Michael Mann analysis - part 1: Introduction

CATEGORY: MOVIES













Michael Mann in July 2009 at the French Society of Cinematographers.


Welcome to my analysis of filmmaker Michael Mann. Buttons at the bottom of each post allow navigation through the parts. (Free use of Wikipedia is made at various places in the analysis, as detailed in the notes.)

So far, I have analyzed on this blog two movies of which Mann was screenwriter and director: There is an extensive analysis of Manhunter and a twelve-part analysis of Thief. We are now going to begin a more 'general-scope' analysis of Mann's films; this analysis will include, but will not be limited to, common themes among his movies, and specific relationships between the various films. We will be considering not only the two films already analyzed, but also other of Mann's films as well. As with some of the other analyses on this blog, this will be an 'incremental' analysis, that is, sometimes we will make observations from which conclusions will not immediately be drawn. Then, as the analysis proceeds and more is learned, we will hopefully be able to fill in the conclusions. We begin with some basic information about Mann taken from Wikipedia:

Michael Kenneth Mann (born February 5, 1943) is an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. For his work, he has received nominations from international organizations and juries, including those at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, Cannes, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He has produced the Academy Awards ceremony twice, first in 1999 with the 72nd annual Academy Awards and second in 2004 with the 77th annual ceremony.

Total Film ranked Mann #28 on their 100 The Greatest Directors Ever and Sight and Sound ranked him #5 on their list of the 10 Best Directors of the Last 25 Years. Entertainment Weekly ranked Mann #8 on their 25 Greatest Active Film Directors list.

Mann was born in Chicago of Jewish heritage. He grew up in the Humboldt Park neighborhood and immersed himself in the burgeoning Chicago blues-music scene as a teenager.* He received a B.A. in English at the University of Wisconsin–Madison where he developed interests in history, philosophy and architecture. It was at this time that he first saw Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove and fell in love with movies. In an L.A. Weekly interview, he describes the film's impact on him: "It said to my whole generation of filmmakers that you could make an individual statement of high integrity and have that film be successfully seen by a mass audience all at the same time. In other words, you didn’t have to be making
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers if you wanted to work in the main stream film industry, or be reduced to niche filmmaking if you wanted to be serious about cinema. So that’s what Kubrick meant, aside from the fact that Strangelove was a revelation."

Mann moved to London in the mid 1960s to go to graduate school in cinema. He went on to receive a graduate degree at the London Film School. He spent seven years in the United Kingdom going to film school and then working on commercials along with contemporaries Alan Parker, Ridley Scott and Adrian Lyne. In 1968, footage he shot of the Paris student revolt for a documentary, Insurrection, aired on NBC's First Tuesday news program and he developed his '68 experiences into the short film Jaunpuri which won the Jury Prize at Cannes in 1970.

Mann returned to the United States in 1971. His first feature movie was a television special called The Jericho Mile, which was released theatrically in Europe. It won the Emmy for best MOW in 1979 and the DGA Best Director award. His television work also includes being the executive producer on Miami Vice and Crime Story. Contrary to popular belief, he is not the creator of these shows but the executive producer and the showrunner. They were produced by his production company. However, his cinematic influence is felt throughout each show in terms of casting and style.

Mann is now known primarily as a feature film director and he has a very distinctive style that is reflected in his works: his trademarks include unusual scores, such as Tangerine Dream in Thief or the New Age score to Manhunter.

Mann's first cinema feature as director was Thief (1981) starring James Caan. His next film The Keep (1983) was, in retrospect, an uncharacteristic choice, being that it is a supernatural thriller set in Nazi-occupied Romania.

In 1986, Mann was the first to bring Thomas Harris's character of Hannibal Lecter to the screen with Manhunter, his adaptation of the novel
Red Dragon, which starred Brian Cox as a more down-to-earth Hannibal. The story was remade less than 20 years after it came out by Brett Ratner presumably because Anthony Hopkins reprisal of the role in Ridley Scott's Hannibal had made the character a highly lucrative property. In an interview on the Manhunter DVD, star William Petersen comments that because Mann is so focused on his creations, it takes several years for Mann to complete a film; Petersen believes that this is why Mann doesn't make films very often.

Mann's biggest critical successes in the 1990s began with the release of Heat in 1995 and The Insider in 1999. The films, which featured Al Pacino along with Robert De Niro in Heat and Russell Crowe in The Insider, showcased Mann's cinematic style and adeptness at creating rich, complex storylines as well as directing actors. The Insider was nominated for seven Academy Awards as a result, including a nomination for Mann's direction.

In 2004 Mann directed Collateral starring Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx. On this film, Mann shot all of the exterior scenes digitally so that he could achieve more depth and detail during the night scenes while shooting most of the interiors on film stock.

In 2009, Mann wrote and directed Public Enemies for Universal Pictures, about the Depression-era crime wave, based on Brian Burrough's nonfiction book, Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34. It starred Johnny Depp and Christian Bale.[1]

Feature films directed by Michael Mann not listed above are The Last of the Mohicans (1992), Ali (2001), and Miami Vice (2006). Mann has also been involved in TV advertising.
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We will begin the study of relationships and common themes among Mann's films in the next part of this analysis. As mentioned at the beginning of this post, specific conclusions will not always be immediately drawable from the observations we will make.


*This claim is specified on Wikipedia as needing a citation.

2001 analysis - part 57: Kubrick gives us a warning

CATEGORY: MOVIES

Welcome to my analysis of 2001: A Space Odyssey. You may go to the beginning of the analysis by clicking here.




From The Silence of the Lambs: Above left: Clarice Starling deciphers Hannibal Lecter's clue to the authorities, as to the supposed name of the serial killer she is seeking: Clarice determines that "Louis Friend" is an anagram for "iron sulfide", which is also known as fool's gold. The point is that Lecter has given a false clue in order to misdirect the authorities. Above right: A short while later, Lecter spits up a pen clip that he had hidden under his tongue. He subsequently uses the clip to undo his handcuffs and escape from his cell in Memphis. The magician, Houdini, would sometimes use the same method, i.e., that of hiding a key in his mouth, to help him escape from various contraptions.


Heywood Floyd's name is an anagram for "Defy Holy Wood". 'Holy Wood' is not only a reference to Hollywood, thus constituting a suggestion from Kubrick to be careful about believing everything the movie industry tells us in their productions, but it is also a reference to magic wands, which are sometimes made of wood. According to Wikipedia, the term 'Holy Wood' can sometimes be a reference to Guaiacum sanctum, commonly known as Holywood or Holywood Lignum-vitae.[52] Guaiacum sanctum is a species of flowering plant in the creosote bush family. This tree is one of two species which yield the valuable Lignum vitae wood.[53] According to T.H. White's version of the King Arthur story The Once and Future King, lignum vitae, from which the wand of Merlin is made, has magical powers.[54]

A wand (also: magic wand) is a thin, straight, hand-held stick of wood, stone, ivory, or metal. Generally, in modern language, wands are ceremonial and/or have associations with magic but there have been other uses, all stemming from the original meaning as a synonym of 'rod' and 'virge', both of which had a similar development. In ecclesiastical and formal government ceremonial, special officials may carry a wand of office or staff of office representing their power. Based on their magical symbolism, stage magicians often use "magic wands" as part of their misdirection. These wands are traditionally black, with white tips.[55]

Misdirection is a form of deception in which the attention of an audience is focused on one thing in order to distract its attention from another. Managing the audiences attention is the aim of all Theater, it is the foremost requirement of Theatrical Magic. Whether the Magic is of a "pocket trick" variety, or, a large stage production in Las Vegas, misdirection is the central secret of all Magic. Speaking of Misdirection, Nevil Maskelyne wrote, "It consists admittedly in misleading the spectator's senses, in order to screen from detection certain details for which secrecy is required." (Our Magic, page 117, second edition copyright 1946). "Nearly the whole art of sleight of hand depends on this art of misdirection." (Harlan Tarbell, The Tarbell Course in Magic Vol. 1). "The central secret of conjuring...is a manipulation of interest." (Henry Hay, The Amateur Magicians Handbook, pg. 2, copyright 1972). The term is used to describe either the effect (the victim's focus on an unimportant object) or the sleight of hand or patter (the magician's speech) that creates it. There are two basic ways to "misdirect" your audience; one is time-sensitive, the other isn't. The time-sensitive approach encourages the audience to look away for a fleeting moment, so that the sleight or move may be accomplished undetected. The other approach has much to do with re-framing the audiences perception, and perhaps very little to do with the senses. The minds of the audience members are distracted into thinking that an extraneous factor has much to do with the accomplishment of the feat, whereas it really doesn't have any bearing on the effect at all. "The true skill of the magician is in the skill he exhibits in influencing the spectators mind." (Dariel Fitzkee, Magic by Misdirection, pg. 33, copyright 1975).

Misdirection takes advantage of the limits of the human mind in order to give the wrong picture and memory. The mind of a typical audience member can only concentrate on one thing at a time. The magician uses this to manipulate the audience's ideas, or, perceptions of sensory input, leading them to draw false conclusions.[56] The relationship of all of this to A Space Odyssey is that Kubrick, with his warning to Defy Holy Wood, is telling us to defy misdirection such as that conjured up by various persons in positions of authority, by people in Hollywood and the news media, and by those in certain special interest groups. Note that in 2001, the story of the discovery of the monolith is being used to misdirect the viewers of the mission film, to hide the fact that diamonds have been stolen from Earth and are being transported to Jupiter.


   

2001 analysis - part 56: The mission film's intended audience

CATEGORY: MOVIES

Earlier in this analysis we saw that a partially-'faked' film and/or broadcast of the Jupiter mission is being made, and that part of the mission is actually being filmed in the space station instead of on Discovery One. We know (because of the red symbolism in the station, as previously mentioned) that HAL's camera 'eyes' are present in the station; it's my belief that the meeting with Floyd and the others, which supposedly takes place at Clavius (on the Moon), is actually being filmed in the space station as well, since the participants in the meeting seem to be under the influence of 'normal' gravity, as opposed to the reduced gravity of the Moon. Things that we know take place in 2001 which are not to be part of the film/broadcast include the fighting among the six astronauts at TMA-1 (after the monolith starts making a high-pitched noise), the attack on Poole (and certain related events) during the Jupiter mission, and probably nothing that takes place in the interior of the Moonbus, since we don't see HAL's eyes there. (The red color of the cockpit only indicates that the two men piloting the bus are hit men sent by Satan.)

Now, we know from the analysis of the Pulp Fiction gold watch scenario, that Captain Koons represents Kubrick giving Quentin Tarantino a false version of history, and he also represents the leading edge baby boomers (those persons born between 1946-1954) giving the subsequent generation (Generation Y) a false version of history. As it turns out, it is precisely this generation which is the target audience for the 'movie within a movie' being made within A Space Odyssey: Kubrick is saying (actually, predicting, in 1968) that the generation whose parents are leading edge boomers, will have been brainwashed by the boomers, by being given a false version of history on (or around) the year 2001: Members of Generation Y will not know of the confrontation between the unconscious (the feminine) and the intellect (the masculine), since they are not to be shown the TMA-1 showdown. The are not to know that the aliens, who represent evil (or 'radical') femininity, are stealing diamonds from Earth and transporting them to Jupiter for their own gain, but are instead to believe that the reason for the trip to the Moon, and thence to Jupiter, has as its purpose to investigate the source and meaning of the monolith. The general idea is that Kubrick was predicting that by the time of the coming of age of the children of the leading edge boomers, history will have been revised and re-written so that this new generation, and those subsequent to it, will not know what actually went down with regard to the 'feminine component' asserting its place, nor will they know that these evil women (presumably, radical feminists) conspired with very evil men to achieve their ends. Basically, these women don't want later generations to know of the injustices they've perpetrated, nor do they want it to be known that they have been ruthless in achieving their ends.

The question then becomes, who were these evil men in reality? The answer is that they are precisely the creators of the false film/broadcast, i.e., they are men who run Hollywood and the popular media, including the news media. In the year 2001, those persons who with certainty fall into Generation Y (according to Wikipedia, those born between 1981 and 1989)[51] were in the age range 12-20, and the leading edge boomers were in the range 47-55; the former seems like a prime age range for being subjected to brainwashing, and the latter a not unlikely range for influential men in the media and Hollywood. We know that Lawrence Bender, the producer of Pulp Fiction (and many of Tarantino's other movies), plays the 'long hair yuppie-scum' bit part in Pulp Fiction; so even though Bender was born in 1957, he's portraying a character who is a leading edge boomer. The point is that Tarantino is portraying a Hollywood producer who is a boomer, as a reference to Kubrick's age range for influential people in Hollywood. Actually, someone quite a bit more powerful than Bender, who has also been involved in Tarantino's movies, is studio head Harvey Weinstein, who was born in 1952 and thus was 49 in the year 2001, putting him in the 47-55 year age range. Harvey, along with his brother,
Bob Weinstein, have been co-executive producers on almost all of Tarantino's movies, up to and including Inglourious Basterds.

To see if there is a relationship between Kubrick's depiction of (some) Jews as evil, and his depiction of evil women, we could speculate that Kubrick believed Hollywood was primarily run by Jews; thus the idea of the baby-boomer feminists 'conspiring' with bad Jews in Hollywood, to brainwash the subsequent generations. We note that in Lynch's Mulholland Drive, which was released in the year 2001, most of the older men in the meeting with Adam look like they're in their mid-40's to mid-50's; these men are depicted by Lynch as being members of the powerful elite in Hollywood. Also, since Adam Kesher's wife, Lorraine (recall that Kesher is a Jewish name) was shown cheating on Adam with Gene the pool man, who represents the Nazis (recall that he is to clean the gene pool, a reference to the Nazis wiping out the Jews), this might be Lynch's way of getting across the idea that Kubrick was depicting evil women conspiring with bad Jews in 2001 (recall the Nazi-bad Jew 'equivalence' as represented by HAL.) (As an aside, note that the Weinstein brothers are Jewish, and so, possibly, is Lawrence Bender.)


      

2001 analysis - part 55: The aliens represent the evil of femininity

CATEGORY: MOVIES

Previously in this analysis we have discussed the fact that the aliens represent the 'feminine component' in the universe (recall the back of the Moonbus - Jung says the color blue represents the feminine) - they represent a sort of 'universal anima'. I have recently come to the realization that what Kubrick is doing is depicting femininity itself as inherently evil; this is why the alien works with Satan ('via' working with HAL) to defeat Bowman and Poole. This also explains why the alien wants to unite its own feminine with Bowman (should he defeat HAL), instead of allowing Bowman and Poole (as yang and yin) to themselves 'unite': at a fundamental level, the alien is jealous. Other things in the movie now fall into place: The reason the aliens are stealing diamonds - "diamonds are a girl's best friend"; the fact that the alien life forces 'infuse' men's minds and control their thoughts and actions, and cause fighting among them (TMA-1) - this is actually Kubrick's depiction of the reality that women tend to manipulate men. Also explained is the emphasis Floyd placed on the word "telephone" while talking with his daughter, the reason the daughter wanted a telephone for her birthday, and the idea of the daughter's caretaker (Rachel) being in the bathroom when Floyd called - these are references to the (supposedly) 'stereotypical' ideas of women as chronic phone-talkers and bathroom-occupiers. It also explains Floyd (an alien) becoming somewhat emotionally upset during the space station meeting; and, when Floyd appeared to be judging Elena by her looks (the ogling mentioned earlier), the idea being suggested is that it's women who judge each other by their physical appearance.

Naturally, the aliens planted the monolith with an emphasis on the vertical, and thus the unconscious/feminine, since their feminine evil wants to control humanity's destiny. They also planted the male dilemma (the dilemma between the numbers three and four) to throw men into a perpetual state of confusion. And, recall that it's the presence of the monolith that enabled our ancestor to discover how to use weapons. Finally, recall that in the Clavius lecture room, the presence of evil itself was represented by a man. Apparently, it's Kubrick's belief that the 'female evil' we've been talking about conspires with very evil men in doing its work. However, since Satan is specifically associated with humanity, he cannot be the source of the aliens' evil.


      

2001 analysis - part 54: More on the correspondence with 'Pulp Fiction'

CATEGORY: MOVIES **Contains spoilers for A Space Odyssey and Pulp Fiction**



Above left and right: Air Force Captain Koons explains to a young Butch Coolidge the history of the gold watch that he is about to hand to Butch. Recall from the Pulp Fiction analysis that in this scene, the audience watching Pulp Fiction corresponds to Tarantino watching A Space Odyssey when he was a young boy. Also recall that Butch represents Tarantino, and Koons represents Kubrick; this scene represents Kubrick giving Tarantino a false version of history, and it also represents the leading edge baby boomers (those boomers born between 1946 and 1954) giving the subsequent generation (Generation 'Y') a false version of history.* The false version that Kubrick gave may have something to do with the fact that he set the 'dawn of man' in Mexico instead of Africa, and/or his 'history' of men-women insofar as Bowman's 'failure' to save the feminine within himself, the background as to why there was an incomplete citrinitas, that the 'universal anima' (the alien) may have been conspiring with Satan, etc. What transpires in Pulp Fiction between Vincent and Mia, Lance, and his wife Jody, could be hints from Tarantino about what he believed Kubrick was saying, but they could also be Tarantino's own (correct) version of what really went down. See below.







Top left: Mia Wallace sits across from Vincent in the Jack Rabbit Slim's club. Mia's husband is Marsellus Wallace, whom as was noted in the Pulp Fiction analysis, represents Satan. Recall that Mia represents yin to Vincent's yang, and that this corresponds to Poole representing Bowman's yin. Top right: Just prior to Vincent taking Mia to the club, he purchased some heroin from his friend and drug dealer, Lance. We note that Lance gives Vincent the heroin in a plastic bag instead of a balloon, since he's out of the latter. Small plastic bags are normally used to store cocaine, not heroin. Above left: Some time later, after Vincent and Mia have left the club and after Mia has mistakenly inhaled some of Vincent's heroin, thinking that it was cocaine, Lance rushes to help revive her while being harried by his wife, Jody. Above right: Lance is forced to give Vincent instructions from memory on how to inject Mia with adrenaline, since he could not find his black medical book in time. The point is if Lance had been able to find the book, Mia might have been 'completely' saved, and Vincent would have therefore saved the feminine within himself; then, in terms of A Space Odyssey, Bowman would have saved Poole, the citrinitas would have been completed, and mankind would thus not be trapped in its 'perpetual doom' cycle. What Tarantino seems to be getting at by portraying Lance, Jody, and the rest of the scenario as he does, is some idea of a source for the whole problem. It's hard to nail down the cause to just men (Vincent and Lance) or just women (Mia and Jody) per se. The fact that Lance has run out of balloons, and the fact that Vincent is found 'idling' in the bathroom at several key moments in Tarantino's movie, might indicate that Tarantino is depicting at least part of the reason for the problem being men, or at least a certain subset of men, being pre-occupied, unprepared, and/or flat out incompetent at certain key point(s) in history. On the other hand, it's Mia herself who has made the decision to use drugs; and, Lance might have been able to find his black book if Jody had not been bothering him while he was looking for it. Of course, it's Lance who placed the heroin in a baggie in the first place, but this brings up the part that luck (i.e., chance) may have played in the whole thing: From Vincent's viewpoint, Lance just happened to be out of balloons when Vincent purchased the heroin from him; and from Lance's viewpoint, Vincent just happened to drop by and need some heroin while he (Lance) was out of balloons.

*Kubrick was born in 1928 and was thus not a baby boomer, but certain things Koons says during his monologue places him (Koons) as having been born in 1946 or 1947. The gold watch scene takes place in 1972, when Kubrick would have been 44 years old, and this is how old Koons looks to Butch. The point is that Koons also looks mid-40's to the (1994, year of release) Pulp Fiction audience, since to that audience, he represents a leading edge boomer. See the analysis of Pulp Fiction for a fuller explanation of all of this.


      

2001 analysis - part 53: More on Melusina

CATEGORY: MOVIES

As described earlier in the analysis, the alien who eventually 'combines' with Bowman represents Melusina (also known as Melusine), the feminine aspect of Mercurius. From Jung's Alchemical Studies:

"[Melusina] was descended from the whale in whose belly the prophet Jonah beheld great mysteries. This derivation is very important: the birthplace of Melusina is the womb of the mysteries, obviously what we today would call the unconscious...Melusina can be interpreted as a spirit, or at any rate as some kind of psychic phenomenon...[She] is clearly an anima figure. She appears as a variant of the mercurial serpent, which was sometimes represented in the form of a snake-woman by way of expressing the monstrous, double nature of Mercurius. The redemption of this monstrosity was depicted as the assumption and coronation of the Virgin Mary...

"The anima belongs to those borderline phenomena which chiefly occur in special psychic situations. They are characterized by the more or less sudden collapse of a form or style of life which till then seemed the indispensable foundation of the individual's whole career...[Then] one is confronted with a hopeless and impenetrable darkness, an abysmal void that is now suddenly filled with an alluring vision, the palpably real presence of a strange yet helpful being."[50]


      

2001 analysis - part 52: Mann: The tension between containment and liberation

CATEGORY: MOVIES



Above left: A view of Frank driving his car down a boulevard at night, from Michael Mann's Thief. (Frank is the main character in Thief, and he represents 2001's David Bowman.) Note that the streetlights make the boulevard appear not unlike an airport runway at night. Mentioned in my analysis of Mann's movie are its several references to aircraft and flying - it is as if Mann is depicting Frank as some sort of 'metaphorical' jet pilot, one who never really 'takes off', i.e., one who remains earthbound. Also, in my comparison of Thief and Heat in the Michael Mann analysis, it was observed that one thing being depicted via the symbolism in the two movies (taken together), is the tension each of use experiences between wanting to live a life free of restraints on the one hand, and yet at the same time desiring stability in our lives. Above right: Frank Poole listens to his parents' pre-recorded birthday message. Recall that Frank's father mentions that an administrative error in Frank's pay has been corrected, and that he should now start receiving his new higher salary. It is as if even while in outer space, at a great distance from Earth, Frank is still tied to 'earthbound' concerns.


From Man and His Symbols:

"We have been talking of wild birds as symbols of release or liberation. But today we could just as well speak of jet planes and space rockets, for they are the physical embodiment of the same transcendent principle, freeing us at least temporarily from gravity. In the same way the ancient symbols of containment, which once gave stability and protection, now appear in modern man's search for economic stability and social welfare.

"Any of us can see, of course, that there is a conflict in our lives between adventure and discipline, or evil and virtue, or freedom and security. But these are only phrases we use to describe an ambivalence that troubles us, and to which we never seem able to find an answer.

"There is an answer. There is a meeting point between containment and liberation, and we can find it in the rites of initiation that I have been discussing [The chapter author, Joseph L. Henderson, has been discussing the Eleusinian Mysteries and other ancient rites of initiation.] They can make it possible for individuals, or whole groups of people, to unite the opposing forces within themselves and achieve an equilibrium in their lives...

"Initiation is, essentially, a process that begins with a rite of submission, followed by a period of containment, and then by a further rite of liberation. In this way every individual can reconcile the conflicting elements of his personality: He can strike a balance that makes him truly human, and truly the master of himself."[49]

[UPDATE 5/22/12: For more on clues from Mann, see part 12 of the Michael Mann analysis.]


      

2001 analysis - part 51: More on Bowman's assimilation of his shadow

CATEGORY: MOVIES **Contains spoilers**








Bowman appears to get emotional near the end of his disconnection of HAL's brain. As stated earlier in the analysis, by the time Bowman's done with this process, he has assimilated his own psychological shadow, as represented by HAL.


To link David Bowman's assimilation of his own shadow to his experience as Jonah in the whale, we refer to Joseph L. Henderson in chapter 2 of Man and His Symbols:

"Dr. Jung has pointed out that the shadow...contains the hidden, repressed, and unfavorable (or nefarious) aspects of the personality. But this darkness is not just the simple converse of the conscious ego. Just as the ego contains unfavorable and destructive attitudes, so the shadow has good qualities - normal instincts and creative impulses...

"The ego, nevertheless, is in conflict with the shadow, in what Dr. Jung once called "the battle for deliverance." In the struggle of primitive man to achieve consciousness, this conflict is expressed by the contest between the archetypal hero and the powers of evil, personified by dragons and other monsters. In the developing consciousness of the individual the hero figure is the symbolic means by which the emerging ego overcomes the inertia of the unconscious mind, and liberates the mature man from a regressive longing to return to the blissful state of infancy in a world dominated by his mother.

"Usually, in mythology, the hero wins his battle against the monster...But there are other hero myths in which the hero gives in to the monster. A familiar type is that of Jonah and the whale, in which the hero is swallowed by a sea monster that carries him on a night sea journey from west to east, thus symbolizing the supposed transit of the sun from sunset to dawn. The hero goes into darkness, which represents a kind of death...

"For most people the dark or negative side of the personality remains unconscious. The hero, on the contrary, must realize that the shadow exists and that he can draw strength from it. He must come to terms with his destructive powers if he is to become sufficiently terrible to overcome the dragon. I.e., before the ego can triumph, it must master and assimilate the shadow."[48]


      

2001 analysis - part 50: Certain parts of the movie depict dreams

CATEGORY: MOVIES **Contains spoilers**



Above left: Heywood Floyd sleeps during part of his trip on the lunar lander. Above right: We are provided with at least three hints that Floyd is dreaming this scene. The first is that a stewardess would not normally be serving another stewardess a meal; second, watching a judo match is something we would expect a man to be doing, not a woman; and third, both of these young, attractive women are looking over at Floyd and appear to be talking about him, as if they are attracted to him, which is not realistic considering that he is an older man. All three hints have the purpose of characterizing this part of Floyd's trip as having a certain unreality. Also, Sigmund Freud believed that a dream always represents the fulfillment of a wish, and the third hint (the women being attracted to Floyd) meets this criteria, i.e., it is Floyd's wish that young, attractive women be interested in him. Based on the unreality and the wish fulfillment aspect, we conclude that Floyd is dreaming. The main point of Kubrick showing him dreaming here is to lead us to derive the correct interpretation of the 'hotel' scene near the end of the movie, as explained below.







Top left: David Bowman sleeps while Poole is on duty. Top right: Poole sleeps while Bowman has the 'watch'. Dave is sketching pictures of the hibernating astronauts, indicating that he has an artistic impulse. Above left: This room contains items which are visually and intellectually stimulating, and thus represents the fulfillment of Bowman's wish that he be in a stimulating environment, to compensate for the sterile surroundings he experienced while on Discovery One. The point is that the aliens have constructed this environment (the room) based on their knowledge of Bowman's unconscious contents. Above right: Another wish of Bowman fulfilled: Real food, as opposed to the machine-dispensed fare eaten during the Jupiter mission. Speaking generally, the aliens have carefully constructed Bowman's dream environment here, in part for the purpose of in some way 'testing' him, to see if he will 'qualify' as a Hermes Trismegistus and Atman. The indication we have that Bowman has passed the test is when he simultaneously experiences enlightenment and achieves 'Self-hood', both of which are signified by his pointing at the monolith near the end. Immediately after this, his body is infused with the alien life force, and he is 'reborn' as the 'Starchild' (Brahman-Mercurius).


      

2001 analysis - part 49: Hindu philosophy; manipulation of Bowman's psyche

CATEGORY: MOVIES **Contains spoilers for Mulholland Drive and Pulp Fiction**






In Lynch's Mulholland Drive, Diane's dream of the Cowboy speaking to Adam represents Diane's unconscious speaking to herself, i.e., to Diane in her sleeping state. Both Adam and the Cowboy represent parts of the unconscious masculine component within Diane, i.e., together they represent her animus. Adam also represents Diane's intellect, and he represents the part of Diane's animus that has been cross-contaminated with contents from her shadow.



To find out more about the correspondence of the Cowboy scene in Mulholland Drive to the 'shootout' at TMA-1 in A Space Odyssey, we first note that Diane represents David Bowman, and the Cowboy represents the alien, as Melusina (part of Bowman's anima, or more generally, a 'universal anima'; note the gender reversal), 'speaking' to Bowman's unconscious while he is in a waking state. The part of Bowman's mind that the alien is communicating with is not only Bowman's intellect, but it is also the part of Bowman's anima that has been cross-contaminated with contents from his shadow. The alien is communicating with Bowman in order to manipulate his psyche, such that he will eventually come to see a certain solution to the problem raised by the confrontation between opposites brought about as a result of the events at TMA-1 (the 'shootout'). This solution is to be Bowman's own internal reconciliation of opposites via achieving 'Self-hood' (in the Jungian sense of Self, as well as in the Hindu sense, as described below), combined by his 'merging' with the alien. This process will ultimately result not only in the Bowman-alien combination becoming Mercurius (the union of all opposites), but will also result in the combined entity having become Brahman-Atman . Brahman and Atman are concepts from Hindu philosophy, and will be described below, but first we need to look in more detail at the conversation between Adam and the Cowboy.

When Adam agrees with the Cowboy's statement that "a man's attitude determines to a large extent how his life will go" (this being Adam's interpretation of what the Cowboy has told him), the Cowboy says to Adam, "Then, you must be a man who does not care about the good life." Later in the conversation, the Cowboy tells Adam that he will have done good if he sees the Cowboy once more, and he will have done badly if he sees him twice more. (As mentioned in the caption above, the Cowboy is really speaking to Diane.) Both of these parts of the conversation between the two men, are references to certain parts of that philosophical text from the Hindu religion, the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. In one of these parts of the Upanishad, the sage, Yajnavalkya, says to his wife (Maitreyi), "As a person acts, so he becomes in life. Those who do good become good; those who do harm become bad. Good deeds make one pure; bad deeds make one impure. You are what your deep, driving desire is. As your desire is, so is your will. As your will is, so is your deed. As your deed is, so is your destiny." In another part of the conversation between Yajnavalkya and Maitreyi, Maitreyi asks, "My lord, if I could get all the wealth in the world, would it help me to go beyond death?" Her husband responds, "Not at all. You would live and die like any other rich person. No one can buy immortality with money." Maitreyi then says, "Of what use then are money and material possessions to me? Please tell me, my lord, of the way that leads to immortality."[45] In the exchanges between the sage and his wife, it seems obvious that Yajnavalkya corresponds to the Cowboy (and thus the alien, i.e., Bowman's unconscious), and Maitreyi corresponds to Adam (Bowman's intellect). The implication is that the alien is to lead Bowman to immortality.
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Two words that are of paramount importance in grasping the Upanishads are Brahman and Atman. Brahman is the universal spirit and the Atman is the individual Self. Differing opinions exist amongst scholars regarding the etymology of these words. Brahman probably comes from the root brh which means "The Biggest ~ The Greatest ~ The ALL". Brahman is "the infinite Spirit Source and fabric and core and destiny of all existence, both manifested and unmanifested and the formless infinite substratum and from whom the universe has grown". Brahman is the ultimate, both transcendent and immanent, the absolute infinite existence, the sum total of all that ever is, was, or shall be. The word Atman means the immortal perfect Spirit of any living creature, being, including trees etc. The idea put forth by the Upanishadic seers that Atman and Brahman are One and the same is one of the greatest contributions made to the thought of the world.[46] Jung tells us that "Brahman is the union and dissolution of all opposites, and at the same time stands outside them as an irrational factor...Deliverance from...the tension of opposites, is synonymous with the way of redemption that gradually leads to Brahman."[47] As stated above, Bowman is to see the dissolution of opposites, as the solution to the tension of these opposites within himself. He is thus to see the achieving of Self-hood (and thus becoming Atman), followed by his 'merging' with the alien to become Brahman, as beneficial to himself.

Finishing up with the scenario of Diane's dream of the Cowboy and Adam, Diane goes on to see the Cowboy twice more, implying she has done badly. I'm not sure if there's an exact correspondence with Bowman here: he sees the alien at least once more (Floyd on the video monitor), and he sees it a second time if we take his dream of the fetus approaching earth as his seeing the alien. If this is the case, then he has not achieved immortality, or at least, not in 'human terms', which seems to correspond with the fact that he physically dies from his head injury. The alien-Bowman combination, however, is obviously a living entity.

What was said in the analysis of Pulp Fiction, about the arrival of the Wolf representing help arriving from Hinduism, obviously applies to what we've talked about here. The Wolf's job is to 'clean up' the mess that resulted from the confrontation in Brett's apartment, which as we've noted, represents the showdown at TMA-1. The 'mess' itself in Pulp Fiction is the dirtying of the inside of Jules' car due to Vincent accidentally shooting Marsellus's informant, Marvin, followed by the problem of how to dispose of Marvin's dead body before Jimmie Dimmick's wife gets home.


      

2001 analysis - part 48: Kubrick's 'child abuse' theme

CATEGORY: MOVIES **Contains spoilers for A Space Odyssey, The Silence of the Lambs, and Manhunter**



Above: Four victims of child abuse. Far left: Serial killer Jame Gumb ('Buffalo Bill') from The Silence of the Lambs. Hannibal Lecter tells FBI trainee Clarice Starling that Bill is the product of years of abuse. Gumb deviates somewhat from his normal aloofness toward his captives (he holds each victim hostage for several days prior to killing them), when he begins to empathize, to some degree, with his latest captive, Catherine Martin. Second from left: Serial murderer Francis Dollarhyde ('The Tooth Fairy') from Michael Mann's Manhunter (based on Thomas Harris's novel, Red Dragon). FBI investigator Will Graham tells his supervisor, Jack Crawford, that Dollarhyde was abused as a child. In Harris's novel, Francis has flashbacks of sexual and verbal abuse by his grandmother. As an adult, he maintains an everyday job and lifestyle, and would not particularly stand out or be noticed by others. He deviates from his normal pattern of carefully thinking over and planning each of his killings, when he gets romantically involved with a co-worker, Reba McClane. Third from left: Hit man Vincent from Mann's Collateral. In the audio commentary to the movie, Mann says that Vincent was raised in foster homes and was physically abused as a child. Mann seems to draw a parallel between Vincent and Francis Dollarhyde, when he comments that Vincent maintains an outwardly normal lifestyle and does not stand out in public. Mann also draws a parallel between Vincent and 2001's HAL 9000 computer, when he says that Vincent operates with a "machine-like" efficiency. However, Vincent demonstrates an anomaly, i.e., he deviates from his normally careful routine, when he goes with cab driver Max Durocher to visit Max's mother in the hospital. Far right: HAL's camera 'eye'. HAL has been placed on board Discovery One not only to maintain control of all aspects of ship's operations, but also to do away with the five astronauts on board; thus, he is essentially a hit 'man'. Although HAL states that no 9000 computer has ever made a mistake or distorted information, it's my belief that HAL has been incorrectly, or even maliciously, programmed by his original creator and/or other people. He exhibits an anomaly in his error-free behavior when he misstates a chess move. During a conversation with David Bowman, he tries to subtly manipulate Bowman into revealing what he knows about Discovery One's mission. Later, he lies about the AE-35 unit, saying it is going to fail; and then near the end, while his 'brain' is being disconnected, he seems to regress to childhood, singing his first program, Daisy Bell.

Since HAL represents a golem/bad Jew, what Kubrick is ultimately saying is that Israel is an abused child who has become the abuser.

[UPDATE 4/25/12: As has been stated elsewhere in this analysis, Mann based the Dollarhyde character on real-life paranoid-schizophrenic serial killer Dennis Wayne Wallace. By having Dollarhyde represent HAL, one hint Mann is giving us is that HAL himself is effectively schizophrenic, no doubt due to his 'conflicted' programming: It's probably logical to assume that his basic programming includes the imperative to be completely honest with human beings, which would of course imply that he would normally fully disclose information to people; but at the same time, he has been programmed for the Jupiter mission to hide the true nature of the mission from some or all of the astronauts on board. He is also being portrayed as paranoid in a sense, by virtue of his 'assumption' (based on lip-reading) that Bowman and Poole planned to disconnect him; of course, he turned out to be right, but nevertheless, this might be a hint from Kubrick that HAL is in fact paranoid.]


      

2001 analysis - part 47: Saint Augustine vs. the Manicheans

CATEGORY: MOVIES














By portraying the final showdown between David Bowman and HAL as a final, universal battle between good and evil, Stanley Kubrick is advocating a Manichean point of view. Manichaeism was a major gnostic religion, originating in Sassanid era Babylonia. Although most of the original writings of the founding prophet Mani (pictured at left; c. 216–276 CE) have been lost, numerous translations and fragmentary texts have survived.

Manichaeism taught an elaborate cosmology describing the struggle between a good, spiritual world of light, and an evil, material world of darkness. Through an ongoing process which takes place in human history, light is gradually removed from the world of matter and returned to the world of light from which it came. Its beliefs, based on local Mesopotamian gnostic and religious movements, contained elements of Christianity, Zoroastrianism and Buddhism.

Manichaeism thrived between the third and seventh centuries, and at its height was one of the most widespread religions in the world. Manichaean churches and scriptures existed as far east as China and as far west as the Roman Empire. It was widespread among the legions of the Roman Empire, who considered it a soldier's religion, and it was briefly the main rival to Christianity in the competition to replace classical paganism. Manichaeism survived longer in the East than in the West, and it appears to have finally faded away after the 14th century in southern China, contemporary to the decline in China of the Church of the East.

Manichaeism is also referred to as Manicheanism (or Manichaeanism) and its adherents as Manicheans (or Manichaeans). By extension, the term "manichean" is widely applied (often disparagingly) as an adjective to a philosophy or attitude of moral dualism, according to which a moral course of action involves a clear (or simplistic) choice between good and evil, or as a noun to people who hold such a view.[43]

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As opposed to Manichaeism, Thomas Harris, author of the Hannibal Lecter novels, could be considered to be in agreement with St. Augustine. Augustine of Hippo (pictured at left; November 13, 354 – August 28, 430), also known as Augustine, St. Augustine, St. Austin, St. Augoustinos, Blessed Augustine, or St. Augustine the Blessed, was Bishop of Hippo Regius (present-day Annaba, Algeria). He was a Latin philosopher and theologian from Roman Africa. His writings were very influential in the development of Western Christianity.

According to his contemporary, Jerome, Augustine "established anew the ancient Faith." In his early years he was heavily influenced by Manichaeism and afterward by the Neo-Platonism of Plotinus. After his conversion to Christianity and baptism in AD 387, Augustine developed his own approach to philosophy and theology, accommodating a variety of methods and different perspectives. He believed that the grace of Christ was indispensable to human freedom, and he framed the concepts of original sin and just war. He became a famous preacher (more than 350 preserved sermons are believed to be authentic), and was noted for combating the Manichaean religion, to which he had formerly adhered.

When the Western Roman Empire was starting to disintegrate, Augustine developed the concept of the Catholic Church as a spiritual City of God (in a book of the same name), distinct from the material Earthly City. His thoughts profoundly influenced the medieval worldview. Augustine's City of God was closely identified with the Church, the community that worshipped God.[44]

We know Harris is an advocate of at least some of Augustine's philosophies, because the analyses of the Lecter movies turned up many references and allusions to Augustine, and because Harris depicts a non-simplistic and non-dualistic scenario of good and evil, as opposed to Kubrick's manichean point of view. Basically, in writing the Lecter novels, Harris has created one huge anti-manichaean 'answer' to Kubrick.


      

2001 analysis - part 46: Lynch: The unconscious confronts the intellect

CATEGORY: MOVIES





From Mulholland Drive: Top left: Adam Kesher's car approaches the top of Beachwood Canyon in Los Angeles. Note that the lights from the car's headlights are shaped like crosses, symbolizing the quaternity, and thus indicating that the scenario which is about to transpire has something to do with wholeness. Top right: Adam's view while his car pulls up to the corral at the top of the canyon. The fact that the upcoming scenario is to take place in a corral, is a reference to the historical Gunfight at the OK Corral. This is a hint from Lynch that the upcoming scene in Mulholland Drive has to do with the confrontation, the 'shootout' among the six astronauts, which we said takes place in A Space Odyssey at TMA-1, after the monolith starts making a high-pitched noise. Above left: While Adam is walking through the entrance gate to the corral, a light above the gate, which had been off prior to Adam's entry, begins to flicker on and off for no apparent reason. This suggests that the entire scene is a dream of Diane Selwyn, the main character in Lynch's movie. Above right: The Cowboy confronts Adam inside the corral. As discussed in the analysis of Mulholland Drive, the Cowboy represents the mediator between Diane's unconscious and conscious mind, and in speaking to Adam, who represents Diane's intellect, he is trying to get Diane to listen (to her unconscious). The point as far as 2001 is that that which takes place at TMA-1 (the 'shootout' that we, the audience of Kubrick's movie, don't see), in some way represents a confrontation between the unconscious and the conscious. (Recall that we are 'set up' for this confrontation by the two men walking around the Clavius lecture room in opposite directions.)


      

2001 analysis - part 45: More Jungian numbers; 'women as children' theme

CATEGORY: MOVIES





Top left and right: The same screencaps from Lynch's Inland Empire, as those shown in part 22 of this analysis. In the left hand screencap, at the far left, there is a clock on the wall surrounded by eight decorative sticks; only five of the eight sticks are visible in this view. In the right-hand photo, which is from a point in time in the movie a little later than the left-hand one, the same clock and sticks are again visible, but with the other side of the pattern shown, and again we only see five of the eight sticks. Lynch's 'five of eight' clue here probably has more to do with something that goes on in the space station, as described below, than it does with the fact that only five of the seven diamond-shaped objects in the stargate are initially visible to Bowman, as mentioned in part 22.* Above left and right: Heywood Floyd meets with his friend, Elena (blond hair), and her fellow professionals in the space station. Note that all three of the women in this meeting have short hair, and that they all have a somewhat 'pixie-ish' or childlike appearance. One thing we observe when Floyd first greets Elena and is introduced to her colleagues, just prior to the meeting, is that Floyd seems much more interested and delighted to meet the male colleague than the two women. We also observe that it's the two men who do most of the talking during the meeting. Finally, note that in both screencaps, one of the women is not granted 'full place' at the table, as she's shown sitting a little off to the side. (As an aside, note that if we compare the two views, a different woman is out of place in one than in the other.) This has to do with Jungian symbolism, as will be described below, but it also has to do with the idea of women being 'held' out of place. All of this taken along with the women's pixie-like appearance is a commentary by Kubrick, to get across the idea to us that even when women have achieved the same high level of education and proficiency as men have, they are viewed by men, and society in general, as children.

The Jungian symbolism here has to do with the fact that the table is round, and with the number of people at the meeting and their seating positions. The round motif indicates that the persons at the table have been brought together for the purpose of wholeness. The apparent 'division' of the table into four quarters or quadrants (if we draw a line from each person, across the table to the person sitting opposite), has to do with the quaternity, which as we know from earlier in the analysis, itself represents wholeness. Lynch's 'five of eight' clue from Inland Empire is a hint about the fact that there are five persons at the meeting, but I'm not sure what the 'eight' is a reference to; though as mentioned in part 22, one thing the number eight can be used to represent is the Egyptian Ogdoad, which is a group of four male-female pairs of Egyptian deities. Also recall from part 22 the mention of the eight-spoked dharma wheel, which is suggested by the Inland Empire clock/sticks, if we consider each stick to represent a spoke in the wheel. There is also something that is somewhat related to the dharma wheel called the wheel of life, which in part represents something called the six realms of samsara; sometimes these six realms were instead depicted as five realms, so this might be a match for the five in our 'five of eight'.


*Another 'five out of eight' clue from Lynch is something from Mulholland Drive: Only five of the eight persons involved in the Club Silencio scenario, seem to be very significant (the 'blue-haired lady' only comes into play at the very end of the movie).


      

2001 analysis - part 44: Hints from 'The Silence of the Lambs'

CATEGORY: MOVIES **Contains spoilers for A Space Odyssey, The Silence of the Lambs, and Hannibal**





Top left: The communications antenna is normally pointed opposite the direction Discovery One is traveling in, which is consistent with its being pointed directly at Earth, since the ship is headed from Earth to Jupiter. Top right: We note that the antenna is rotating about its vertical axis, while Bowman is removing the (supposedly) faulty AE-35 unit. Apparently the antenna, which is normally not rotating, must be rotating while the unit is being replaced. Above left: The antenna is again rotating when Poole goes to re-install the faulty unit. Above right: When Bowman leaves the ship in his pod to retrieve Poole's body, the antenna has stopped rotating and is again pointed opposite the direction of travel. If HAL, who has control over all aspects of ship operation, had changed the ship's course slightly so that, say, it it is now headed toward one of Jupiter's moons instead of Jupiter itself, then the fact that the antenna is now pointed directly backwards means that it is no longer pointed toward Earth, and thus, communication between Earth and the ship is lost. The point is that HAL doesn't want the mission film or broadcast being transmitted to Earth, to show any evidence of the attack on Poole; and, he doesn't want any further communication to be possible between Bowman and ground control after the attack. HAL therefore severs all communication, either in accordance with the foregoing scenario, or by using some other means. (A possible alternate scenario is that the alien influences Bowman's mind so that Bowman does not install the new AE-35 unit that he brought with him, after he removes the supposedly faulty one. With no unit installed, the antenna would not work correctly, so there'd be no communications possible. Note that Poole is attacked before he has a chance to reinstall the old unit, so once the old one has been removed by Bowman, there can be no more communication with Earth throughout the remainder of the mission. Also note that in this scenario, it is possible that the alien and HAL are working together, with HAL initiating the chain of events by falsely stating that the installed unit will fail in 72 hours. If the alien and HAL are working together at any point, with the alien representing Melusina, the feminine aspect of Mercurius, then it would appear that Kubrick is in fact depicting the 'female component' as being at least partly to blame, for the way things have turned out insofar as the 'perpetual doom'-cycle within which mankind has been trapped. Note that this may coincide with the update I made to part 35 of the analysis, in which I stated that the monolith, being taller than it is wide, is planted with an emphasis on the unconscious at the 'expense' of width and depth, implying that the feminine component, which is associated with the unconscious, initially has too much emphasis placed on it. Recall that it is the presence of the monolith that influences the ape-man such that he discovers how to use weapons.)







From The Silence of the Lambs: Top left and right: FBI trainee Clarice Starling (played by Jodie Foster) communicates with her boss, Agent Jack Crawford, while Crawford is on an airplane on his way to Calumet City, Illinois. Above left: Communication between Starling and Crawford is lost when Crawford's plane banks hard left to change its heading. Above right: Hannibal Lecter standing in his Memphis cell, with police officer Boyle lying dead on the cell floor. Lecter has killed Boyle, and while doing so he spattered Boyle's blood on the cell floor, in a symbolic re-enactment of the Jewish Passover, to protect the serial killer, Jame Gumb, in his basement 'underworld', from the angel of death, Clarice Starling. All along it appears to the movie audience that Lecter is helping Starling to catch Gumb, but Lecter is in reality leading Starling to her death at Gumb's hands. The correspondence with A Space Odyssey is that Lecter has 'set up' a situation within Starling's psyche such that if she defeats Gumb, who represents a 'pupil' of Satan, then she will have 'assimilated' Gumb, her opposite. Lecter is then to become Mercurius (whom as we've mentioned, is a union of all opposites), when he assimilates his Jungian opposite, Clarice Starling, in the sequel to The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal*. Silence of the Lambs author Thomas Harris, and the movie-makers**, have provided us not only with a hint about Discovery One losing communication with Earth, but they've given us one big clue about the alien's overall plan, the setting up of the situation within Bowman's psyche, etc. Just as Lecter, who represents the 'bad Jew', hopes Gumb (representing Satan) will defeat Starling, so the alien hopes Bowman will lose to HAL. And, just as Lecter has set himself up to become Mercurius if things should turn out that Starling defeats Gumb, so also the alien has set itself up to become Mercurius if Bowman defeats HAL: If he defeats HAL, Bowman will have assimilated HAL, his 'opposite' (good Jew assimilates bad Jew); then, the alien is to unite with Bowman. Note that there are not one-to-one correspondences between representations in the two movies: Lecter represents the bad Jew and Hermes Trismegistus, Gumb represents Satan, and Starling represents not only Melusina, the feminine aspect of Mercurius, but she also represents the Holy Trinity and the virgin Mary (she is an angel of death sent by God to destroy Gumb.) In Kubrick's movie, the scenario is that HAL is a 'pupil' of Satan as well as being the bad Jew, Bowman is the good Jew and Hermes Trismegistus, and the alien is Melusina. If one were forced to compare the characters in the two movies directly, then it could be said that Gumb corresponds somewhat to HAL, and Lecter and Starling correspond to the alien and Bowman, respectively, in the sense that one is manipulating the other's psyche. Note that there doesn't appear to be a good Jew in the Lecter movie.


*The book, Hannibal, ends with Lecter assimilating Starling; however, the movie has a different ending wherein Clarice escapes from Lecter. It was felt by the movie-makers that audiences would not buy the idea of Lecter and Starling running off together.

**The Silence of the Lambs was directed by Jonathan Demme, and the screenplay was written by Ted Tally. Hannibal's director was Ridley Scott, with screenplay by David Mamet and Steve Zaillian.


      

2001 analysis - part 43: The aliens are 'stealing' diamonds from Earth

CATEGORY: MOVIES **Contains spoilers for Reservoir Dogs**



Above left: As mentioned earlier in the analysis, the two men piloting the moonbus are hit men sent by Satan, and the three men in back of the bus are aliens, or more properly, they are aliens occupying men's bodies. One of the three (but not Heywood Floyd) is working 'undercover' as an informant for Satan. What the audience of 2001 hears being said by the three men, and in particular, by the man sitting to Floyd's right, appears to have a straightforward meaning: An area with an intense magnetic field has been discovered on the moon, it is not simply due to an outcropping of magnetic rock, its source is an object (the monolith) that appears to have been deliberately buried four million years ago, etc. However, there is actually a hidden narrative at work here: What the men are saying to each other takes place within a context that is different from what the audience believes it to be. Before the men start talking about the monolith, Floyd notes that the sandwich he has just been handed "looks pretty good". The man standing (it's probably this guy who's the informant) says in reply, "They're getting better at it all the time." When he says this, he's not saying that it's specifically the packagers of the food who are getting better at preparing items for use in space; instead, he's speaking as an alien, and he's saying that humans in general are getting better at doing this. Then when the men begin to look at the photos of TMA-1 and start discussing the monolith, the man seated to Floyd's right appears to give Floyd a rundown on the 'discovered' object as if it is something that has just been discovered, but what he's really doing is giving Floyd the pre-planned false scenario that has been created by himself and his co-workers, which will be used to explain the object to the viewers of the film or broadcast being made within 2001 (the same partially-faked film as that mentioned earlier in the analysis, i.e., shots of the excavation at TMA-1 are to be part of the same faked movie as the recorded portions of the Jupiter mission.) When Floyd ends the conversation by saying, "You guys have certainly come up with something", the 'something' is the false scenario that's been created: The monolith is not really a recent discovery, but is instead the 'container' for something that has been stolen from Earth by the aliens, and that has recently been placed on the Moon on its way to Jupiter. Above right: In this view of the six astronauts (the five guys who were in the moonbus, plus David Bowman), the men are holding their hands at their sides in such a manner as to suggest that they are about to draw guns, as if there's an element of 'wild West' here. Tarantino's 'Mexican standoff' hints are an allusion to this hint from Kubrick, and to what goes on at TMA-1 after the monolith starts making its high-pitched noise.





Above left: We note that the gold-colored slats installed around the borders of the excavation, used to hold back rocks and dirt, have numerous dark six-sided openings or indentations in them (you may click on the image to enlarge it.) The openings represent small monoliths (since the monolith has six faces), and the monoliths each represent the cinema screen itself, rotated by ninety degrees. The implication is that the monolith inside the excavation is being viewed by an audience, the same audience that is to view the recorded portion of the Jupiter mission (along with all its feigned aspects, as discussed earlier in the analysis). However, neither that audience nor ourselves is to see the subsequent 'show-down' among the six men, which begins after the monolith starts making its high-pitched noise, as the men fight each other to gain control over that which is contained within the monolith. During this fight, some of the men are killed (presumably by having their air hoses disconnected); this is what is being alluded to in the show-down in Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs. However, the actual alien entities inhabiting some of the men's bodies are not killed; they merely 'leave' the bodies they were occupying in their natural form, as pure, sentient energy. Above right: David Bowman sees seven octahedral objects during the stargate sequence. Natural crystals of diamond are commonly octahedral[42]; therefore, this is one clue that what the aliens are after is diamonds. The red coloring under the objects is a reference to Hell, and serves as an indication that when the diamonds were dug up from within the earth, they were in some (symbolic?) sense 'stolen' from Satan. When Mr. Pink makes off with the case of diamonds at the end of Reservoir Dogs, this serves as a hint from Tarantino that one of the six men at TMA-1 somehow made off with, or in some other way obtained control of, the contents of the monolith, after the 'shoot-out'. One question raised by all this is, why would the aliens want diamonds in the first place? Also, why would they enlist the help of human beings to obtain them? And, does the idea of 'stealing' from Satan have to do with the ransom view of the atonement? (This was mentioned in the analysis of Pulp Fiction, where it was also noted that Marsellus Wallace represents Satan.) We will attempt to address these questions later.