VLVL2 (14): 2001 and 20,000

[Tim Strzechowski]

294:  "One mild overcast Saturday nearly a year after Frenesi had moved out, Zoyd and Prairie, returning from a midday stroll down the alley to the Gordita Pier and back, found inside their house who but Hector, posed dramatically in the front room next to the biggest block of pressed marijuana Zoyd had ever seen in his life, too big to have fit through any door yet towering there, mysteriously, a shaggy monolithic slab reaching almost to the ceiling.  " 'Scuse me just a second."  Finger to his lips, Zoyd went and put his daughter, who'd nodded out in the salt breezes, down on the bed in the other room, and her bottle and her duck nearby, and came back in eyeballing the oversize brick, getting nervous.

"Let me guess -- 2001: A Space Odyssey [1968]."

"Try 20,000 Years in Sing Sing [1933]."


2001 is the classic Kubrick film that, among other things, explores the Luddite notion of a computer that's all-too clever and meddlesome.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062622/

"The monolith was originally to have been a black tetrahedron; however, it did not reflect light properly. Kubrick then decided to use a transparent cube; however, that proved to be too difficult to use, because of the reflections created by the studio lights. Next came a rectangular monolith cast from Lucite that looked unconvincing, and finally the familiar black slab."

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062622/trivia

http://goroadachi.com/etemenanki/2001-monolith.gif

http://www.pandore.net/magies/secret/images/2001-monolith.jpg


Admittedly this is quoted out of context, but seems to relate somewhat to Zoyd and his moral dilemma of snitch-dom:

"The monolith represents the realization in external experience of an archetypal image from the unconscious mind. It is the presence of this spontaneous realization (i.e. the effect of the archetypal image upon the consciousness of the individual) that provides insight into the proper course of action. This course of action serves to realize or manifest the psychological potential latent within the individual."

http://www.geocities.com/desmontes/2001.html



And 20,000, and early Spencer Tracy film:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0023731/

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