious or literary concepts . </P> <P> Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophical tract Thus Spoke Zarathustra, about the potential of mankind, is directly referred to by the use of Richard Strauss's musical piece of the same name . Nietzsche writes that man is a bridge between the ape and the Übermensch . In an interview in the New York Times, Kubrick gave credence to interpretations of 2001 based on Zarathustra when he said: "Somebody said man is the missing link between primitive apes and civilized human beings . You might say that is inherent in the story too . We are semicivilized, capable of cooperation and affection, but needing some sort of transfiguration into a higher form of life . Man is really in a very unstable condition ." Moreover, in the chapter Of the Three Metamorphoses, Nietzsche identifies the child as the last step before the Uberman (after the camel and the lion), lending further support to this interpretation in light of the' star - child' who appears in the final scenes of the movie . </P> <P> Donald MacGregor has analysed the film in terms of a different work, The Birth of Tragedy, in which Nietzsche refers to the human conflict between the Apollonian and Dionysian modes of being . The Apollonian side of man is rational, scientific, sober, and self - controlled . For Nietzsche a purely Apollonian mode of existence is problematic, since it undercuts the instinctual side of man . The Apollonian man lacks a sense of wholeness, immediacy, and primal joy . It is not good for a culture to be either wholly Apollonian or Dionysian . While the world of the apes at the beginning of 2001 is Dionysian, the world of travel to the moon is wholly Apollonian, and HAL is an entirely Apollonian entity . Kubrick's film came out just a year before the Woodstock rock festival, a wholly Dionysian affair . MacGregor argues that David Bowman in his transformation has regained his Dionysian side . </P>

What happened to dave in 2001 a space odyssey