You know you’re watching a Stanley Kubrick movie if…We explore the director trademarks of acclaimed director, Stanley Kubrick.
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Transcript provided by Youtube:
00:01
You know you’re watching Stanley Kubrick IF…
00:03
The pictures speak.
00:05
They say a picture’s worth a thousand words,
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but a Kubrick image speaks its own language
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that can’t be translated.
00:11
To say Kubrick is a great photographer
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doesn’t just mean that he’s given us a lot of pretty pictures.
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It means he can say things with a picture.
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And not just simple, literal things,
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but primal, emotional, unwordable things.
00:24
His pictures speak to us about philosophy and complex ideas.
00:29
Take Barry Lyndon —
00:30
Kubrick zooms out from the action to make his characters
00:33
look like they’re trapped in a period-appropriate
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18th century painting —
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he’s not moving the camera deliberately,
00:40
he’s zooming rather than dynamically tracking
00:42
so the proportions of the image don’t change.
00:45
So he’s visually expressing
00:47
that Barry is stuck in a static society.
00:50
His attempts to strive for a better life are ultimately futile.
00:55
The opening credits of Lolita present the image of Lolita’s foot
00:59
for Humbert to adoringly adorn with polish.
01:02
So this initial image sets up something unexpected in the power dynamic
01:07
of their relationship we’re about to see.
01:09
In The Shining, when Wendy locks Jack in the pantry,
01:13
the camera looks up at him from the floor,
01:15
and the radical image communicates several things to us at once —
01:19
it expresses Jack’s mounting insanity,
01:22
it’s as if his demonic POV is looking up from hell itself;
01:27
it disorients us — we feel like everything’s upside down —
01:30
and it shows us that even though he’s the one locked up.
01:34
Jack still towers over Wendy.
01:36
He makes her feel small and beaten down in the frame.
01:39
Then there’s one of the most famous cuts in history,
01:42
from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
01:44
This moment is iconic not only because it looks cool,
01:47
but also because there’s a philosophy articulated
01:50
through this cut —
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the idea that for all our progress,
01:53
our technology is still basically the same
01:55
as that first tool, which was a weapon
01:58
that our ape ancestors used to kill.
02:01
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Now, back to Kubrick.
02:30
Kubrick sort of keeps his lips sealed as to
02:32
what message the movie’s trying to express —
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it’s pretty far from, say, an Aaron Sorkin movie
02:38
where the message is eloquently articulated for us,
02:41
maybe multiple times.
02:44
“…bacause you’re an asshole.”
02:49
Kubrick said that he found it very difficult
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when interviewers asked the question,
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“what is it that you were trying to say in that picture?’
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In his words, “If I could have said it any differently,
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I would have.”
02:59
By refusing to tell us
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what to think about his movies,
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by speaking to us directly through the language of film,
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Kubrick creates a pure — cinematic — experience.
03:08
And he’s forcing us to discover
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what we think the meaning is for ourselves.
03:13
I think he was one of the most not just sophisticated technically
03:16
but he was one of the greatest thinkers to ever make a movie.
03:20
His films are intellectually really profound
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and you have to work to make them mean something…
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He allows you to interpret for yourself
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and that’s a dangerous thing because we might misinterpret
03:30
what he intended.
03:32
But that’s the security of this very talented artist
03:36
that he’s going to allow us to have that power.”
03:40
When 2001: A Space Odyssey was released,
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Kubrick pointed out that some critics didn’t understand the film
03:46
because they were, in his opinion, too verbally oriented.
03:49
To quote him “every child that sees the film…
03:52
knows that Doctor Floyd goes to the moon.
03:54
You say ‘Well how do you know’ and they say ‘Well, we saw the moon.’
03:58
Whereas a number of people, including critics,
04:00
thought he went to the planet Clavius.
04:02
Why they think there’s a planet Clavius I’ll never know.
04:05
But they hear him asked, ‘What about you?’
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‘I’m just on my way up to Clavius.’”
04:09
Kubrick’s also said that by communicating through visuals
04:13
and through music,
04:14
we can get free of the pigeon-holing of language concepts
04:17
that words are inherently subjective and limiting.
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So he wants us to outgrow that instinct to reduce cinema
04:24
to some words that encapsulate the “meaning,”
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allowing us to promptly be done thinking about the movie we just saw.
04:32
With that in mind to get thinking more visually,
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what are the aethestics of a Kubrick film telling us?
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Kubrick often uses one-point perspective —
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All lines appear to lead toward one vanishing point
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on the horizon line.
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This creates a feeling of depth — we feel drawn in to the image.
04:48
His one-point perspective,
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and his frequent use of symmetry and center-framing,
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create a sense of order.
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But this clean, aesthetic orderliness creates
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mixed feelings in us.
05:00
We feel a tension between wonder and terror.
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On the one hand we’re full of awe
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because his frames are so beautiful,
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but on the other hand this eerie order
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makes us feel uneasy, like something is off,
05:12
and something terrible may be about to happen.
05:15
In The Shining or Clockwork Orange
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we’re witnessing very dark things,
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but we’re seduced by the formal beauty of the images,
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so we feel conflicted.
05:24
In 2001, the majestic order and circularity of the visuals
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feed our fascination about the mysteries of the bigger universe
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and this greater intelligence that’s contacting humanity;
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but all of this is equally penetrated by fear,
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infused with a sense of threat, both from without,
05:44
and from within ourselves and our technological creations.
05:47
“Stop, Dave, I’m Afraid.”
05:51
The production design feed this tension, too —
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Perfect precision in the composition is paired with wild,
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incongruous oddities in the set or costumes.
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So there’s a constant mix of visual right and wrong
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confusing our brains.
06:05
Kubrick’s aesthetic feels cold to us–
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It’s orderly, structured, richly beautiful
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and alluring but never emotionally warm,
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never to be trusted.
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The cold images —
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and that formal, orderly distance in the mise-en-scène —
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correspond to a worldview that is strikingly unsentimental.
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Kubrick’s stories are never clouded by the closeness of warm feeling.
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He’s looking for Objectivity Through Distance,
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so that he can give us accurate insights
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about the human condition.
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His gift for wide lenses visualizes the emotional distance
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and objectivity he’s giving us.
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The wide lets us to see more of the world we’re entering.
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And it’s not just the formal compositions that make us feel like
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we are removed from the regular world —
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it’s also his topics and settings
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which are largely in the past or the future —
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whether we’re in space, an urban dystopia,
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on the battlefield of a historical war,
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or locked up in a creepy hotel.
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Being removed from our everyday life,
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it’s as if we’re looking at human nature under a magnifying glass,
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subtracting the usual variables that might make a story
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too close-to-home to properly understand.
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Kubrick once said that he believed the basic purpose of a film is
07:20
“illumination… showing the viewer something he can’t see any other way.
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And I think at times this can be best accomplished
07:28
by staying away from his own immediate environment…
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He added that “dealing with themes that are
07:34
either futuristic or historic…
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it removes the environmental blinkers, in a sense,
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and gives you a deeper and more objective perspective.”
07:42
In conjunction with his perfectly ordered compositions
07:45
and mise-en-scène, he’s also achieving an image that’s
07:48
dynamic, kinetic, in motion, not a series of still photographs.
07:53
This scene of Nicole Kidman in Eyes Wide Shut is a perfect example.
07:57
The lens interacts with Kidman —
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with both the people and the story and the architecture
08:02
or the design they’re inhabiting —
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and this leads to natural energy onscreen.
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The feeling of interaction is what makes his images come alive.
08:11
Kubrick’s films tend to inspire all kinds of
08:14
theorizing and speculation — famously many people believe
08:18
The Shining is his confession that
08:19
he helped fake the original Moon Landing.
08:22
All these referencing to Apollo 11…
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From the Apollo 11 rocket that he has on the sweater
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to the configuration of the carpet that looks like
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the launchpad from space of where Apollo’ve launched.
08:34
You wonder what’s really going on in these films
08:38
because there’s something for anybody to go into this movie
08:41
and have some kind of interpretation.
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if indeed the moon landing was faked,
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Kubrick would have been the one to do it.
08:48
The meticulously structured images,
08:50
even the way that all the lines lead to a central unifying point —
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visually in part of feeling to us that there is some deeper meaning here,
08:58
more than what’s being said.
08:59
And because we’re not being told what to think,
09:02
some strange, more far-fetched interpretations can result.
09:06
With Kubrick, it’s really dangerously wide open.
09:10
Kubrick is very influenced by Nietzsche
09:12
and the concept of Eternal Return or Eternal recurrence,
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which is the idea that everything repeats over
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and over infinitely across time and space.
09:21
We feel that sense of infinite repetition
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in Kubrick’s endless images, and in his stories.
09:27
In The Shining, Jack is implied to be a reincarnated spirit
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who will continue to surface over and over,
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wanting a blood sacrifice each time.
09:36
In 2001, human society continues to repeat the same ape behavior
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no matter how much we evolve.
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so the first weapon becomes the space ship.
09:46
The wide open desert that intimidated the apes
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before they were predators,
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becomes the vast intimidating openness of outer space.
09:55
The apes around the watering hole
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trying to assert their dominance over rival apes
10:00
become the Americans and the Russians in a circle talking casually,
10:04
the clash now contained in subtext.
10:06
“We should be given all the facts, Dr. Floyd.”
10:11
“Yes I…
10:12
I know.
10:13
As I said, I’m not at liberty to discuss it.”
10:16
Everything repeats itself.
10:18
We go through many changes but in the end we’re unchanged.
10:20
Kind of ironic, and also it’s something that’s antithetical to most filmmakers —
10:26
usually there’s an arc to a character —
10:28
who they are at the beginning,
10:29
and they’re totally different person by the end of the movie.
10:32
But he has a way of — they went through maybe some changes
10:35
only to then they come back to their point of origin.
10:37
This is illustrated in the movie Lolita.
10:41
Kubrick has her point to the odometer and she goes,
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“Hey look, all the nines are changing into—”
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So you can go 99000 miles and then just start all over again.
10:52
Malcolm McDowell called Kubrick’s humor as “black as coal.”
10:56
“Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here!
10:58
This is the war room!”
10:59
Kubrick makes light of things that are usually considered taboo,
11:02
or off limits to comedy.
11:04
“Here’s Johnny!”
11:06
Alex exuberantly sings and dances
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while assaulting a couple in their home.
11:11
“I’m singin’ in the rain”
11:14
Lolita, a story of pedophillia, became a black comedy, too —
11:18
“Do you believe in God?”
11:21
“[Burps] The question is — does God believe in me?”
11:27
which was Kubrick’s response to having to tone down
11:29
the eroticism of the novel to get the film by the censors.
11:32
“I wonder if the symbolism was a bit heavy-handed at times.”
11:36
War is another subject Kubrick can find humor in —
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The wit of the names in Dr. Strangelove:
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“Group Captain Mandrake speaking.”
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“This is General Ripper speaking.”
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“General Turgidson.”
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“Major King.”
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And the visual sexual innuendo of the war scenes
11:50
make the entire movie one of the darkest comedies
11:53
we can think of.
11:55
His comedy is so black that it ends with
11:57
the whole world being blown up.
12:00
And the irony-infused Full Metal Jacket
12:02
ends with the men singing
12:04
the Mickey Mouse Club theme song on the battlefield.
12:07
[Singing Mickey Mouse Club theme song]
12:15
Kubrick’s films explore Sinister sides of Domesticity,
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and taboo or hostile erotic exploits.
12:22
“If you men only knew…”
12:26
They have a Dark View of Power & Technology
12:29
of war, and of human society.
12:31
Look at The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, Dr Strangelove, Barry Lyndon —
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Kubrick is hardly holding out any hope
12:37
that society will stop being so hung up on senseless,
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irrational violence or sexually charged shows of power.
12:45
Kubrick has a very jaundiced view of humanity I would say…
12:50
Human beings, it’s like a cautionary tale,
12:52
if we’re not careful, we’re not going to make it out of here,
12:54
we’re going to destroy ourselves… there’s plenty evidence for that
12:59
His Paths of Glory is a movie about how they pick three innocent guys
13:03
to execute to motivate their own troops, they’re killing their own men.
13:07
He’s always about how things turn on,
13:11
no matter what you make it’s going to turn on you,
13:13
Hal turns on you, he’s a computer that is supposed to serve us,
13:15
he turns on us and tries to kill us.
13:17
“Open the pod bay doors, Hal.”
13:19
“I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
13:23
In Lolita they’re in the movie theater together,
13:26
Shelley Winters and Sue Lyon and James Mason,
13:28
they’re watching The Mummy —
13:29
when the mummy comes back to life,
13:31
it immediately turns on the person
13:33
that brought it back to life and kills that person.
13:36
So, this is the recurring theme throughout Kubrick.
13:39
And so, who is the one person suppose to protect you the most in life?
13:43
It would be your father, right?
13:45
He should give his life to protect his children.
13:48
But no.
13:49
The Shining is about how the father
13:51
turns on his wife and son and he is going to slaughter.
13:55
At the same time, Kubrick strongly objected to the idea
13:58
that he was a misanthrope.
14:00
In 1968 he said,
14:01
“You don’t stop being concerned with man
14:03
because you recognize his essential absurdities
14:06
and frailties and pretensions,”
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and also, “In the deepest sense, I believe in
14:10
man’s potential and his capacity for progress.”
14:13
Kubrick’s social critiques and his quest for objectivity
14:17
aren’t about embracing hopelessness or futility.
14:21
His films are instead trying to avoid
14:23
the easy, false answers of sentimentality
14:27
and illusions that we wish to be true…
14:29
Kubrick’s films do imply that there is meaning in things,
14:33
but we have to be prepared
14:34
that it’s not the meaning we expect.
14:37
The truth may be strange, dark and difficult to accept.
14:41
Still, if we push beyond our initial darkness and fear,
14:45
we may be able to find something worthwhile on the other side.
14:48
Kubrick doesn’t soften his conclusions —
14:51
he often leaves us in a very dark place.
14:54
So hope is not to be found in the so-called civilized societies
14:57
that humankind has produced to date,
14:59
but there may still be some hope at the end of a Kubrick film.
15:03
Danny in The Shining escapes his violent father
15:05
and doesn’t take after him.
15:07
2001 ends with the Star child heading toward Earth,
15:10
giving us reason to think perhaps we have
15:12
another more intelligent state of being ahead of us.
15:16
Full Metal Jacket ends on the darkly sardonic note of the soldiers
15:19
singing the Mickey Mouse Club theme song on the battlefield,
15:21
yet paradoxically the Joker has achieved
15:23
a sort of relief after becoming a killer —
15:26
he has counter-intuitively accessed something human in him again.
15:31
Kubrick has spoken about how our awareness of mortality
15:34
spoils that wonder and joy that we have as a child,
15:37
but we can quote “emerge from this twilight of the soul…
15:40
into a rebirth of life’s Élan.”
15:42
As he said, “The most terrifying thing about the universe
15:46
is not that it is hostile, but that it is indifferent;
15:49
but if we can come to terms with this indifference
15:52
and accept the challenges of life within the boundaries of death,
15:55
our existence as a species can have genuine meaning and fulfillment.
15:59
“However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.”
16:04
So there’s a running message in Kubrick’s work and interviews
16:07
that sounds a lot like Existentialism —
16:10
first we need to let go of our illusions of immortality,
16:13
accept the indifference of the universe,
16:16
and after that, we can build a more sustainable
16:19
and durable outlook for ourselves…
16:21
We can perhaps go on to make or do something meaningful.
16:25
“The dead know only one thing: it is better to be alive.”
16:32
His movies are sometimes impenetrable,
16:35
hard to really fully understand.
16:37
All the levels he’s operating aren’t simultaneously.
16:39
He’s certainly multi-dimensional, highly innovative
16:42
and has many things to say.
16:43
He says eloquently,
16:45
But he says almost the same thing across every movie —
16:47
just other incarnations.
16:49
He will use different genres, grapple with the same message:
16:53
“I am putting myself to the fullest possible use,”
16:57
“which is all I think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.”
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