NP: Kubrick Bio Rec

Tue Dec 1 21:30:10 CST 2015

I think MS covered all the bases, which was fine. She obviously was
incredibly advanced in her thinking for an 8th grader (my God... I felt a
twinge of HATE upon first reading her work at the age of 25!). Kubrick was
certainly mightily impressed. He rarely wrote back.

J

PS - In The Sentinel, the "monolith" was roughly igloo-shaped. Thank
Godzilla they went in a different direction for the movie!

On Tue, Dec 1, 2015 at 10:15 PM, kelber at mindspring.com <
kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:

> The Arthur C. Clarke story, The Sentinel, which Kubrick used as a starting
> point for his larger conception if the film, concerned the discovery of a
> mysterious object on the moon, triggering an alarm. The story leaves
> unanswered whether this will be good or bad for the human race. It's merely
> a sign that humans have attained a level of intelligence needed to
> accomplish the task.
>
> MS seems to put a more pessimistic spin on it; Kubrick an optimistic one.
>
> Laura
>
>
> Mark Thibodeau <jerkyleboeuf at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 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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