And thanks to you Sci-fi nerds for the Star Child nitpick. Always the feature that makes these threads better than those other places where downvotes are allowed instead.
But yeah, Stanley Kubrick went from black comedy to just black. Poor Anthony Burgess: Kubrick made him famous at the cost of cutting off the last chapter of Clockwork Orange. Alex simply outgrew his violent urges. Suffering and cruelty may remain the human constant, but for the individual human redemption is possible if not inevitable. Kubrick dumped that: Alex was born an irredeemable shit and he’ll remain a shit. Burgess knew there was something to be learned by listening to the Silence of God; Kubrick heard it as proof He was just a humbug.
To be fair, there was violence before the monolith showed up. One of the hominids gets attacked by a leopard, and the whole group is chased away from the water hole. Then they used their new intelligence to make tools they needed to survive, so the choice was between violence and extinction. I don’t really blame them for making the choice they did.
I wasn’t really making a value judgment there, but it’s pretty clear that Kubrick and/or Clarke were connecting some dots related to violence. I read their message as, weapons and war were initially an advantageous part of human nature, and we held onto it for way longer than we should’ve, and now it’s a serious problem.
Everything about them having rifles in the barracks, that dumb parade thing that you mentioned, having them sleep with their rifles and say a little rifle prayer, the idea that Pyle could somehow make it off the rifle range with 2 live rounds, and then go into the latrine and load it without the fireguard seeing what was going on?
And then Ermey’s initial dressing-down scene, maybe this shows I’m from a somewhat different military era, but I can’t see a DI just cruising around a bunch of recruits just endlessly throwing out personal insults. I could see him ranting about their general unfitness, or in response to mistakes they made, but not like “hey you, you’re ugly, your new nickname is ugly guy, now go to sleep and think about being ugly.” They would do some crazy stuff but it was always in a training context with a training goal. The training schedule is very tight, and recruits aren’t cheap, so you can’t just abuse them for entertainment or degradation purposes.
Since Kubrick left the meaning ambiguous in 2001: A Space Odyssey to encourage personal interpretation, I viewed the film not as an anti-violence message but as a portrayal of humanity’s evolution and transcendence into a higher level of consciousness.
For me, the film showcases [perhaps guided] evolutionary leaps in humanity’s collective consciousness: the invention of tool-making, the achievement of space travel, and ultimately, through Bowman’s touching the monolith, a transition into an even higher state of consciousness symbolized by his transformation into the Star Child. I didn’t interpret it as a real giant fetus hovering over Earth as a means to de-escalate nuclear war; but, I assume that a transcendent, higher-level consciousness would inherently have no need for war.
I also believe Keir Dullea’s casting and performance in the film were brilliant. His cold, detached persona perfectly matched the situation and the sterile ambiance of space, showing the isolation and enigmatic nature of the journey. Having someone like Harrison Ford giving a Star Wars performance would have broken the illusion.
It’s a film that perplexed me when I first saw it as a child, but it stuck with me and gained meaning as I matured.
Oh yeah, definitely. Kubrick wouldn’t telegraph a trite and obvious message like “violence is bad”. I take it more like, humanity had a long evolutionary arc, violence was a key part of it, but now has become a threat to our continued evolution.
In 2010 they’re a lot more explicit about the fact that the aliens are in the business of nurturing evolution of species. So in that light it would seem that rescuing a species from self-extinction is probably a routine care-and-feeding chore, and the monolith is like an alarm that lets them know when intervention is needed. To us it looks like this amazing transcendental experience, but to them it’s probably just cleaning the poop out of the monkey cage.
Kubrick’s photography roots shaped his iconic cinematography style, blending stunning visuals with deep storytelling. Barry Lyndon is a prime example of fine-art set scenes. His skill in composition and lighting set a new standard, inspiring generations of filmmakers.
The “Big Three” of silent comedy—Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and my favorite, Harold Lloyd—weren’t just great performers; they were visionary filmmakers. Each brought something special: Chaplin’s heart, Keaton’s acrobatic stoicism, and Lloyd’s daring, relatable charm (his “glasses” character is a hoot). Their films broke new ground, blending humor and artistry in ways that still resonate—timeless! Best of all, their comedy remains as fresh and funny today as ever.
AtW (According to Wikipedia), most of the indoor shots in the film were shot in natural candlelight, but some did add some eliectric light made to mimic the effect of candles (probably light sources in scene but off screen).
Apparently he was able to do this because he had access to three of the largest aperture lenses ever made, which had been designed for NASA’s Apollo program. He probably got access to these lenses as a thank-you for the job he did creating and covering up the Apollo moon landing hoax. (Note: previous sentence not intended to be a factual statement.)
From the book - very last page:
“A thousand miles below, he became aware that a slumbering cargo of death had awoken, and was stirring sluggishly in its orbit. … He put forth his will, and the circling megaton flowered in a silent detonation that brought a brief, false dawn to half the sleeping globe.”
I doubt if Kubrick seriously considered filming that, because it would ruin his ending as well as calling back to the end of Dr. Strangelove, but it was in the book.
I saw it in Cinerama not very long after it opened, and I understood it just fine, helped by a big Life magazine article on it, and of course from knowing Childhood’s End. But Kubrick was always cagey. Was it because he had hidden meanings? Or was it because those who were uncertain about the ending would go back and see it again?
Smart guy, that Kubrick.
Which is in every YouTube comments thread on moon landing deniers.
But we know it isn’t true. If Kubrick was in charge, the landing would have been delayed until 1972 at least. He didn’t work fast. In the Boxes movie mentioned above we find that he was working on a Holocaust movie, but Spielberg conceived, researched, filmed and distributed Schindler’s List in less time then Kubrick spent on research.
That actually struck home when I first saw it–my initial days of boot camp involved much crap like that, and it seemed to me that one could adjust for Vietnam Era and get to the level he provided. I agree with you that there was also a bit of artistic license, like how the movie “Memphis Belle” uses one mission to show crazy actual events from a dozen missions.
At least Ermey and his character had a focus on building Marines. In contrast, read The Short Timers, the book that Full Metal Jacket was based on (it can be found online in pdf). The drill sergeant in the original version, named Gerheim, was a sadist, being mean for the sake of being mean.
