A Cinematic Odyssey

Awhile back, my best friend, Alex, and I watched A.I. Artificial Intelligence. We were both blown away by Stanley Kubrick’s contributions and bored by Stephen Spielberg’s portion. The next day, I decided that I wanted more Kubrick, as did Alex. I rented 2001: A Space Odyssey and we watched it on his projector. I was blown away. IMDB.com noted that the monoliths at both the beginning and the end of the movie represented the bookends of human evolution, one representing destruction and the other representing creation. The movie argues that humanity evolved through violence, as illustrated at the film’s beginning, when at the dawn of man, a monkey got the idea to use a tool to destroy.

Next we watched another Kubrick film, A Clockwork Orange. This movie is about a young British lad, Alex, in the not too distant future, whose principal interests are rape, ultra–violence and Beethoven. He went to jail, was re–conditioned, and came out a different young man … Or was he? After it was over, I was blown away again. Days later, I watched it again and came to an epiphany. As Alex and his friends were torturing an old drunk, the drunk exclaimed, “I don’t wanna live in this world because they let the young get up on the old! MEN ON THE MOON! And men spinnin ‘round the earth and there ain’t no attention paid to earthly law and order no more!” It hit me *BAM* A Clockwork Orange presents the ugly side of human development, the dystopia to 2001’s utopia. Then it all came together: 2001 says that humans evolved through destruction. The charismatic anti–hero Alex indulges in destructive ultra–violence, yet appreciates cultural beauty. Alex epitomizes an evil human, who both entices and disgusts us simultaneously. This young man who had the potential to be the next great demagogue gets snared by the police and gradually becomes the government’s pawn.

Stanley Kubrick made movies about human nature and war. The next Kubrick films we watched explored the most destructive of human activities, war. His war movies were mostly about the futility and consequences of war. We watched Dr. Strangelove, where pointless bickering in the War Room ultimately leads to nuclear holocaust. Descriptions of Spartacus and Full Metal Jacket can’t be conveyed within these 500 words but they had similar themes to Dr. Strangelove. Our adventure ended with Paths of Glory in which many battalions were sent to their deaths and those that didn’t die were tried for cowardice and executed.

That’s it for our first foray into our movie odyssey, even though one could write volumes about Kubrick’s work. We can’t stop watching movies. There are so many terrific movies to enjoy, scrutinize, and learn from. Join us on our cinematic odyssey through many genres, many directors and many movies. Next week we watch the 1927 sci-fi silent epic, Metropolis!