That Spooky Teddi Bear

[Nikola Bonobo]

I was only six or seven years old the first time
Stanley Kubrick tried to murder me. Of course, I am
thinking along the lines of a kind of Mystical
Assassination, with the connivance of poor-logician
parents, who banned me from Friday the 13th on HBO but
thought it was fine for me to see Scatman Crothers
chopped in half. At least it wasn't Satchmo.

I am speaking, of course, of The Shining, that
hyperdimensionally spooky masterpiece, that Only Truly
Frightening Film Ever Made. To quote the mediocre
writer who wrote the novel on which it's based, "I
really think he [Stanley Kubrick] wants to make a film
that will truly hurt people." Joy and Courage! What a
dweeb, not an ounce of the Master's Compassion in his
pinky.

Which brings me to my next point: Magic. You can add a
K if you care. The detractors of Stanley Kubrick are
flat. Take the magic out of Eyes Wide Shut and it's
only a movie. The Supreme ArchMage of Film knew
exactly what he was doing, and could presuppose your
every criticism. The film is for lovers and
understanders, for the intitiated and ridiculous.
There's something Shining in it, something to do with
angels atop Christmas trees, and strangulation by
luminosity. It's synaesthesia, suffocation, the cake
of a woman's blush, the shot of that African American
gentleman in the morgue, blink-and-miss-it but
indelible. The face of the man who hands the letter
through the gate. The delicious predictability of the
final fuck. The bedroom scene where I beheld all my
sexual inferiority and rage unforgettably dramatized.
Naval officers. Damn.

Kubrick reads our minds. His vast deliberation is a
gift to ponder. Like Ebert said in defense of Jackie
Brown, most moviegoers today suffer from Cinematic
Attention Deficit Disorder. 

I'm also reminded of what some European critic said of
Goodfellas, 'cuz it applies to Eyes Wide Shut as well:
this film is too good to win an Academy Award.

As Kubrick once said to Roald Dahl, who used it in a
book, We are the dreamers of the dream, the singers of
the song. Approximately.

Kubrick, I can feel him. Read the eulogy in Vanity
Fair this month. 

I place Kubrick right up there with Thomas Pynchon,
Eric Drexler, Avatara Adi Da, Robert Hunter,
Ramanujan, Sanyika Shakur, and Mindy Cohn from Facts
of Life as the great geniuses of our continuum.

I wonder if Thomas Pynchon plays chess. I wish I could
stop meeting dumbass pseudointellectuals on public
transit who claim to be him.



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