NP: Kubrick Bio Rec

[David Morris]

Nice post.  It is a full take.

It is quite beautiful that, before the apes see the monolith, all is well
and peaceful in their world (except for that cat). No bloodshed, even
between species that the apes will surely later consume, or enslave.  Thus
the insight bestowed to the apes by the sight of the monolith is both
deadly and liberating, just like the serpent's and God's statement about
eating that fruit in that garden, a paradox that both statements were
equally true.

David Morris

On Wed, Dec 2, 2015 at 1:26 PM, Steven Koteff <steviekoteff at gmail.com>
wrote:

> You're right to disagree with me, David, when you say, 'There is no
> incorrect response to the monolith's message.  Its message is inescapable,
> like all Revalation.'
>
> I guess I am considering the movie as being, at least in part, essentially
> about the contrast/convergence/collapse of such binaries or dualisms as
> chaos and perfection, objectivity/subjectivity, grandeur/meaninglessness,
> life/death but also life (as a necessarily temporary thing which includes
> death) and eternity (which sees an end to all life). And also the standard
> Manichean good and evil. All admittedly poorly understood by me, I'm sure.
>
> When I say it's *about *that, I mean that, in its visual schema, and in
> the way I assemble meaning from the narrative, and in the energy I get from
> viewing it, it contains those things.
>
> In the Manichean sense, I think that, when given a glimpse of something
> Revelatory, one understands that there as a sort of codependent
> relationship between light/good/spiritual and dark/evil/material. In that
> the two are locked in an apparently eternal struggle. And part of the
> Revelation might involve the fact that actually these competing forces are
> both necessary, or at least intertwined, and that one is not necessarily
> essentially *better *or *righter *than another, but that they are each
> equally true. And so maybe one decides (if you want to call it that) to try
> to serve one force.
>
> The apes do not comprehend this enough to respond in service of the
> spiritual world (in fact, the knowledge they have received from their
> glimpse has sort of awoken them more than ever into the material world, in
> some sense). The later humans who see/touch the monolith are more
> capable, but still not ready, maybe, to respond in service of the
> spiritual, to really understand what this means. And I would probably
> suggest that Bowman is ready. Or is very close. He is granted access to the
> monolith and finds that the impossible black is composed of infinite
> space/light/color. It does not seem to obey the laws of the material world
> as he understands them/it.
>
> So maybe he doesn't respond more *correctly *as I said. But instead he
> has the ability/inclination to respond more consciously in service of
> light/spirit and away from dark/material. (Maybe the ability to respond in
> this way and the inclination to do so are actually the same.) But why does
> he have the ability to respond this way, or to access the monolith in this
> way? I would guess it is because he is the only one who has seen the
> terminus of HAL's 'perfection.' (What is HAL's perfect track record if not
> supposedly boundless/objective knowledge, knowability, etc.?) HAL
> represents the eternity or perfection or whatever extreme you want to call
> it that can be achieved in the material world. And HAL seeks to extinguish
> life. Dr. Bowman, realizing this, is sort of primed to access the monolith
> in the way he does. If that makes sense. Which it probably doesn't.
>
>
>
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