Finally - the countdown ends.

To recap:

No.5 - Eyes Wide Shut

No.4 - Full Metal Jacket

No.3 - The Shining

No.2 - A Clockwork Orange

And My number one Stanley Kubrick's movie is: 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY!

In the words of Stanley Kubrick: the very nature of the visual experience in 2001 is to give the viewer an instantaneous, visceral reaction that does not and should not require further amplification.

However, for anyone who has seen the film, will be baffled by the opening of the such a movie. As show below:

The Opening shot, viewer, the audience were treated with total blackness which accompanied by a strange musical score (taken from Gyorgi Ligetti's Requiem) for about 10-12 minutes (and if you were watching it on DVD, your DVD isn't broken; it meant to be like that). Kubrick demanded, no matter what, for a small or big cinema or for TV viewing,such openning cannot be cut nor the duration to be reduced.. And, also, the ratio of the screen has to remained the same size. A wide screen format i.e. a letterbox format or a rectangle shape of a screen. Why? It will be explain later.

For a long time, there has been several analysis of such opening but to explained the opening we must explore the first and second act of 2001- The Dawn of Man and From Earth to the Moon.

A SPACE ODYSSEY

Dawn of Man

In this first act, where our ancestors ( a group of ape-like human) living out their primitive life. They are not intelligent and afraid of the dark - However, something happened. One morning, when one group of ape-like human woke up, they found a giant black rectangle - A Monolith. From then onward, that group evolved.

From Earth to Moon

Much later in the film, Human is now an advanced being (thanks to the first Monolith contact) which enable them to settle a base on the moon. However, another monolith was discovered there which is similar to how the Ape-like human discovering the first. Coincidentally.

At both discovery of the Monilith, Kubrick used the very same musical score from the opening. As if telling us, the music is actually coming from the Monolith and it is how the monolith communicate. Made the connection, yet?

If you rotate the monolith 90 degree in the first Act of Dawn Of Man, you will see it fits perfectly of the ratio Kubrick demanded to be kept. The monolith is a representation of the actual wide frame cinema screen.

In the Opening shot, the Black Monolith was communicating with the audience but unlike the apes - we simply didn't understand because we are 'boxed' in Thus the Director, Stanley Kubrick will take us to an Odyssey of Space (the monolith) - To get us unboxed or think outside the box (out the cinema screen) - To be Enlighten.

Monolithic Hint

Even early advertising posters. Kubrick has given the potential audience a hint of what the monolith is:

The poster above of the film very blatantly communicates the monolith / cinema screen association, by showing three screen shots of the film, one of which is rotated 90 degrees.

An Monolithic Odyssey

There are literally hundreds of visual clues of the monolith / cinema screen relationship scattered throughout the films visual structure, but I shall concentrate here on the most obvious and undeniable examples.

We find several direct hints both before and during the stargate sequence, which has long been one of the most confusing aspects of the film. For the first time in the story we are seeing the monolith freed of its previously vertical stance as it floats around the screen, accompanied by scattered moons and a tormenting piece of music. Notice that at no point does any object on screen pass directly in front or behind this monolith. So we have no indication of its actual size - for all we know it could be a few inches in length or thousands of miles thick

The concept of visual alignment, as seen with Jupiter and its moons, is nothing to do with astronomy or astrology. As the monolith floats about it repeatedly comes close to matching up with the frame of the screen and in some shots the white light reflecting across its surface completely mismatches the light sources of the surrounding sun and moons. As the sun moves on and off screen it causes flares of white light to stretch on and off screen in a similar way to the reflections on the monolith.

After several minutes of this tormenting imagery we see a shot of Jupiter and its moons suddenly aligned, but the shot is rotated 90 degrees so that Jupiter's North and South poles are to our left and right. The monolith is in its vertical position, as seen earlier in the film, but due to the 90 degree rotated viewpoint it now appears to be horizontal. Rather than having this horizontal monolith move directly toward us, which would make it perfectly align with the cinema frame and thus make the cinema screen connection absolutely obvious, Kubrick has this monolith tilt backwards until it fades into the blackness of space.

The shot then scrolls up toward where we should see the sun, but we are instead faced with a black screen, just like in the intermission and the film's opening. The monolith has literally just become the cinema screen and now our stargate voyage can begin.

We next see a high speed journey along a vertical horizon of patterned light, leaving both Dave Bowman and the audience tormented and confused as to its meaning. The music intensifies to the point of insanity, adding to our confusion, but then something odd happens. The stargate horizon switches from vertical to horizontal.

This is a hint that if you are going to understand this film consciously then you should be viewing the monolith horizontally. Only then can you make a direct connection between the monolith and the letterbox shape of the cinema screen, hence the films repeated visual themes of rotation and alignment. If you do manage to make this visual connection during the stargate you are then rewarded by the dazzling big bang explosion of consciousness that follows.

Now if you're still not convinced that the monolith is a representation of the cinema screen then go back earlier in the film and watch the lunar excavation site landing sequence. During the moon bus descent we see the landing base come into view in the cockpit window. It is in a vertical position and begins slowly rotating into a horizontal position. It is also moving directly toward the computer display screen on the lower left where it will align.

The computer display alternately shows a circular target grid of yellow lines pulsing toward us like the big bang explosion at the end of the stargate. In the middle of this target grid is a rectangular half monolith just below the center of the cross hair.

And here is the unbelievably blatant hint that has bypassed our conscious attention for decades … As the landing pad reaches its horizontal position, the missing top half of the monolith rectangle suddenly floats in from the right of the display and matches up with the centre of the cross hair.

The vertically positioned monolith is completed and the entire cross hair display begins flashing in white, again like the big bang sequence of the stargate. Immediately after this we see the computer display repeated, but this time seen by a man watching the moon bus landing through a large rectangular window. The upper section of the crosshair rectangle floats in again, but just as it's about to align with the centre the shot cuts away so that the conceptual connection between the rectangle in the computer display and the rectangle of the window is merely suggested.

Floyd and his colleagues are also sat in the back of the moon bus puzzling over photos and diagrams. One of the papers shows a spiral target grid with a white monolith rectangle in the lower right corner.

Another computer display along the same lines is featured when Bowman chases Poole's missing body. Again we have a pulsing circular target display, this time with a monolith type rectangle flashing in the upper right.

During this pod sequence the yellow target display from the moon bus sequence is several times projected onto Bowman's face along with a white rectangle floating inwards toward the centre.

If even that doesn't convince you then look at the coloured light patterns in the horizontal section of the stargate tunnel. Just before the big bang, the stargate pattern fills up with a series of yellow lines and spirals that are very similar to the computer crosshair display in the moon bus.

Even the first lunar landing sequence carries hints of what the monolith is. The spherical craft, carrying Floyd to the moon base, approaches a dome like structure. The dome opens in a star-like pattern, foreshadowing the explosion of consciousness at the end of the stargate, and inside the dome can be seen the outline of a horizontally positioned rectangle.

Another clue is that the door on the back of each spacepod features a prominent sign stating "Caution: Explosive Bolts".

The door is roughly a vertical monolith shape and on the inside of the door, behind Bowman's head (visible just as he is about to blast into the vacuum without his helmet), is a horizontal red monolith featuring the same "Explosive Bolts" warning - yet another connection between the letterbox design, the upright monolith and the explosion of the stargate.

These clues are absolutely no accident. They are exactly the kind of thing Kubrick was referring to when he described the film's meesages as being visually encoded, but the sophistication with which he created these visual associations is so unusual and such a unique directing talent that hardly anybody has ever managed to unravel the monolith's meaning in nearly forty years. There are so many hints of what the monolith is but unless you think outside the films surface narrative you simply cannot crack the puzzle. You are stuck in the box. And by showing us close ups of an eye during the stargate, Kunrick is shouting at us to LOOK at the visual clues, which he has offered in so much abundance.

Enlightenment?

So, why such visual clue - Well, that's because like the ape-like human and the main chacarter, David Bowman both realised another dimension thus stepping out of their box and into another dimension which allows to them to be enlighten.

Remember the Ape-Like humans, after come in contact with the Monolith ables him to use a bone as weapon?When the apes feel the edges of the monolith they too are gaining a similar awareness of a third dimension – the dimension of depth.

Bowman, after going through the Monolith became reborn, almost supernatural like being - An enlighten being.

Thinking outside the box (space)

Now we're moving into territory that is virtually unique in cinematic history – the notion of on screen characters realizing that their own universe is nothing more than a two dimensional cinema screen. If we look closer at the meeting room set we find that these strange illuminated walls are flanked by curtains, just like plain white cinema screens are.

Conclusion

2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY is an odyssey of the cinema screen (Space) and of course, our own space. Aware or unaware of, we, the audience, passenger or this odyssey - went through a journey of how to achieve enlightenment. An Enlightenment to what? Well, you'll have to ask yourself that by thinking back to your very first experience after watching 2001. But one message is certain, we must think out the box in order to be enlighten. The information is there, whether you see it or not, it is there.

All you have to do is to think differently then the realisation will come and you are on your way- As it happened to the Apes (to whom saw the Monolith's 3rd dimension and started to see things differently i.e. using a bone as a weapon), to the scientist (Saw the Monolith and realised but refused to accept to see things differently), to HAL 9000 computer (shaped like an Monolith, programmed but saw things differently when refused to be wrong) and finally, David Bowman (Saw things differently when confronted HAL, a computer who'd had his own way of being right - actually stepping out of his dimension, into the Monolith, realised it isa stargate and become something else entirely).

Thanks for reading and until next time.

(Credit go to Rob Ager atwww.collativelearning.com )

The countdown is almost at an end. My last blog on The Shinning wasn't particular well written and was a huge wall of text!

So, I thought I will change the format here... To make it more accessible and more interesting.

What I did here, instead of simply writing about what I like about the movie and its (A Clockwork Orange) hidden narrative, I will turn it into an interview with the director.

The Interview (my views)

Thomas: Mr Kubrick, I am a huge fan of your work. At the moment, I am writing an online blog, a countdown of your top 5 films. In particular, I've selected A Clockwork Orange (ACO)as my No. 2 since I felt in ways, ACO's hidden narrative was clearly visible - in fact, I think you have been pretty straight with your message which is rare in your films.

Kubrick: Well, A Clockwork Orange was adaptation on Anthony Burgess's book published in 1962. It was given to me by Terry Couthern while I was making 2001: A Space Odyssey. One evening, I started to read the book and finished it in one sitting. By the end of Part One, it seemed pretty obvious that it might make a great film. The so-called hidden narrative is pretty much what's in the novel.

Thomas: So, are you saying the film itself is very close to what's in Anthony Burgess's novel?

Kubrick: Yes. By the end of Part Two, I was very excited about it. As soon as I finished it, I immediately reread it. For the next 2 or 3 days, I reread it in hole and in part, and did little else but think about it.

Thomas: What makes such novel so attracted to you. Your full concentrations and rereading such novel in whole and in part?

Kubrick: Firstly, it seemed to me to be a unique and marvellous work of imagination and perhaps even genius. Secondly, the narrative invention was magical, the characters were bizarre and exciting, the ideas were brilliantly developed.

Thomas: At what point did you think you can turn this into a film?

Kubrick: Well, as equally as important as those aspects I pointed it out earlier, the story was of a size and density that could be adapted to film without oversimplifying it or stripping it to the bones. In fact it proved possible to retain most of the narrative in the film.

Thomas: From what I have gathered by watching the films more than 10 times, the stylisation of the violence is very comedic and what actually happens to Alex, in the brainwashing sequence, is much more unpleasant to watch then what he does to anyone else, especially his victims.

Kubrick: Violence in the film is stylized, just as in the book. The problem, of course, was to find a way to presenting it in the film without benefit of writing s tyle. To preserve the realistic of the violence on film, a sense of irony has to be achieved and in ways, it turns out to be rather comedic - Such as the first section of the film that incorporates most of the violent action is principally organised around the Overture to Rossini's Thieving Magpie, and in a very broad sense, you could say that the violence is turned into dance, although, of course, it is in no way any kind of formal dance.

Thomas: I see but what about Alex's brainwashing sequence. In ways, since it was much more unpleasant to watch than what Alex did to his victims - Are you saying the government is as bad as Alex and in ways, is Alex society in general?

Kubrick: Such narrative you have drawn up yourself and since film experience is much closer to dream then anything else. In this daydream, If you like, one can explore ideas and situations which one is not able to do in reality.

Thomas: So is governmental control, as part of the narratives in A Clockwork Orange a way of expressing a concern in reality?

Kubrick: First of all, I don't choose stories as political tracts. The fact that A Clockwork Orange has such overtone and narrative is mainly because of Burgess's novel happens to be about something that now happens to be particularly topical - Behavioural psychology and the conditioning of antisocial behaviour, with its particular relevance to psychologist Skinner's book.

Thomas: Can you elaborate on the narrative of governmental control inA Clockwork Orange?

Kubrick: Is a question of how authority can cope with problems of law and order without becoming too oppressive, and, more particularly, in relation to the ever-increasing view that politics are irrelevant to the solution of social problems, that there's no time for political and legal solutions, that social issues have to be solved immediately even if this means going outside law and politics. "What solutions authority may be evolve concerns me, and is one of the great unanswered social problems."

Thomas: Alex in the film and novel, is a evil person but when compared to the government's treatment, in ways, you have turned him into a victim. In that context, Alex becomes the hero and the government becomes the villains in ACO... Is that how you intended it?

Kubrick: You can't really put it that way. it's a satire, which is to say that you hold up current vices and folly to ridicule. You pretend to say the opposite of the truth in order to destroy it. The essential moral of the story hinges on the question of choice and the question of whether man can be good without having the choice to be evil and whether a creature who no longer has this choice is still a man.

Thomas: By that, do you mean the choice of hero and villian is an illusion?

Kubrick: No. What I mean is the fact Alex is the very personification of evil and is still in some strange way attractive due to several things: His honesty, his lack of hypocrisy, his energy and his intelligence. In the course of the A clockwork Orange, eventually, you begin to sympathize with Alex because you begin to identify with him as a victim of a much greater evil. Perhaps, more importantly, we recognize our own subconsious. This may also account for some of the antagonism the film has created. The subconsious has no conscience - and preception of this makes some people very anxious and angry.

Thomas: By making Alex attractive, in ACO, you have been criticised for making evil attractive so as to make your point wiht even the most extreme exmaple?

Kubrick: If Alex were a lesser villain, then you would dilute the point of the film. It would then be like one of those westerns where they purport to be doing a film which is against lynching and so they lynch innocent people. The point of the film seems to be: You shouldn't lynch people because you might lynch innocent people; rather than: You shouldn't lynch anybody. Obviously, if Alex were a lesser villian, it would be very easy to reject his 'treatment'. But when you reject the treatment of even a character as wicked as Alex the moral point is clear.

Thomas: Well thank you for you time Mr Kubrick.

Kubrick: Thank you. How about a game of Chess?

Thomas: Until next time.

Understanding This Blog.

The Shining has to be one of the most unique horror films I've ever seen. First of all, again, reminding who ever is reading that these countdown on Kubrick's films are more about the hidden narrative than the main storyline itself. So, let's begin.

THE SHINING

The hidden narrative in THE SHINING is: there are no ghosts; the hotel isn't haunted. One of the main narrative is domestic violence. I know it will be fairly controversial for me and please understand I am not making a statement but just an opinion on Kubrick's direction of the film. So, don't flame me. Okay?

There Are No Ghost!

Yes. No ghost. let me explain why there's no ghost nor the hotel itself is haunted. How do we came to the idea of the hotel being haunted? Well it was by the hotel manager telling the newly employed winter caretaker, Jack Torrance (played by Jack Nicholson), that the previous caretaker had gone crazy and murdered his family: His wife and two daughters, age 8 and 10. He went on to say that the hotel was built upon an Indian burial site (this theme is unique to the film as it was not in Stephen King's The Shining novel which, the film was based). This is a way Kubrick telling us allot of people die here thusplayeda trick in our mind that the hotelcan be haunted.

So, Kubrick had pretty much followed the novel's haunted hotel plot but the similarity ends there. By the first time when the audience saw what appears to be the ghosts of the murdered little girls in the playroom, we assumed they were the one that the manager talked about however, they were twins. Now, remember the hotel manager told Jack the two murdered girls were age 8 and 10... Not twins. Also, the twin girls doesn't look Indian either therefore are not ghosts from the burial site where the hotel were built.

So... Who are the twins? - Well, first, a way of Kubrick mocking the audience attention and how easily we can be tricked into thinking there are ghosts inside the hotel. Secondly, where does it fit in the story line of Kubrick's The Shining? - The Twins are a symbolic representation of Jack's wife, Wendy and son, Danny.

Later, when the new caretaker, Jack Torrance went in the Gold Room in the hotel, sat at the bar wanted a drink and found nobody was there then Jack covered his face in disappointment... suddenly, a bartender appeared - That has to be a ghost, right? Well, not exactly. Why? - Behind the Bartender there was a mirror, a mirror reflecting Jack's own reflection... meaning, Jack was seeing himself and talking to himself and not to a ghost. Also, the Bartender's clothing colour mirrored what Jack's wearing at the time thus further indicating Jack was talking to his reflection. Considering that, every time when Jack seems to be talking to a ghost, there's always a mirror in front of Jack, reflecting his reflection. So why would Jack talk to himself believing he was talking to someone else or even a ghost? The answer is simple, he was drunk and he is an alcoholic (which later, fits in with the domestic violence theme).

Much later in the film, the twins reappears in a hall way where Jack's son, Danny were playing. It is one of the most iconic scene for a Horror Movie - The Twins standing motionless in the hallway, holding each other's hand saying "come play with us Danny". Now, if you look at the wallpaper, you can see the parterns of the wallpaper formed an endless question marks '?', Kubrick again telling us to 'question' whether these twin girls are ghosts or just a vivid imagination of Danny. Of course, I've already established that the twin girls are symbolic representation of Danny and his mother - As Danny can sensed the danger being locked inside a grand hotel with his drunken father.

Danny's Domestic Violence

Of course, you can now point out the woman/old woman in the infamous room 234. Surely, that has to be a ghost. Once again, not exactly. That scene where Jack walks into room 234, saw the naked woman in the bathroom, gestured him to her and they embraced then suddenly the naked woman transformed into an ugly old woman is a symbolic representation of Jack's abusive (even sexual) behaviour towards his own son, Danny. How? Well one very obvious indication is when Jack were shocked to see the ugly old woman and tried to get away, the audience are seeing from Jack's point of view, the angle of the camera were lowered thus the camera position is looking upward to the ugly old woman like a child!

In conjunction to the paragraph above, you may ask, why are we seeing Jack instead of Danny then? well, the answer is simple: Danny were dreaming. The entire scene of room 234 is a dream sequence. Where Danny placed himself as his abuser (common for victim of abuse and domestic violence) and the naked woman were actually Danny's father, Jack suggesting a sexual gesture. Then of course, to Danny, such an act was horrific and traumatic thus the transformation of naked woman into an ugly old woman. Danny saw the true ugliness of his father.

Then there is the wife. Wendy Torrance (played by Shelley Duvall) was weak minded and in way, scared of her husband. This is very different from King's version of Mrs Torrance in the book where she is strong and a lovely wife. Such difference from Kubrick's version has only one explanation, he wanted the domestic violence hidden narrative to be more visible. That's not all, of course. Once Particular scene where Jack, her husband was working on his novel, Shelly, his wife walked in and asked how he was doing? Immediately, Jack was so annoyed, snapped and shouting at Shelly for disturbing him... She was just there for a second, not long, just a second. How annoyed can you get? Such agressive behaviour isvery similar to actual behaviour of an abusive husband in a domestic violence case. Of course, this wouldn't go unnotice to Danny.

More is more.

There are allot more hidden narratives and symbolic theme in The Shining which would be too much to explain in just one blog. However, it is not the point of such a blog therefore if you want to discuss certain scenes or theme or object, even/// You can post it in your comment or PM me. I will do my best to reply asap.

Anyway... Continuing on. My final thought. Kubrick is telling us that domestic violence can go unnoticed as he had hidden such narrative within The Shining. When watching the film, not paying careful attention, such can turn a blind eye towards domestic violence. Of course, is an issue which isnot a simple task to just see it and do something about it but rather... Kubrick wants us to be more observant and seek what's hidden around you and yourself only then, we can in some way act upon it.

Thanks for reading.

Thomas