NP: Kubrick Bio Rec

Tue Dec 1 20:46:32 CST 2015

Horrible? I always thought it represented the sublime, with its perfect
angles and proportions, and its impossible smooth blackness. Although I
suppose there is an element of horror to the sublime. I always saw the
monolith as the ultimate representation of the unknown, and thus, as
something to strive towards. It's also pretty obviously meant to be a
door... a door to the future... the big, long-term future... as in
evolutionary future?

J

On Tue, Dec 1, 2015 at 9:14 PM, Steven Koteff <steviekoteff at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I agree with what you're saying, and think enigma (especially taken to
> include the unknowable) is a good understanding of what the monolith
> embodies, though I would stress that it is an embodiment of broad things
> that cannot, due to their nature, be really known. And I don't think it's
> death exactly. But I think it includes death. Or rather that a human with,
> all his or her innate monomythic layers and assemblages and narratives of
> his or her world--by definition includes death as part of the unknown,
> because the who or thinking human mind is unable to conceive of a world in
> which it does not exist or matter (i.e. In death).
>
> I guess when I watch the movie I don't think of the monolith as
> necessarily purposely/purposefully imparting knowledge or advancement or
> anything to the people who glimpse it, or at least not as just doing
> directly that, but also as just giving them a portrait of something so
> incomprehensible (and thus horrible) that they then respond to it in some
> way. I mean I think the medium is basically the message, as MS sorta notes.
> The unknowability itself revealing to them, what, their own
> meaninglessness/powerlessness, the fallacy of knowledge or control. And
> maybe this can be called a message from the universe. And maybe their
> response is fallacious.
>
> I'm not disagreeing with you, at least not in my mind.
>
> On Dec 1, 2015, at 7:30 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> For me the interesting take on MS's outline is her overlay of morality on
> the alien-assisted evolution schema of 2001, apes or humans somehow failing
> a test posed by the monoliths. Black isn't evil, nor death. It is enigma.
> It sparks the crossing of new concious thresholds before unimagined, and
> each one is a huge leap forward' clearly illustrated by the Segway if the
> sinning airborne bone-weapon into a spinning space-station, a genius
> transition. And, obviously the star-child birth at the end is the next step
> forward.  2001 is about evolutionary "uplift," IMHO.  I'm sure this is a
> common understanding of 2001 today.
>
> David Morris
>
> On Tuesday, December 1, 2015, Jochen Stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> You were right, Johnny: http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0009.html.
>>
>> Thank you.
>>
>> 2015-12-01 22:20 GMT+01:00 Johnny Marr <marrja at gmail.com>:
>>
>>> It's by Margaret Stackhouse. I'm struggling to send links (or to type
>>> competently for that matter) on this phone, but a bit of Googling will dig
>>> it up soon enough for anybody interested.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tuesday, December 1, 2015, Johnny Marr <marrja at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I think Eyes Wide Shut is major Kubrick - it's his defining statement
>>>> on sexual identity, societal secrecy and individual reputation. Always find
>>>> something new in that film.
>>>>
>>>> David Thomson claims that Kubrick locked Tom Cruise out of Nicole
>>>> Kidman's cuckolding scene, demanding a strictly closed set, that the actor
>>>> credited with playing the cicisbeo has no other recognised film or acting
>>>> credits, and that Kubrick spent an entire day filming them copulate, only
>>>> to use about five seconds worth of footage in the final cut.
>>>>
>>>> I do have a loose theory that the final scene in 2001 is something of a
>>>> collation of mankind's greatest achievements throughout history gathered
>>>> together in a space-time continuum warp, as a final testament to mankind as
>>>> he (we?) begin to die out and find ourselves replaced (much like the apes
>>>> at the start of the film) by 'superior' beings.
>>>>
>>>> Kubrick said the best and most intellectually rigorous analysis of 2001
>>>> he had ever read was from a 15 year old girl who wrote to him privately
>>>> with his theories. I've read that letter and from distant memory it is very
>>>> impressive - I'll try to dig it out soon.
>>>>
>>>> On Sunday, November 29, 2015, Steven Koteff <steviekoteff at gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Thanks for the recommendations, Mark. Agreed on all counts, really.
>>>>> Spent yesterday trying to find car floor mats in the pattern of the carpet
>>>>> from *The Shining *but no luck. The blog is very cool--I'm glad
>>>>> people like you are out there, keeping blogs like these.
>>>>>
>>>>> And John, yes, *Eyes Wide Shut *has grown on me lately as well, even
>>>>> if it's not, what, Major Kubrick? The whole thing's fascinating, anyway.
>>>>> All of it elevated by what became of Cruise in the years after that movie
>>>>> (which you almost sense Kubrick playing with, ahead of time, way
>>>>> prescient).
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Sat, Nov 28, 2015 at 5:57 PM, Steven Koteff <steviekoteff at gmail.com
>>>>> > wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Sis loved it, was deeply absorbed/moved. She's moderately-to-severely
>>>>>> bipolar, and so had a really rough teenagerhood. Dropped out of high
>>>>>> school, few hospital stays, etc. She is very, very smart but is so
>>>>>> sensitive and has spent much of her life in so emotionally precarious a
>>>>>> state that she has spent a lot of time shying away from art that is at all
>>>>>> high-stakes. She's been a voracious reader, but much of that has been,
>>>>>> like, harlequins.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> But lately she's been stable enough that I've been able to recommend
>>>>>> things to her, and she's been able to follow through. I'm sort of her
>>>>>> cultural gatekeeper so I'm basically trying my best to give her a
>>>>>> trajectory that probably apexes with her being able to appreciate something
>>>>>> like *GR*, to extract some of its wonders, etc. She can probably
>>>>>> handle it from there.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Sat, Nov 28, 2015 at 5:43 PM, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at gmail.com>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> what did Sis think about it?☺
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> P
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Sat, Nov 28, 2015 at 5:51 PM, Steven Koteff <
>>>>>>> steviekoteff at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Yesterday I got my sister very stoned and took her to see 2001. It
>>>>>>>> was playing at the Logan Theatre here in Chicago. Her first time seeing it
>>>>>>>> (she's 21) and the first time I'd seen it in theaters.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I'm sure the movie and the director have been talked about ad
>>>>>>>> mortem on here but if anybody had anything to say about it I am all ears. I
>>>>>>>> will personally confess that I consider it an important part of my life, a
>>>>>>>> work of art that elicits genuine awe from me. Sometimes I put the scene of
>>>>>>>> Hal's deactivation on in the background on a loop while I work.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Realized I've never actually read a Kubrick bio. Or anything about
>>>>>>>> him/his movies. Anybody have any recommendations? -
>>>>>>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>
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