Post by Antonius on Nov 27, 2007 22:53:24 GMT
Alchemical Kubrick
2001: The Great Work On Film
by Jay Weidner
"However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light." - Stanley Kubrick
"I'm sure you are aware of the extremely grave potential for social shock and disorientation caused by this information. We can't release it without proper conditioning." - Heywood Floyd
Within the tradition of the Great Work of alchemy is the idea that the initiations, explanations and rituals of alchemy are embedded into many great works of art. The pyramids of Egypt and the great cathedrals of France are referred to as 'books of stone'. In other words there is deep knowledge built into these edifices that only an initiate can truly understand. The great architects and artists had a very clear idea of what it was that they were attempting to transmit. It is only the viewer of these works that is left in the dark. As the French writer and alchemist Fulcanelli reveals in his masterpiece Mystery of the Cathedrals, the grand churches of France were built as part of this Great Work. But what was this Great Work supposed to accomplish? The answer to this important question, according to the alchemists, was the very transformation of the human spirit. Although it is true that the symbols and the geometry of the cathedrals was designed so that only a true initiate of the mysteries could really understand their significance, the builders and creators of the Great Work knew that everyone who experienced the cathedrals would come away transformed. Even the ones who were not initiates would still come away with a feeling of awe. Even hot-blooded, radical atheists are stilled by the beauty of Notre Dame or Chartes Cathedral.
In his book The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Victor Hugo goes into this subject with a great deal of openness. He explains that this secret Great Work of human transformation was built in to these 'books of stone' that we call the Cathedrals. But, he says, the new Great Book of Nature is not written on the walls, or in the stone of churches anymore. This new version, this modern version (this was in the 1800's) of the Great Work, had changed from the symbolic to the written word. Hugo identifies the works of William Shakespeare as containing the ancient alchemical knowledge of human transformation wrapped up in a set of theatrical plays. Without getting into the entire 'who was Shakespeare?' question, it can still be said that there is plenty of high strangeness around the man who was William Shakespeare and the plays that were, and are, attributed to him. Either way, Victor Hugo is right. The works of Shakespeare do hold within them all of the initiatic knowledge that is also on the walls of the cathedrals. Many books have touched this subject. Again, like the cathedrals, the plays of Shakespeare seem to transform the audience - even if most of them are not on the inside - as far as the secret initiatory knowledge is concerned. Shakespeare and the cathedrals both have this ability to appeal to many disparate layers of society. Both bring about a small transformation inside the human mind that makes all of us realize that we can do great and beautiful things. Indeed, this initiatic school seems to be saying that the transformation of the human spirit from the barbaric to the angelic can only come through great works of art.
It was sometime ago when I began contemplating the idea that although the Great Work had been expressed in stone, and later in literature, how would it be expressed today? It is without a doubt that the tapestry of human communication has switched. Just as it was once based on the symbolic - and then later transformed into the written word - now that literary model has switched to that of cinema, television and computers. Out of these three new forms of communication, cinema was the most obvious to attract someone who might want to etch the Great Work onto film. But, as I looked out at the landscape of the history of cinema, I could not find the Great Work on film. At least not at first.
I began watching many classics in order to see if the director, or writer, was attempting to tell us the secret about human transformation. Many other films and filmmakers got close, sometimes, to explaining minor aspects of the Great Work, but in the end they all failed. The works of Orson Welles, of course, were the most intriguing. But in the end even these failed to achieve the greatness for which I was looking.
Was it true that cinema was just too profane a medium to attract anyone with the caliber of mind and spirit to do this kind of film? Was it possible that the Great Work had never been transmitted through the cinema? When considered, it would take a nearly superhuman effort to have all of the disparate talents needed within one single filmmaker. This person would need the knowledge of alchemy, astronomy, anthropology and the true history of the human race. Besides an insatiable curiosity, they would have to understand the real nature of the human condition and of our place in the universe. This knowledge would have to be coupled with the skills of filmmaking and the business acumen to pull the project off. I began to realize the possibility, at this point, that my search for the Great Work in the cinema was probably in vain.
I was in France, doing research for a book that I am co-writing about the French alchemist Fulcanelli, when Stanley Kubrick died. The French, always a class act, devoted the next few nights of their great State-run television station, Channel 3, to the films of Stanley Kubrick. French Television has more lines on the screen than American television. This gives the picture a resolution and color that we just cannot hope to get in the United States. For the next few nights I watched some of the films of Kubrick. I began to realize that no filmmaker, except possibly Welles, had the sense of composition and light like Kubrick possessed. Visually his films were incredibly stunning and they had an amazing ability of holding up against the erosion of time.
Stanley Kubrick made 13 films in 46 years. His first film "Fear and Desire," was made in 1953 for almost no money. It has rarely been seen. His last film "Eyes Wide Shut" was finished in 1999. Kubrick died as soon as the editing was completed. Having always been a Kubrick fan, his death jolted me. I began to think about him and some of the many stories I heard about him. He was a funny looking Jewish kid, a high school dropout from the Bronx. He had an early interest in photography and soon was shooting stills for Look Magazine. After that he went to become a filmmaker. After completing a couple of interesting documentaries, he directed five commercial films over the next 8 years. This would be his highest period for output in his entire life.
Kubrick left the United States in 1961 and moved to England. There, it is reported that, he lived in a weird, old castle on a huge estate. He never came back to America. Robert Temple told me that Stanley was obsessed with Nazi memorabilia. I heard the rumor that Stanley had a provision in his contract at Pinewood Studios that the sets for 2001 could not be torn down for two years after the shoot was completed. Kubrick would come by the studio, late at night, always alone, and walk through the sets very slowly. When the sets were finally torn down it was rumored that Stanley went into a deep depression.
There is also the famous Stephen King story of the phone ringing in the middle of the night. Stephen answers and it is Stanley calling from London. He is on the set of The Shining and his voice sounds anxious. 'Do you believe in God?', Stanley demanded. Stephen cleared his throat and answered 'yes'. Stanley gruffly replied ' I knew it' and hangs up on Stephen. Of course his film of King's book was disowned by King, who clearly does not understand what Stanley was doing.
It was just after his death that I discovered that there was a book of the Great Work fashioned into a movie. And that Stanley had made this Great Work. It was also then that I realized that Stanley Kubrick had made the greatest film ever. Fans of Orson Welles will be upset with this. Citizen Kane is also one of the greatest films ever made. It actually was my favorite film until I began to unravel the truth that Stanley Kubrick embedded into his masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey. I realized also that Stanley Kubrick was not just a great filmmaker, he was the greatest filmmaker. I hope to reveal to you, oh, gentle reader, that this film actually evokes all aspects of the great work of alchemy. 2001 is the 'book of nature' in the cinema, literally. I hope to prove that Kubrick did this with great intention and that he knew what he was doing at every step. There are few mistakes in his films. But his greatest film is the most perfect.
It is important to remember that , unlike Citizen Kane, 2001 was a smash hit. It was actually the first film where repeat business kept it going at the box office. Nowadays it is common for a person to see Titanic or Star Wars a number of times. Hollywood accountants depend on this for their decisions. But 2001 took an entire generation by storm. It was the late '60's and the largest generation on the planet was seeing the film on a ritualized basis. Cinerama theaters across the country reported scores of drugged out hippies flocking to the theater on a nightly basis to 'trip out' on the film. Strangely though, no one really seemed to know what the film was really about. The film seemed to cause everyone to come away with a different interpretation. And no one could adequately explain the last 25 minutes. It was generally agreed that this was the most controversial part of the entire movie. Indeed many thousands of hours were taken up in coffee houses and dormitories, in universities and colleges, discussing the various possible meanings that the ending was describing. Everyone agreed that it had something to do with transformation but no one knew really much more than that. Even Arthur C. Clarke, who helped Stanley write the script, didn't understand the unusual ending. And Stanley wasn't talking. He steadfastly refused to discuss what 2001 was about to anyone. In the rare interviews that he gave, concerning the film, he again refused to discuss the content at all. Most critics at the time thought that Kubrick simply did not know how to conclude the movie so he contrived this ending. I can assure you that this is not so. The ending to the film explains everything that Stanley is conveying in the film. Without the ending, the film would be nearly worthless. It is in that ending that Kubrick reveals his deep inner profound knowledge of alchemy, gnosticism and the ancient view of the spirit domain.
Reading through many critical reviews of the film I find it amazing that no one understands what is happening. There are some very erudite explanations that do cover parts of the plot, yet no one really gets it. A description in a movie guide calls it a 'science fiction drama about a computer who takes over a spaceship'. This is like saying that the works of art on the ceiling at Sistine Chapel are 'some paintings about the Bible'.
It is almost like Stanley built this film so that people at some future date would finally understand it, possibly in the year 2001?
It is important to not underestimate Arthur C. Clarke's important contributions to 2001. After all the script is ostensibly based on his short story The Sentinel. Written in 1953, it tells the story of a group of astronauts who discover an artifact on the moon that is left by an alien race. Truthfully though the movie is more properly based on Clarke's novel Childhood's End. This fabulous novel is a science fiction treatment of an essential Gnostic ideal. There can be no doubt that Kubrick had read Childhood's End and understood it's significance. By aligning himself up with Arthur C. Clark, Kubrick was able to bring in these Gnostic, alchemical ideas through the convention of science fiction.
It has always been a mystery as to where Arthur C. Clarke came up with the idea for Childhood's End. He insists that he knew nothing of gnosticism or ancient magical traditions when he wrote the book that many have proclaimed to be the best ever in the genre of science fiction. Whatever Clarke wants us to believe is not the subject of this essay. Suffice to say that Clarke was a well read individual. It appears odd that he wouldn't have known of the Gnostic traditions. Kubrick, however, proves that he knows what he is doing at every step and this is the real reason why he is not talking about the film to anyone.
Many of the special effects that were used in 2001 were invented by Stanley himself. The images of people moving around in the windows of the spacecraft was an ingenious invention that revolutionized the way movies would look from then on. Even Steven Spielberg and George Lucas admit what they owe to Stanley for his ground breaking technical breakthroughs. Like Citizen Kane, the vision and power of the film changed the way that all of cinema would look after it. Especially all science fiction films, which all seem to pay homage to 2001 in one way or another.
Let's begin with a description of the film so that we can place everything in context. The film opens with a magical sun-earth-moon alignment. We are just at the end of a lunar eclipse. The sun is pulling away from the alignment. The shot is taken from just beyond the moon's point of view. It shows the earth rising over the moon, with the sun rising over the earth. The soundtrack is the 'World Riddle' theme from Strauss' 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra'. Right away Kubrick is showing the viewer the relationship between the philosopher Frederick Nietzche and the film, between transformation and extinction. The Zarathustra essays by Nietzche are his most revealing and magical. Zarathustra is the great god of the Zoroastrians, who are the early holders of the alchemical tradition. This is one of the most dramatic openings in the history of the cinema. These magical, celestial alignments are dotted throughout the film and hold a key to the main theme. One realizes that Kubrick is never doing anything that is spontaneous.
Every shot has a meaning that he is attempting to convey in a truly magical way. 'If you see this film, you will be transformed', he seems to be saying from the very beginning. The Riddle of the World will be explained to you. And the first answer to this great question has to do with these stunning, magical alignments of celestial bodies. One of the main tenets of alchemy is that planetary and celestial alignments cause dramatic events to occur on Earth. One of the most dramatic of alchemical alignments are solar and lunar eclipses. From the very beginning of the film there is this magic moment when three worlds line up. Something amazing is about to happen. But what is the major event that occurs on earth because of the lunar eclipse? I believe that it is the film itself that is being conjured by the magical alignment. Everytime 2001 is shown - this lunar eclipse precedes it - like an astrological, celestial marker.
The next shot in the film is a sunrise taken from down on the surface of the earth. Where are we and when are we? Kubrick answers the question with a subtitle: The Dawn of Man. This is the first of four chapters in the film.
In alchemy the process of transmutation of the spirit goes through four stages or realms. Kubrick also breaks the film into the four aspects. In the 'green language' or the 'language of the birds' of alchemy, many of the messages and writings can be broken down into this type of four-part transmission. The quatrains of Nostradamus, the inscription on the mysterious cross at Hendaye, and many other examples show that this secret alchemical language unfolds this way for a reason. This is the first of four parts in the film. Each one will expand out into more vast realms that mirror those of alchemy and the Great Work.
The next few scenes in chapter one show a typical day in the life of the apemen who thrived on earth millions of years ago. They forage for food, cower from their enemies (mostly portrayed by a leopard) and they exist in a meaningless, never-ending sequence of events, that are mostly concerned with survival. Kubrick has no romantic feeling for these man/apes. In a sense they go about there business without any knowledge of the outer universe. There only quest is for food and water. Kubrick even creates a scene of a pathetic wrangling between two tribes of the apemen over a watering hole. There is no violence in this scene, only grunts and gestures. The apemen do not know how to be violent, not just yet. The apemen go to sleep in their cave with the cries of the nocturnal carnivores filling their ears. It is a dark and lonely universe that Kubrick reveals. There is no magic here.
But the magic is there. It awaits until the dawn of the next day to appear. This scene is perhaps the most compelling and beautiful that has ever graced the screen. The lead apeman wakes up to catch the first rays of the sun coming up over the horizon. As he opens his eyes he sees something that is totally impossible. In a world of scrub bushes, sharp rocks and dangerous animals, the apeman has never seen anything like the object that stands before him. Standing in the middle of the tribe of apemen is a black, stone monolith. It stands about 12 feet high. Its rectangular edges are flawless and exquisite as it stands like a sentinel in the middle of the sleeping apemen.
The soundtrack is playing Ligeti's 'Requiem' and 'Lux Aeterna', which sounds like a psychedelic Gregorian chant. This is a religious and spiritual moment of great importance. Kubrick is not hiding this in any way.
The leader of the apemen begins to become frighten. He jumps up and down and begins grunting and chattering as he beholds the magnificence of this monolith. The other apemen are awakened by his noises and they too see the black monolith. The entire tribe starts going completely crazy. They dance and scream as they frightfully contemplate this strange and beautiful arrival into their mundane existence. The leader of the apeman is beside himself. He carefully crawls over to the monolith. He attempts to touch it, but his fear is so great that he pulls his hand back. One more time, as the music on the soundtrack becomes more numinous, he attempts to touch the absolutely pure and straight edge of the visiting slab of rock. Slowly he gathers the strength necessary and his fingers touch the smooth sides. Kubrick gives this moment an indefinable sensuality. The way that the fingers of the apeman brush gently along the smooth sides of the monolith are as sexual as this film is going to get. With the sacred music mixing with the magical alignments Kubrick is saying that this is a great spiritual moment. As soon as the leader apeman has gotten up the nerve to touch the monolith, Kubrick cuts to a dynamic shot of the monolith lying directly under a magical moon, sun alignment. This scene is happening just after a solar eclipse. The sun and the moon have just parted from their eclipsed point. Once again an intiatory event has been proceeded by an eclipse. This is exactly what Kubrick is attempting to tell us. The monolith appears when there are certain magical alignments of the sun, moon and stars. Again this is of a deep alchemical significance. Kubrick is telling us, flat out, that the sun, moon and stars are directing our destiny.
This is the first time in the film that the black monolith appears. When one considers the entire film it becomes apparent that this is the story of the black monolith. In fact, Kubrick magically cuts out all of human history in the famous shot where the bone turns into a spaceship. Kubrick completely dispenses with everything that has happened to the human race and goes directly to the very next human encounter with the monolith. He does this throughout the film. The only story that he is concerned with telling is that of the monolith. The first time that this black stone appears in the film it is revealed in a very religious and spiritually-styled motif. This stone, this monolith, has invaded the apeman's reality and he will be forever altered by this encounter. The monolith is a turning point in the history of man. It is directly intervening with our history. It is directing us on a path that it has chosen. Kubrick shows us that we don't have all that much to do with these grand decisions. They are being made elsewhere. By someone else. But who? Is it God? Aliens? A false god? And these interventions are not necessarily majestic, noble and wonderful. Kubrick is clearly showing that this intervention is a descent, in a way, both for the ape and for man.
The next episode, after the monolith appears, is the famous scene where the apeman leader is sitting in a pile of animal bones and realizes - again clearly defined by Kubrick as an intervention into the mind of the apeman by the monolith - that the bone can be used as a weapon. To the music of the World Riddle theme, again from Strauss' 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra, the apeman suddenly understands that he can kill animals by using the bone as a club. The next scene shows that the apemen are no longer scrounging for seeds and leaves, instead they are eating raw meat, presumably from an animal that they have just killed with their bone club. Kubrick clearly shows this action in a way that makes the meat appear extremely repulsive. Finally, he ends the first sequence with the confrontation by the water hole, again, with the other tribe of apemen. This time, though, the leader of the apemen has a bone club in his hand. The other tribe goes into their ritualized shouting and gesturing in order to show that they can dominate the water hole. The leader of the other tribe runs up. He yells at the apeman with the bone in his hands. The leader of the tribe of bone-wielders places both hands on the 'handle' of his weapon and strikes the other ape in the head, killing him instantly. The leader of the rival apemen falls down to the ground motionless. This stuns and frightens the apemen in the other tribe and they run away. Kubrick then brilliantly shows the other apemen in the tribe come forth and pound their bone weapons on the body of the dead apeman. Kubrick pulls no punches here. He wants you to know that this first murder is an act of cowardice. He shows the meek apemen pounding their bones on the dead body and acting as if they had done something incredible in this act of murder. The leader of the apemen, the first murderer, howls victoriously and throws his bone into the air. This is where Kubrick magically transforms the bone into a spaceship and rejects all of human history in one-twenty-fourth of a second. In his audacity, Kubrick is telling us that all of history is meaningless. He dispenses all of civilization as if it were insignificant. And, in a way, that is the complete point. He is telling us that the apemen's encounter with the monolith and whatever is about to happen in this film is vastly more important than all of the wars, famines, births, marriages, deaths, disasters, discoveries and art of the last 4 million years.
Before going on with rest of the film it is important to stop and address the monolith. This is the most important single aspect of the film. It unites all of the plot elements and it is, in a sense, the author of the film. It is interesting and extremely pertinent to the argument that I am making here that one understands the meaning of the word 'monolith'. Monolith come from the Greek Mon and Lith. "Mon" means 'one' and "lith" means 'stone'. So the monolith is a direct reference to 'one stone'. This film then, is about the one stone, or the single stone. And in this case, Kubrick has made sure that the stone is black. In alchemy all things that exist come from the black stone, or the 'prima materia'. The black stone is the stone of transformation, and even more important to this argument the stone of projection. This is the Philosopher's Stone. This is the object that can change, or transmute mankind, according to alchemical lore. It is rare and, when it makes an appearance, it transforms the seeker. There is little doubt that the black monolith in 2001 is the Philosopher's Stone.
What is it that the Philosopher's Stone promises? The two main gifts of the stone are total gnosis, or knowledge of the seeker and the immortality of the soul. Does the monolith deliver on these great promises? We shall see that it completes both promises before the film finally ends. In fact the two promises of the Philosopher's Stone are what is actually accomplished by the monolith through the course of the movie. There is also little doubt that Kubrick knew this all the time and it isn't accidental in anyway. This is a movie about the black stone, the prima materia, and the powder of projection. I will show that Kubrick is actually telling us that the monolith is the film, and conversely, the film is the monolith, but that will come later.
2001: The Great Work On Film
by Jay Weidner
"However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light." - Stanley Kubrick
"I'm sure you are aware of the extremely grave potential for social shock and disorientation caused by this information. We can't release it without proper conditioning." - Heywood Floyd
Within the tradition of the Great Work of alchemy is the idea that the initiations, explanations and rituals of alchemy are embedded into many great works of art. The pyramids of Egypt and the great cathedrals of France are referred to as 'books of stone'. In other words there is deep knowledge built into these edifices that only an initiate can truly understand. The great architects and artists had a very clear idea of what it was that they were attempting to transmit. It is only the viewer of these works that is left in the dark. As the French writer and alchemist Fulcanelli reveals in his masterpiece Mystery of the Cathedrals, the grand churches of France were built as part of this Great Work. But what was this Great Work supposed to accomplish? The answer to this important question, according to the alchemists, was the very transformation of the human spirit. Although it is true that the symbols and the geometry of the cathedrals was designed so that only a true initiate of the mysteries could really understand their significance, the builders and creators of the Great Work knew that everyone who experienced the cathedrals would come away transformed. Even the ones who were not initiates would still come away with a feeling of awe. Even hot-blooded, radical atheists are stilled by the beauty of Notre Dame or Chartes Cathedral.
In his book The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Victor Hugo goes into this subject with a great deal of openness. He explains that this secret Great Work of human transformation was built in to these 'books of stone' that we call the Cathedrals. But, he says, the new Great Book of Nature is not written on the walls, or in the stone of churches anymore. This new version, this modern version (this was in the 1800's) of the Great Work, had changed from the symbolic to the written word. Hugo identifies the works of William Shakespeare as containing the ancient alchemical knowledge of human transformation wrapped up in a set of theatrical plays. Without getting into the entire 'who was Shakespeare?' question, it can still be said that there is plenty of high strangeness around the man who was William Shakespeare and the plays that were, and are, attributed to him. Either way, Victor Hugo is right. The works of Shakespeare do hold within them all of the initiatic knowledge that is also on the walls of the cathedrals. Many books have touched this subject. Again, like the cathedrals, the plays of Shakespeare seem to transform the audience - even if most of them are not on the inside - as far as the secret initiatory knowledge is concerned. Shakespeare and the cathedrals both have this ability to appeal to many disparate layers of society. Both bring about a small transformation inside the human mind that makes all of us realize that we can do great and beautiful things. Indeed, this initiatic school seems to be saying that the transformation of the human spirit from the barbaric to the angelic can only come through great works of art.
It was sometime ago when I began contemplating the idea that although the Great Work had been expressed in stone, and later in literature, how would it be expressed today? It is without a doubt that the tapestry of human communication has switched. Just as it was once based on the symbolic - and then later transformed into the written word - now that literary model has switched to that of cinema, television and computers. Out of these three new forms of communication, cinema was the most obvious to attract someone who might want to etch the Great Work onto film. But, as I looked out at the landscape of the history of cinema, I could not find the Great Work on film. At least not at first.
I began watching many classics in order to see if the director, or writer, was attempting to tell us the secret about human transformation. Many other films and filmmakers got close, sometimes, to explaining minor aspects of the Great Work, but in the end they all failed. The works of Orson Welles, of course, were the most intriguing. But in the end even these failed to achieve the greatness for which I was looking.
Was it true that cinema was just too profane a medium to attract anyone with the caliber of mind and spirit to do this kind of film? Was it possible that the Great Work had never been transmitted through the cinema? When considered, it would take a nearly superhuman effort to have all of the disparate talents needed within one single filmmaker. This person would need the knowledge of alchemy, astronomy, anthropology and the true history of the human race. Besides an insatiable curiosity, they would have to understand the real nature of the human condition and of our place in the universe. This knowledge would have to be coupled with the skills of filmmaking and the business acumen to pull the project off. I began to realize the possibility, at this point, that my search for the Great Work in the cinema was probably in vain.
I was in France, doing research for a book that I am co-writing about the French alchemist Fulcanelli, when Stanley Kubrick died. The French, always a class act, devoted the next few nights of their great State-run television station, Channel 3, to the films of Stanley Kubrick. French Television has more lines on the screen than American television. This gives the picture a resolution and color that we just cannot hope to get in the United States. For the next few nights I watched some of the films of Kubrick. I began to realize that no filmmaker, except possibly Welles, had the sense of composition and light like Kubrick possessed. Visually his films were incredibly stunning and they had an amazing ability of holding up against the erosion of time.
Stanley Kubrick made 13 films in 46 years. His first film "Fear and Desire," was made in 1953 for almost no money. It has rarely been seen. His last film "Eyes Wide Shut" was finished in 1999. Kubrick died as soon as the editing was completed. Having always been a Kubrick fan, his death jolted me. I began to think about him and some of the many stories I heard about him. He was a funny looking Jewish kid, a high school dropout from the Bronx. He had an early interest in photography and soon was shooting stills for Look Magazine. After that he went to become a filmmaker. After completing a couple of interesting documentaries, he directed five commercial films over the next 8 years. This would be his highest period for output in his entire life.
Kubrick left the United States in 1961 and moved to England. There, it is reported that, he lived in a weird, old castle on a huge estate. He never came back to America. Robert Temple told me that Stanley was obsessed with Nazi memorabilia. I heard the rumor that Stanley had a provision in his contract at Pinewood Studios that the sets for 2001 could not be torn down for two years after the shoot was completed. Kubrick would come by the studio, late at night, always alone, and walk through the sets very slowly. When the sets were finally torn down it was rumored that Stanley went into a deep depression.
There is also the famous Stephen King story of the phone ringing in the middle of the night. Stephen answers and it is Stanley calling from London. He is on the set of The Shining and his voice sounds anxious. 'Do you believe in God?', Stanley demanded. Stephen cleared his throat and answered 'yes'. Stanley gruffly replied ' I knew it' and hangs up on Stephen. Of course his film of King's book was disowned by King, who clearly does not understand what Stanley was doing.
It was just after his death that I discovered that there was a book of the Great Work fashioned into a movie. And that Stanley had made this Great Work. It was also then that I realized that Stanley Kubrick had made the greatest film ever. Fans of Orson Welles will be upset with this. Citizen Kane is also one of the greatest films ever made. It actually was my favorite film until I began to unravel the truth that Stanley Kubrick embedded into his masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey. I realized also that Stanley Kubrick was not just a great filmmaker, he was the greatest filmmaker. I hope to reveal to you, oh, gentle reader, that this film actually evokes all aspects of the great work of alchemy. 2001 is the 'book of nature' in the cinema, literally. I hope to prove that Kubrick did this with great intention and that he knew what he was doing at every step. There are few mistakes in his films. But his greatest film is the most perfect.
It is important to remember that , unlike Citizen Kane, 2001 was a smash hit. It was actually the first film where repeat business kept it going at the box office. Nowadays it is common for a person to see Titanic or Star Wars a number of times. Hollywood accountants depend on this for their decisions. But 2001 took an entire generation by storm. It was the late '60's and the largest generation on the planet was seeing the film on a ritualized basis. Cinerama theaters across the country reported scores of drugged out hippies flocking to the theater on a nightly basis to 'trip out' on the film. Strangely though, no one really seemed to know what the film was really about. The film seemed to cause everyone to come away with a different interpretation. And no one could adequately explain the last 25 minutes. It was generally agreed that this was the most controversial part of the entire movie. Indeed many thousands of hours were taken up in coffee houses and dormitories, in universities and colleges, discussing the various possible meanings that the ending was describing. Everyone agreed that it had something to do with transformation but no one knew really much more than that. Even Arthur C. Clarke, who helped Stanley write the script, didn't understand the unusual ending. And Stanley wasn't talking. He steadfastly refused to discuss what 2001 was about to anyone. In the rare interviews that he gave, concerning the film, he again refused to discuss the content at all. Most critics at the time thought that Kubrick simply did not know how to conclude the movie so he contrived this ending. I can assure you that this is not so. The ending to the film explains everything that Stanley is conveying in the film. Without the ending, the film would be nearly worthless. It is in that ending that Kubrick reveals his deep inner profound knowledge of alchemy, gnosticism and the ancient view of the spirit domain.
Reading through many critical reviews of the film I find it amazing that no one understands what is happening. There are some very erudite explanations that do cover parts of the plot, yet no one really gets it. A description in a movie guide calls it a 'science fiction drama about a computer who takes over a spaceship'. This is like saying that the works of art on the ceiling at Sistine Chapel are 'some paintings about the Bible'.
It is almost like Stanley built this film so that people at some future date would finally understand it, possibly in the year 2001?
It is important to not underestimate Arthur C. Clarke's important contributions to 2001. After all the script is ostensibly based on his short story The Sentinel. Written in 1953, it tells the story of a group of astronauts who discover an artifact on the moon that is left by an alien race. Truthfully though the movie is more properly based on Clarke's novel Childhood's End. This fabulous novel is a science fiction treatment of an essential Gnostic ideal. There can be no doubt that Kubrick had read Childhood's End and understood it's significance. By aligning himself up with Arthur C. Clark, Kubrick was able to bring in these Gnostic, alchemical ideas through the convention of science fiction.
It has always been a mystery as to where Arthur C. Clarke came up with the idea for Childhood's End. He insists that he knew nothing of gnosticism or ancient magical traditions when he wrote the book that many have proclaimed to be the best ever in the genre of science fiction. Whatever Clarke wants us to believe is not the subject of this essay. Suffice to say that Clarke was a well read individual. It appears odd that he wouldn't have known of the Gnostic traditions. Kubrick, however, proves that he knows what he is doing at every step and this is the real reason why he is not talking about the film to anyone.
Many of the special effects that were used in 2001 were invented by Stanley himself. The images of people moving around in the windows of the spacecraft was an ingenious invention that revolutionized the way movies would look from then on. Even Steven Spielberg and George Lucas admit what they owe to Stanley for his ground breaking technical breakthroughs. Like Citizen Kane, the vision and power of the film changed the way that all of cinema would look after it. Especially all science fiction films, which all seem to pay homage to 2001 in one way or another.
Let's begin with a description of the film so that we can place everything in context. The film opens with a magical sun-earth-moon alignment. We are just at the end of a lunar eclipse. The sun is pulling away from the alignment. The shot is taken from just beyond the moon's point of view. It shows the earth rising over the moon, with the sun rising over the earth. The soundtrack is the 'World Riddle' theme from Strauss' 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra'. Right away Kubrick is showing the viewer the relationship between the philosopher Frederick Nietzche and the film, between transformation and extinction. The Zarathustra essays by Nietzche are his most revealing and magical. Zarathustra is the great god of the Zoroastrians, who are the early holders of the alchemical tradition. This is one of the most dramatic openings in the history of the cinema. These magical, celestial alignments are dotted throughout the film and hold a key to the main theme. One realizes that Kubrick is never doing anything that is spontaneous.
Every shot has a meaning that he is attempting to convey in a truly magical way. 'If you see this film, you will be transformed', he seems to be saying from the very beginning. The Riddle of the World will be explained to you. And the first answer to this great question has to do with these stunning, magical alignments of celestial bodies. One of the main tenets of alchemy is that planetary and celestial alignments cause dramatic events to occur on Earth. One of the most dramatic of alchemical alignments are solar and lunar eclipses. From the very beginning of the film there is this magic moment when three worlds line up. Something amazing is about to happen. But what is the major event that occurs on earth because of the lunar eclipse? I believe that it is the film itself that is being conjured by the magical alignment. Everytime 2001 is shown - this lunar eclipse precedes it - like an astrological, celestial marker.
The next shot in the film is a sunrise taken from down on the surface of the earth. Where are we and when are we? Kubrick answers the question with a subtitle: The Dawn of Man. This is the first of four chapters in the film.
In alchemy the process of transmutation of the spirit goes through four stages or realms. Kubrick also breaks the film into the four aspects. In the 'green language' or the 'language of the birds' of alchemy, many of the messages and writings can be broken down into this type of four-part transmission. The quatrains of Nostradamus, the inscription on the mysterious cross at Hendaye, and many other examples show that this secret alchemical language unfolds this way for a reason. This is the first of four parts in the film. Each one will expand out into more vast realms that mirror those of alchemy and the Great Work.
The next few scenes in chapter one show a typical day in the life of the apemen who thrived on earth millions of years ago. They forage for food, cower from their enemies (mostly portrayed by a leopard) and they exist in a meaningless, never-ending sequence of events, that are mostly concerned with survival. Kubrick has no romantic feeling for these man/apes. In a sense they go about there business without any knowledge of the outer universe. There only quest is for food and water. Kubrick even creates a scene of a pathetic wrangling between two tribes of the apemen over a watering hole. There is no violence in this scene, only grunts and gestures. The apemen do not know how to be violent, not just yet. The apemen go to sleep in their cave with the cries of the nocturnal carnivores filling their ears. It is a dark and lonely universe that Kubrick reveals. There is no magic here.
But the magic is there. It awaits until the dawn of the next day to appear. This scene is perhaps the most compelling and beautiful that has ever graced the screen. The lead apeman wakes up to catch the first rays of the sun coming up over the horizon. As he opens his eyes he sees something that is totally impossible. In a world of scrub bushes, sharp rocks and dangerous animals, the apeman has never seen anything like the object that stands before him. Standing in the middle of the tribe of apemen is a black, stone monolith. It stands about 12 feet high. Its rectangular edges are flawless and exquisite as it stands like a sentinel in the middle of the sleeping apemen.
The soundtrack is playing Ligeti's 'Requiem' and 'Lux Aeterna', which sounds like a psychedelic Gregorian chant. This is a religious and spiritual moment of great importance. Kubrick is not hiding this in any way.
The leader of the apemen begins to become frighten. He jumps up and down and begins grunting and chattering as he beholds the magnificence of this monolith. The other apemen are awakened by his noises and they too see the black monolith. The entire tribe starts going completely crazy. They dance and scream as they frightfully contemplate this strange and beautiful arrival into their mundane existence. The leader of the apeman is beside himself. He carefully crawls over to the monolith. He attempts to touch it, but his fear is so great that he pulls his hand back. One more time, as the music on the soundtrack becomes more numinous, he attempts to touch the absolutely pure and straight edge of the visiting slab of rock. Slowly he gathers the strength necessary and his fingers touch the smooth sides. Kubrick gives this moment an indefinable sensuality. The way that the fingers of the apeman brush gently along the smooth sides of the monolith are as sexual as this film is going to get. With the sacred music mixing with the magical alignments Kubrick is saying that this is a great spiritual moment. As soon as the leader apeman has gotten up the nerve to touch the monolith, Kubrick cuts to a dynamic shot of the monolith lying directly under a magical moon, sun alignment. This scene is happening just after a solar eclipse. The sun and the moon have just parted from their eclipsed point. Once again an intiatory event has been proceeded by an eclipse. This is exactly what Kubrick is attempting to tell us. The monolith appears when there are certain magical alignments of the sun, moon and stars. Again this is of a deep alchemical significance. Kubrick is telling us, flat out, that the sun, moon and stars are directing our destiny.
This is the first time in the film that the black monolith appears. When one considers the entire film it becomes apparent that this is the story of the black monolith. In fact, Kubrick magically cuts out all of human history in the famous shot where the bone turns into a spaceship. Kubrick completely dispenses with everything that has happened to the human race and goes directly to the very next human encounter with the monolith. He does this throughout the film. The only story that he is concerned with telling is that of the monolith. The first time that this black stone appears in the film it is revealed in a very religious and spiritually-styled motif. This stone, this monolith, has invaded the apeman's reality and he will be forever altered by this encounter. The monolith is a turning point in the history of man. It is directly intervening with our history. It is directing us on a path that it has chosen. Kubrick shows us that we don't have all that much to do with these grand decisions. They are being made elsewhere. By someone else. But who? Is it God? Aliens? A false god? And these interventions are not necessarily majestic, noble and wonderful. Kubrick is clearly showing that this intervention is a descent, in a way, both for the ape and for man.
The next episode, after the monolith appears, is the famous scene where the apeman leader is sitting in a pile of animal bones and realizes - again clearly defined by Kubrick as an intervention into the mind of the apeman by the monolith - that the bone can be used as a weapon. To the music of the World Riddle theme, again from Strauss' 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra, the apeman suddenly understands that he can kill animals by using the bone as a club. The next scene shows that the apemen are no longer scrounging for seeds and leaves, instead they are eating raw meat, presumably from an animal that they have just killed with their bone club. Kubrick clearly shows this action in a way that makes the meat appear extremely repulsive. Finally, he ends the first sequence with the confrontation by the water hole, again, with the other tribe of apemen. This time, though, the leader of the apemen has a bone club in his hand. The other tribe goes into their ritualized shouting and gesturing in order to show that they can dominate the water hole. The leader of the other tribe runs up. He yells at the apeman with the bone in his hands. The leader of the tribe of bone-wielders places both hands on the 'handle' of his weapon and strikes the other ape in the head, killing him instantly. The leader of the rival apemen falls down to the ground motionless. This stuns and frightens the apemen in the other tribe and they run away. Kubrick then brilliantly shows the other apemen in the tribe come forth and pound their bone weapons on the body of the dead apeman. Kubrick pulls no punches here. He wants you to know that this first murder is an act of cowardice. He shows the meek apemen pounding their bones on the dead body and acting as if they had done something incredible in this act of murder. The leader of the apemen, the first murderer, howls victoriously and throws his bone into the air. This is where Kubrick magically transforms the bone into a spaceship and rejects all of human history in one-twenty-fourth of a second. In his audacity, Kubrick is telling us that all of history is meaningless. He dispenses all of civilization as if it were insignificant. And, in a way, that is the complete point. He is telling us that the apemen's encounter with the monolith and whatever is about to happen in this film is vastly more important than all of the wars, famines, births, marriages, deaths, disasters, discoveries and art of the last 4 million years.
Before going on with rest of the film it is important to stop and address the monolith. This is the most important single aspect of the film. It unites all of the plot elements and it is, in a sense, the author of the film. It is interesting and extremely pertinent to the argument that I am making here that one understands the meaning of the word 'monolith'. Monolith come from the Greek Mon and Lith. "Mon" means 'one' and "lith" means 'stone'. So the monolith is a direct reference to 'one stone'. This film then, is about the one stone, or the single stone. And in this case, Kubrick has made sure that the stone is black. In alchemy all things that exist come from the black stone, or the 'prima materia'. The black stone is the stone of transformation, and even more important to this argument the stone of projection. This is the Philosopher's Stone. This is the object that can change, or transmute mankind, according to alchemical lore. It is rare and, when it makes an appearance, it transforms the seeker. There is little doubt that the black monolith in 2001 is the Philosopher's Stone.
What is it that the Philosopher's Stone promises? The two main gifts of the stone are total gnosis, or knowledge of the seeker and the immortality of the soul. Does the monolith deliver on these great promises? We shall see that it completes both promises before the film finally ends. In fact the two promises of the Philosopher's Stone are what is actually accomplished by the monolith through the course of the movie. There is also little doubt that Kubrick knew this all the time and it isn't accidental in anyway. This is a movie about the black stone, the prima materia, and the powder of projection. I will show that Kubrick is actually telling us that the monolith is the film, and conversely, the film is the monolith, but that will come later.