NP: Kubrick Bio Rec

Tue Dec 1 20:48:17 CST 2015

And I think that, for SURE it was "planted" in all three spots. The film
doesn't make much sense without the idea that there is a puzzle there to
decipher (otherwise, why would there be a beacon pointing towards a spot
near Jupiter?).

J

On Tue, Dec 1, 2015 at 9:46 PM, Mark Thibodeau <jerkyleboeuf at gmail.com>
wrote:

> 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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