To understand the psychological toll of quarantine, watch space films

By N.B.

PLENTY OF FILMS about isolation feature characters washed up on a desert island (“Cast Away”) or shut away in a cell (“Oldboy”). But the movies which will resonate most during the coronavirus pandemic are the ones set in space. In these, the characters cannot pop outside for a walk, nor can they meet anyone new. There is nothing beyond their narrow quarters except silent, often lethal, emptiness. There is always the possibility that Robinson Crusoe will be spotted by a passing ship, or that the Count of Monte Cristo will escape. But once someone is zooming through the solar system, they truly understand the meaning of “lockdown”.

The first great film to explore this concept was Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968, pictured). When Kubrick and his screenwriter, Arthur Clarke, were planning their collaboration, they envisaged an encounter between humanity and aliens, but “2001” became a film about being alone. A hapless astronaut (Keir Dullea) ends up by himself in a hotel suite conjured up for him by unseen extra-terrestrials; even before this haunting sequence he has to rely on his co-pilot (Gary Lockwood) and HAL the computer for conversation. (No wonder HAL goes murderously insane.) A year after the film was released, Mike Collins circled the Moon in the Columbia command module, while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the lunar surface. “I am now truly alone and absolutely alone from any known life,” Mr Collins wrote at the time. “I am it.”