On this site will be posted analyses of popular media productions. These analyses will have to do with determining the underlying meanings of various movies, songs, and certain novels. Methods used to analyze a given production will include exploration of the creators' use of symbolism, allegory, metaphor, etc., and deciphering any arcane or obscure references that it may contain.
There is a film (and/or broadcast) being made of the Jupiter mission, and certain aspects of it are being 'faked' - the creators of the film/broadcast are intentionally misleading its audience, for some reason. Top left: At the beginning of the mission, we the 2001 audience (and presumably, the mission film audience) see Frank Poole jogging around what we believe to be the rotating centrifuge inside Discovery One. (You may need to click on the image to enlarge it, to see Poole.) Note that there are two hibernation pods on Poole's right, and also note that at this point he is passing (on his right) the ladder rungs that extend from the center of the centrifuge to its floor. This is the only ladder in the centrifuge, and as can be seen, Poole passes the ladder before he gets to the two hibernation pods. Top right: A moment later we get a closer view of Poole jogging, only this time, he will pass the hibernation pods (again, on his right) before he comes to the ladder. The point is that the spatial relationship between the pods and the ladder has been switched from what the previous screencap shows. Above left: The next view of Poole that we see shows him from the front, and now the two pods and the ladder are on his left. This would be in agreement with the previous screencap (but not the one before that) only if Poole had reversed the direction in which he is running. The change of scenery inside the centrifuge between the first and the next two screencaps, can only be explained by concluding that the editor of the mission film either made one or more mistakes while editing it, or that he spliced together the footage hoping the intended audience would not notice the discrepancies; but in either case, the footage had to have been filmed in two (or more) different centrifuges. Thus, not all of what we see is actually taking place on Discovery One. Above right: This view of the space station provides us with a couple of hints as to what is really going on: The fact that the slot at the right-hand side of the hub is lighted red, signifies the presence of HAL, and thus of his camera eyes, which as was said earlier are recording (and/or broadcasting) the mission. Noting that the side of the space station that is under construction is on the same side as the red 'glow' (i.e., it is opposite the side on which the small spacecraft is getting ready to enter), we conclude that part of what the mission film audience sees as the Jupiter mission is in reality filmed in the space station instead of on Discovery One, and in fact, one entire side of the station is being used as a 'set' for the film. The centrifuge in the space station has a slightly different interior arrangement than the one on Discovery One, and it must be located inside the hub of the station, somewhere in the small-diameter section between the two spoked 'wheels'. (As an aside, note that Frank Poole, while jogging in circles around the centrifuge, is reminiscent of a rodent on its running wheel. The symbolism here is that Frank is some kind of metaphorical 'rat in a machine').
Above left and right: The bright 'flares' of light coming from the sun while Discovery One is near Jupiter, signify the alchemical citrinitas. However, as described below, the citrinitas stage in 2001 is incomplete.
So far in the analysis, we've discussed how the nigredo (the first stage of the alchemical Magnum opus, or Great Work) is related to appearances of the monolith; and we've also noted that the movie is a circular narrative. In Psychology and Alchemy, Jung says that "Time and again the alchemists reiterate that the opus proceeds from the one and leads back to the one, that it is a sort of circle like a dragon biting its own tail. For this reason the opus was often called circulare (circular) or else rota (the wheel). Mercurius stands at the beginning and end of the work."[a] We'll talk about Mercurius in a later post, but for now we need to discuss the three alchemical stages that come after the nigredo, and we need to determine at what point each takes place in 2001. We'll note here that in Jungian psychology, the four alchemical steps are to be taken as analogous to the process of attaining individuation,[b] which is a process of psychological integration having for its goal the development of the individual personality.
The next stage after the nigredo is the albedo. It is a Latinicized term meaning "whiteness." Following the chaos or massa confusa of the nigredo stage, the alchemist undertakes a purification in albedo, which is literally referred to as ablutio – the washing away of impurities. In this process, the subject is divided into two opposing principles to be later coagulated to form a unity of opposites or coincidentia oppositorumduring rubedo. Jung equated the albedo with unconscious contrasexual soul images; the anima in men and animus in women. It is a phase where insight into shadow projections are realized, and inflated ego and unneeded conceptualizations are removed from the psyche.[c]
The albedo is associated with reflected sunlight.[d] Jung says that the albedo is the first main goal of the alchemical process, and that it is "highly prized by many alchemists as if it were the ultimate goal. It is the silver or moon condition, which still has to be raised to the sun condition. The albedo is, so to speak, the daybreak, but not till the rubedo is it sunrise."[e] It must be the case that in our movie, the albedo is signified by the visit to the moon, at the point at which the monolith appears. However, as noted earlier, each appearance of the monolith is accompanied by a nigredo. To see how the moon is symbolically linked with the nigredo, we again look to Jung: "Being the mistress of moisture, the moon...is the prima materiain the form of water..."[f] The prima materia, also called Chaos, is linked in alchemy to the nigredo. In a sense, the moon has a 'dual symbolism' with regard to alchemy. The point is that the events that take place on the moon in 2001, represent both a nigredo and an albedo (unlike the events surrounding the monolith in the Dawn of Man sequence, which represent only a nigredo).
Above left: The TMA-1 excavation site on the moon. The moon is associated with the alchemical albedo, the second stage of the Great Work. Above right: There is also a nigredo at TMA-1, however, when a high-pitched noise triggers chaos among the astronauts there.
We'll look at the fourth and final alchemical stage, the rubedo, before we look at the third stage, the citrinitas, for reasons that will soon become apparent. Rubedo is a Latin word meaning "redness" that was adopted by alchemists to define the fourth and final major stage in the Magnum Opus. Both gold, and the philosopher's stone were associated with the color red, as rubedo signalled alchemical success, and the end of the great work. In an archetypal (i.e., Jungian) schema, rubedo would represent the Self archetype, and would be the culmination of the four stages. The Self manifests itself in "wholeness", a point in which a person discovers his or her true nature.[g]
Jung says that "the transition [from the albedo] to the rubedo is formed by the citrinitas, though this...was omitted later. The rubedo then follows direct from the albedo as the result of raising the heat of the fire to its highest intensity."[h] The rubedo is signified in our movie at the point at which Bowman experiences enlightenment and is then reborn, i.e., during the final showing of the monolith. (As mentioned earlier, there is a nigredo 'embedded' here, as signified by the beginning of the elderly Bowman's physical decomposition.) However, the entire 'hotel' sequence is part of a dream Bowman is experiencing just before he dies from his head injury, so what is being depicted is really a 'faux'-rubedo - wholeness is not attained, due to the fact that the preceding stage, the citrinitas, is incomplete, as described below.
Citrinitas, sometimes referred to as xanthosis, is a term given by alchemists to "yellowness." In alchemical philosophy, citrinitas stood for the dawning of the "solar light" inherent in one's being, and that the reflective "lunar or soul light" was no longer necessary. The citrinitas is also the stage in which the 'chemical wedding' takes place between yin and yang. Without this union, the rubedo cannot occur.[i] The citrinitas is signified when Discovery One begins to approach the floating monolith near Jupiter (the scene shown in the screencaps at the top of this post), during which we see sun activity that looks similar to massive solar flares. The sun is also symbolically connected with the nigredo in Jung's Psychology and Alchemy (Volume 12 of The Collected Works), in the context of sol niger, the black sun of alchemy.[j] Thus we see that like the moon, the sun, too, has a dual symbolism with regard to alchemy.
Note that one thing Kubrick has done here, is made an original contribution to alchemy, in that he has pointed out that there is a nigredo phase 'embedded' in each of the other three stages of the alchemical process.
Frank Poole and David Bowman represent yin and yang, respectively.
We know that Bowman fails to save the feminine (yin - as represented by Poole),[k] so there can be no symbolic union between yang (Bowman) and yin. Thus, there can be no chemical wedding and no citrinitas, and thus, no true rubedo, so we are left with an incomplete alchemical process. The outcome of all this is that mankind is 'doomed' to repeat this cycle whereby completeness is never attained, until the feminine component within humanity's 'collective' psyche (and within each individual's psyche) can be 'saved'. This is in line with what was stated in the previous post.
There are some hints in the movies of our other directors about the idea of an incomplete citrinitas. In Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, Vincent (yang) and Mia (yin) never actually 'unite'; another way to look at it is that Vincent fails to completely 'save' the feminine within himself, as represented by his failure to completely 'save' Mia. In the analysis of Lynch's Mulholland Drive, it was observed that Diane experiences an incomplete citrinitas. Finally, in Michael Mann's 2006 movie, Miami Vice, lovers Sonny and Isabella have to go their own separate ways in the end; this represents an incomplete union.
a. Jung, C.G. The Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Vol. 12. Princeton University Press, 1968. para. 404.
b. Wikipedia, 'Magnum opus (alchemy)'. Web, n.d. URL = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnum_opus_(alchemy).
c. Wikipedia, 'Albedo (alchemy)'. Web, n.d. URL = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albedo_(alchemy).
d. Wikipedia, 'Albedo'. Web, n.d. URL = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albedo.
e. Jung, C.G., The Collected Works, Vol. 12, para. 334.
f. Ibid., para. 487.
g. Wikipedia, 'Rubedo'. Web, n.d. URL = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubedo.
h. Jung, C.G., The Collected Works, Vol. 12, para. 334.
i. Wikipedia, 'Citrinitas'. Web, n.d. URL = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citrinitas.
j. Jung, C.G., The Collected Works, Vol. 12, para. 140.
k. Although Poole is male, he to some degree represents a female presence, as discussed earlier in the analysis.
Top left: There are twelve people seated in the lecture room at Clavius: three men at Heywood Floyd's table, including Floyd (the men with their backs to us, with Floyd sitting in the middle of the three); three men and one woman at the table to the right; and four men and one woman at the left-hand table (clicking on the images will enlarge them). The religious significance here, in Jungian terms, is that the table with the three men represents the Trinity, which is exclusively male; the right-hand table, with four people (three men and one woman), represents the Trinity and the Virgin Mary; and the five people at the table on the left (four men and one woman) represent the Trinity, the Virgin Mary, and evil, which here is being portrayed as male in character. Top right: The view of the room from the other end, while Floyd is giving his lecture to the others at the meeting: It can be seen that there are two empty seats on the left, and one on the right. The two longer tables are equal in length, and along with the podium, and the shorter table at the other end, they give the whole arrangement the appearance of a rectangle (as viewed from above). Recall that the monolith itself is rectangular. Above left: Earlier in the meeting, when Floyd is ready to begin his lecture, he arises from his chair and walks around toward the podium in a clockwise direction (as viewed from above; denoted by 'cw'). In his Psychology and Alchemy, Carl Jung says, "[A] leftward movement is equivalent to a movement in the direction of the unconscious, whereas a movement to the right...aims at consciousness."[a] A clockwise motion is a movement toward the right, and thus, toward the conscious, which is, according to Jung, a movement toward the "correct" side; and a counterclockwise motion is one to the left, and thus the unconscious, which Jung calls the "sinister" side. Thus, Floyd's movement here is one toward the conscious. Above right: When Floyd is done speaking, he returns to his seat in a counter-clockwise direction ('ccw'), representing a move toward the unconscious. At the same time, the man who was sitting to Floyd's right (prior to Floyd leaving his seat for the podium; denoted by 'other man' in the screencap), approaches the podium in a clockwise direction, which, again, represents a move toward the conscious. Therefore, Floyd's impending entanglement with this man, as they try to maneuver past each other in the narrow passage behind the seats of the left-hand longer table, represents an impending 'collision', or conflict, between the conscious and the unconscious. The actual physical encounter between the two men is not shown, because just prior to its expected occurrence, the movie cuts to the lunar surface. This indicates that the actual conflict between conscious and unconscious in the movie, is to take place on the moon.
A few moments after the above-mentioned cut to the lunar surface, we see this particular view of the moonbus moving toward TMA-1. The conflict, or 'showdown', between the conscious and unconscious, is to take place at TMA-1. The events and meaning of this showdown will be gone into in detail, later in the analysis.
Above left: The monolith at TMA-1. Above right: The monolith in the Dawn of Man segment of the movie. Note that in both shots, the monolith is rectangular.
In Jung, a mandala is the "symbol of the center, the goal, or the [Self] as psychic totality...This is symbolically represented by the circle, the square, or the quaternity, by symmetrical arrangements of the number four and its multiples."[b] (emphasis not in original). A mandala represents psychological wholeness.[c] The above two screencaps show that the monolith is taller than it is wide, and thus, it does not form a square. It represents what Jung calls a "disturbed" mandala.[d] Jung links vertical height with the unconscious, and he links the horizontal (i.e., width) with the conscious.[e] Jung also tells us that in a man, the unconscious has feminine characteristics.[f] (David Bowman is a man, and it's his unconscious that is at work in A Space Odyssey). Therefore, by planting a monolith that is taller than it is wide, the aliens have 'planted' an over-emphasis on the feminine (at the expense of the masculine) at the dawn of man, therefore 'dooming' humanity to a lack of wholeness.
Recall that Bowman had earlier failed to 'save' the feminine, as symbolized by the fact that he failed to save the life of Frank Poole, whom as we said, represents yin. Since the feminine component of humanity was not saved, the alien, representing the 'evil feminine', stepped in with its own (evil) feminine nature and planted the irregular monolith. The movie's being a circular narrative implies that we have been 'trapped' in a never-ending cycle whereby wholeness cannot be attained, until the feminine component of humanity is 'saved' within some context (the 'feminine component' here implying one or more things having to do with the psyches of individual women).
a. Jung, C.G. The Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Vol. 12. Princeton University Press, 1968. para. 166.
b. Jung, C.G. Memories, Dreams, Reflections. Recorded and edited by Aniela Jaffé. Trans. Richard and Clara Winston. Vintage Books, 1989. Glossary, "Mandala". Google Books. URL = https://books.google.com.
c. "Only gradually did I discover what the mandala really is:...[T]he wholeness of the personality, which if all goes well is harmonious, but which cannot tolerate self-deceptions." (--Jung, C.G., Memories, Dreams, Reflections, Google Books, p. 212, URL = https://books.google.com.)
d. Jung, C.G., The Collected Works, Vol. 12, para. 287 and footnote no. 131. Google Books. URL = https://books.google.com.
e. Ibid., paras. 287, 291.
f. Ibid., para. 320.
Top left: From Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction: Marsellus Wallace's two hit men, Jules Winnfield (left) and Vincent Vega, discuss the fine points of giving a woman a foot massage, just prior to performing a hit. Top right: From Michael Mann's Heat: A member of Neil McCauley's gang falls face-down in a pool of water, while trying to escape the police during the aftermath of a major bank robbery committed by the gang, presenting a comical spectacle. Above left: Some prostitutes operating out of a rooming house suddenly start dancing to The Loco-Motion for no apparent reason, in David Lynch's Inland Empire. Above right: For a brief moment while David Bowman is disconnecting HAL, after the latter has killed the other four Discovery One astronauts, the top of Bowman's green space helmet makes his head appear similar to that of Kermit the Frog. In the scenes from their respective films shown here, Tarantino, Mann, and Lynch are each making an allusion to Kubrick's philosophy of inserting humor into, and thus making light of, serious situations in his films.
Top left: Bowman's view at the beginning of the stargate sequence. The image looks similar to psychedelic art (see below). Top right: Bowman's face at the beginning of the sequence. Above left: Later in the sequence, Bowman doesn't look so good. One way to interpret this is that he is experiencing a bad trip, like the kind a person might have due to use of a hallucinogenic drug such as LSD. Above right: Still later - Bowman's view, again reminiscent of psychedelic art.
Above: Two examples of psychedelic art. [Images from the Wikipedia 'Psychedelic art' page, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.] Psychedelic art is any kind of visual artwork inspired by psychedelic experiences induced by drugs such as LSD, mescaline, and psilocybin. The word "psychedelic" (coined by British psychologist Humphry Osmond) means "mind manifesting." By that definition all artistic efforts to depict the inner world of the psyche may be considered "psychedelic." In common parlance "Psychedelic Art" refers above all to the art movement of the 1960s counterculture. Psychedelic visual arts were a counterpart to psychedelic rock music. Concert posters, album covers, lightshows, murals, comic books, underground newspapers and more reflected not only the kaleidoscopically swirling patterns of LSD hallucinations, but also revolutionary political, social and spiritual sentiments inspired by insights derived from these psychedelic states of consciousness.[a] ----------------------------
A bad trip (or psychedelic crisis) is a disturbing experience sometimes associated with use of a psychedelic drug such as LSD, Salvinorin A, DXM, mescaline, psilocybin, DMT and sometimes even other drugs including cannabis, alcohol and MDMA. The manifestations can range from feelings of vague anxiety and alienation to profoundly disturbing states of unrelieved terror, ultimate entrapment, or cosmic annihilation. Bad trips can be exacerbated by the inexperience or irresponsibility of the user or the lack of proper preparation and environment for the trip, and are reflective of unresolved psychological tensions triggered during the course of the experience.
Potential causes of bad trips According to Timothy Leary, a crisis can be a result of wrong set and setting. Leary advised that users of psychedelics be sure that they are comfortable before taking the drugs.
Alternatively, psychiatrist R. D. Laing held that psychedelic crises and other such extreme experiences, drug-induced or not, were not necessarily artificial terrors to be suppressed but rather signs of internal conflict and opportunities for self-healing.
Likewise, Stanislav Grof suggested that painful and difficult experiences during a trip could be a result of the mind reliving experiences associated with birth, and that experiences of imprisonment, eschatological terror, or suffering far beyond anything imaginable in a normal state, if seen through to conclusion, often resolve into emotional, intellectual and spiritual breakthroughs. From this perspective, interrupting a bad trip, while initially seen as beneficial, can trap the tripper in unresolved psychological states. Grof also suggests that many cathartic experiences within psychedelic states, while not necessarily crises, may be the effects of consciousness entering a perinatal space.[b] According to dictionary.com, the World English Dictionary defines perinatal as "of, relating to, or occurring in the period from about three months before to one month after birth." Recall that Bowman is reborn at the end of 2001. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Top left: In Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, Mia Wallace (center, in white blouse) has just inhaled cocaine (a stimulant) in the restroom of club and restaurant Jack Rabbit Slim's. Top right: Later, back at her apartment, Mia mistakenly inhales heroin, an opioid, thinking that it is cocaine. Above left: Mia is near death after having inhaled the heroin. The white fluid is a recently-consumed milkshake being ejected from her mouth. Above right: At one point in the stargate, Bowman sees this 'milky-white' pattern.
Top left: Pulp Fiction's Vincent Vega prepares his heroin for use. As mentioned above, heroin is an opioid. Top right: Vincent injects the prepared heroin. Note the blood flowing into the syringe. Above left: At one point during the stargate sequence, Bowman sees this red fluid-like 'blob'; this looks not unlike the blood in Vincent's syringe. Above right: Vincent's facial expression while experiencing the high from the heroin, is similar to Bowman's expression at the beginning of the stargate (as shown in the right-hand screencap at the top of this post). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kubrick was making a statement about 1960s counterculture in 2001. Recall that Kubrick's film was released in 1968, which was a peak year in the counterculture period, during which LSD and heroin use were fairly common among the participants in the youth movement. Since David Bowman experiences a bad trip, Kubrick's statement about the '60s counterculture was a negative one, i.e., Kubrick was expressing the idea that the counterculture was in some way, a destructive force against society. The damaging effect on Bowman of the brain injury he received, upon striking his head on one of Discovery One's steel walls, when he re-entered the ship from space, is, within a certain context, a metaphor for the 'impact' of brain damage caused by drug use, on many of the members of the generation that grew up in the '60s. In a more general sense, it represents the 'shock' effect of the counterculture period on society; the long-term effects of this shock extend up to current day.
a. Wikipedia, 'Psychedelic Art'. Web, n.d. URL = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychedelic_art.
b. Wikipedia, 'Bad trip'. Web, n.d. URL = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_trip.
In part 28 of this analysis, it was stated that in Mulholland Drive, David Lynch gives us a hint that in 2001, Kubrick was making a statement about the Jews and Nazis. Kubrick was trying to get across to us the idea that things aren't as simple as, 'the Jews are pure good and the Nazis were pure evil'. Recall that in the tale of the Prague Golem (discussed in the previous post), the golem eventually became violent, turning on society, its creator, and even on other Jews. Ultimately, what Kubrick was saying is that certain Jews have in some way become a source of evil, and have turned on society. In 2001, these evil Jews are represented by HAL, whom we recall is a Satan figure.
HAL, a Satan figure, represents evil Jews.
Recall that Bowman represents Jonas (Jonah), who was also known as 'son of truth' - the name of his father "Amitai" in Hebrew means truth.[a] Also recall that according to the tale of the Prague Golem, the golem had inscribed upon its forehead the Hebrew word for truth, in order to keep it animated. These two ideas taken together, indicate that the golem originates from the same source as does Bowman himself; therefore, as stated in part 29 of the analysis, the battle between Bowman and HAL can be thought of as the battle between a 'good Jew' (Bowman) and a 'bad Jew' (the golem, HAL). However, even though Bowman defeats HAL in the sense that he disconnects his computer memory/logic circuits, this ultimately does not represent a victory of good over evil. For as will be explained later in the analysis, it is during this disconnection process that Bowman assimilates into his own psychology, the Satanic evil within HAL.
a. Wikipedia, 'Jonah'. Web, n.d. URL = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonah.
Statue of Prague Golem created for the film Císaruv pekar — Pekaruv císar. [Image from the Wikipedia 'Golem' page; Clay-golem by Michal Maňas, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.5 via Wikimedia Commons.]
From the Wikipedia 'Golem' page:[a] In Jewish folklore, a golem is an animated anthropomorphic being, created entirely from inanimate matter. The word was used to mean an amorphous, unformed material in Psalms and medieval writing.
The most famous golem narrative involves Judah Loew ben Bezalel, the late 16th century chief rabbi of Prague, also known as the Maharal, who reportedly created a golem to defend the Prague ghetto from antisemitic attacks and pogroms. Depending on the version of the legend, the Jews in Prague were to be either expelled or killed under the rule of Rudolf II, the Holy Roman Emperor. To protect the Jewish community, the rabbi constructed the Golem out of clay from the banks of the Vltava river, and brought it to life through rituals and Hebrew incantations. As this golem grew, it became increasingly violent, killing gentiles and spreading fear. Some versions have the golem eventually turning on its creator or attacking other Jews.
Note that HAL is like a golem in that he was created from inanimate matter, and that he eventually becomes violent, turning on his creator, Man. According to the tale of the golem,
The Emperor begged Rabbi Loew to destroy the Golem, promising to stop the persecution of the Jews. To deactivate the Golem, the rabbi rubbed out the first letter of the word "emet" (truth or reality) from the creature's forehead leaving the Hebrew word "met", meaning dead.
Recall that Bowman 'kills' HAL by removing key components from his 'brain'. Finishing up with our brief summary of the golem tale,
The Golem's body was stored in the attic genizah of the Old New Synagogue, where it would be restored to life again if needed. According to legend, the body of Rabbi Loew's Golem still lies in the synagogue's attic.
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In part 9 of the analysis of Peter Webber's 2007 film, Hannibal Rising (on this blog), it is explained that the young Hannibal Lecter is, metaphorically speaking, like a golem.
a. Wikipedia, 'Golem'. Web, n.d. URL = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golem.
Discovery One's pod bay doors open while Bowman waits to exit the spaceship in his EVA pod. This is an 'allegory' for the biblical whale vomiting out the prophet, Jonah, after he spent three days in the animal's belly.
In the analysis of Michael Mann's Manhunter, it was observed that there are quite a few mentions of the number three in Mann's movie, and it was determined that they are all references to the three days the biblical prophet, Jonah, spent in the belly of the whale. We will look at the story of Jonah below, but first, what needs to be realized is that Mann, in his use of the number three, is giving us a hint that Kubrick was doing the same thing in A Space Odyssey: Kubrick uses the number three to refer to Jonah and the whale, for example, when Elena mentions during the meeting in the space station that she and her colleagues have "just spent three months calibrating the new antennae at Tchalinko", and then later, during the Jupiter mission, when Frank Poole tells Mr. Amor that the bodies of the astronauts in hibernation on Discovery One are at a temperature of three degrees centigrade, and that their hearts beat three times per minute. Also, recall that when HAL announces the impending breakdown of the AE-35 unit, he states that the unit will go to one hundred percent failure within 72 hours. Since there are 72 hours in 3 days, this too is a reference to Jonah and the whale. The point is that part of Bowman's voyage on Discovery One, can be interpreted as being an allegory for the three days the biblical prophet, Jonah, spent in the whale's belly. A portion of the story of Jonah appears below, and is followed by a part of one interpretation of the story.
Jonah is the name given in the Hebrew bible to a prophet of the northern kingdom of Israel in about the 8th century BC, the eponymous central character in the book of Jonah, famous for being swallowed by a fish or a whale, depending on translation. The biblical story of Jonah is repeated in the Qur'an. The first part of the Story of Jonah runs as follows:
Jonah is ordered by God to go to the city of Nineveh to prophesy against it "for their great wickedness is come up before me."[Jonah 1:2, King James Version] Jonah seeks instead to flee from "the presence of the Lord" by going to Jaffa and sailing to Tarshish, which, geographically, is in the opposite direction. A huge storm arises and the sailors, realizing this is no ordinary storm, cast lots and learn that Jonah is to blame. Jonah admits this and states that if he is thrown overboard the storm will cease. The sailors try to dump as much cargo as possible before giving up, but feel forced to throw him overboard, at which point the sea calms. The inspired sailors then offer sacrifices to God. Jonah is miraculously saved by being swallowed by a large fish specially prepared by God where he spent three days and three nights. In chapter two, while in the great fish, Jonah prays to God in his affliction and commits to thanksgiving and to paying what he has vowed. God commands the fish to vomit Jonah out.
God again orders Jonah to visit Nineveh...(see here for the complete story).
Part of one early Christian interpretation of the story says that Jesus compares his generation to the people of Nineveh. Jesus fulfills his role as a type of Jonah, however his generation fails to fulfill its role as a type of Nineveh. Nineveh repented, but Jesus' generation, which has seen and heard one even greater than Jonah, fails to repent. Through his typological interpretation of the story of Jonah, Jesus has weighed his generation and found it wanting.
In the New Testament, Jonah is mentioned in Matthew and Luke. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus makes a reference to Jonah when he was asked for a miraculous sign by the Pharisees and teachers of the Law. Jonah's restoration after three days inside the great whale is said to prefigure the Resurrection of Jesus Christ after three days:[a]
But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas: For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas [is] here. [Matthew 12:39-41, King James Version; material inside square brackets in original source (blueletterbible.org).]
a. Wikipedia, 'Jonah'. Web, n.d. URL = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonah.
Stanley Kubrick at the age of 21. [Image from the Wikipedia 'Stanley Kubrick' page, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.]
Stanley Kubrick was born on July 26, 1928, at the Lying-In Hospital in Manhattan, New York, the first of two children of Jacques (Jacob) Leonard Kubrick (1901–85) and his wife Sadie Gertrude (née Perveler; 1903–85), who were both Jewish. When the critic Michel Ciment asked him whether he had a religious upbringing, Kubrick replied "No, not at all."[a] He had no bar mitzvah and did not attend synagogue, like many Jews who led secular lives.
Nevertheless, Kubrick's family and many critics felt that his Jewish ancestry may have contributed to his worldview and aspects of his films. His daughter noted that he wanted to make a film about the Holocaust, to have been called Aryan Papers, having spent years researching the subject. (Kubrick later noted that Steven Spielberg's Schindler's Listcovered much of the same material.) Most of his friends and early photography and film collaborators were Jewish, and his first two marriages were to daughters of recent Jewish immigrants from Europe.[b]
Before we connect A Space Odyssey with Hannibal Lecter, in order to begin to see what kind of statement Kubrick was making about certain evil Jews, we need to look at some basic information on Lecter:
Hannibal Lecter M.D. is a fictional character in a series of thriller novels by Thomas Harris and in the films adapted from them. Lecter was introduced in the 1981 thriller novel Red Dragon as a brilliant psychiatrist and cannibalistic serial killer. The novel and its sequel, The Silence of the Lambs, features Lecter as the true antagonist after the other two serial killers of each story. In the third novel, Hannibal, Lecter becomes the main character. His role as the antihero occurs in the fourth novel, Hannibal Rising, which explores his childhood and development into a serial killer.
Shown at left is Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs. The first film adapted from the Harris novels was Manhunter (based on Red Dragon), featuring Brian Cox as Lecter, spelled "Lecktor." In 2002, a second adaptation of Red Dragon was made under the original title, featuring Anthony Hopkins, who had played Lecter in the motion pictures The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal. Hopkins won an Academy Award for The Silence of the Lambs in 1991.[c]
Note the similarity of the first letters of HAnnibal Lecter's name to 'HAL' - this is one indication that at least some of the Lecter movies are related to A Space Odyssey. In the analysis of The Silence of the Lambs (on this blog), it was observed that Hannibal Lecter represents Satan personified. Since HAL is a Satan figure, there is a correspondence between Lecter and HAL: Since Lecter also represents an evil Jew, the makers of The Silence of the Lambs are here giving us a hint that HAL himself represents, in part, an evil Jew. The battle between David Bowman and HAL is a clear reference to the battle between David and Goliath, with Bowman representing his namesake, the future king of the Jews. Taking this together with the aforementioned clue from The Silence of the Lambs, Bowman represents a 'good Jew' and HAL represents a 'bad Jew'. Since HAL is a Satan figure, we see that Kubrick is drawing some correspondence between evil Jews, and Satan.
Above left: A closeup of HAL's camera 'eye'. Above right: A common symbol of Freemasonry, the circumpunct, consists of a dot inside a circle with two vertical lines, one on either side of the circle. Taking the dot in the figure to correspond (graphically) to the red dot in the view of HAL's eye shown at above left, we see that HAL not only represents an evil Jew/Satan figure, but he also represents evil Freemasons.
In The Silence of the Lambs, serial killer Jame Gumb (shown at left) represents Satan's (i.e., Lecter's) 'pupil': As explained in the analysis of The Silence of the Lambs, he represents the Freemasons. Gumb desires to 'usurp' Lecter's place as a personification of Satan. 2001's HAL, representing a 'combination' of an evil Freemason and an evil Jew, desires to usurp the place of Satan himself.
Above left: Bowman requests that HAL open the EVA pod bay doors, so that he can get back onto Discovery One, but HAL refuses. Above right: Once Bowman gets back on board the ship through the emergency airlock, he proceeds to disconnect HAL's 'brain'. As implied above, the battle between Bowman and HAL is one between a 'good Jew' and a 'bad Jew', respectively. The battle's outcome has something to do with Bowman's psychology; this will be explored later in the analysis.
In subsequent posts in this analysis, we will see more evidence for a connection between certain Lecter movies and 2001, as well as more evidence that in his movie, Kubrick depicts certain Jews as evil.
a. Kubrick on The Shining, An Interview with Michel Ciment. Web. URL = http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/interview.ts.html.
b. Wikipedia, 'Stanley Kubrick'. Web, n.d. URL = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Kubrick.
c. Wikipedia, 'Hannibal Lecter'. Web, n.d. URL = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannibal_lecter.
From David Lynch's Mulholland Drive: Diane Selwyn has a dream in which we see a pool cleaner's pickup truck parked at Adam Kesher's house. The pool-man is inside the home, cheating in bed with Adam's wife. The words 'Gene Clean' painted on the side of the truck refer not only to Gene the pool man in Mulholland Drive, but also, the missing word, 'pool', is a reference to Frank Poole's last name, and ultimately to the idea of cleaning a (human) gene pool, which was effectively what the Nazi's supposedly believed they were doing by attempting to exterminate the Jews just before and during World War II.
Lynch is here giving us a clue about Frank Poole's last name being a reference to the general populace (i.e., 'gene pool'). The clue is also a reference to the situation with the Nazis and Jews, as indicated above, and Lynch believes Kubrick was making some sort of statement on this subject (i.e., the subject of the Jews and Nazis) in A Space Odyssey.
Top left: The red coloring of the moonbus cockpit represents the fires of Hell, indicating that the two men piloting the bus are are hit men, sent by Satan, to retrieve the monolith contents from the aliens. Top right: The three men in the passenger compartment of the bus, Heywood Floyd (sitting at left), the man sitting to Floyd's right, and the man standing (who says that he "thinks it's chicken" in his sandwich), are all aliens, i.e., their minds and bodies are 'inhabited' by alien life forces. One of the aliens (but not Heywood Floyd) is an informant, working undercover for Satan. Recall that in part 14 of the analysis, we noted that Carl Jung says that the color blue represents the feminine, and that the blue in back of the moonbus indicates that the aliens are feminine in nature. Above left: The man standing at the landing pad control panel when the moonbus arrives, looks like David Bowman in profile (you may click on the screencap to enlarge it). The fact is that this man is Bowman, and he is one of the six astronauts who visits the monolith (the other five being the men who arrived in the moonbus). Above right: The six astronauts at the excavation site. In this view, 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. This foretells what is to happen when the men descend into the excavation.
As stated earlier, there is a nigredo at TMA-1 beginning when the monolith starts making a high-pitched noise. Immediately subsequent to this, there is a 'face-off' among the six astronauts, with some of them being killed, by having their air hoses disconnected. For reasons that will be explained later, the 2001 audience does not see this part of the action. We know that Bowman survives this 'showdown' at TMA-1, since eighteen months later, he's on Discovery One.
There is some amount of 'body-hopping' going on among the aliens with respect to men's bodies, at certain points in 2001 - we know that the alien individual who earlier occupied Floyd's body, later inhabits that of Bowman. What happens at TMA-1 is that when some of the men whose bodies are occupied by alien individuals are killed, the aliens within them are not killed; they merely leave the bodies they were occupying, as pure, sentient energy.
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2) This blog is not associated with any of the studios, creators, authors, publishers, directors, actors, musicians, writers, editors, crew, staff, agents, or any other persons or entities involved at any stage in the making of any of the media productions or source materials that are analyzed, mentioned, or referenced herein.
3) In keeping with the policies of the filmmakers, authors, studios, writers, publishers, and musicians, that have created the productions (and their source materials) that are analyzed, mentioned, or referenced on this blog, any similarity of the characters in these films or source materials to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Saint Augustine's Confessions andCity of God from Wikisource (except where otherwise noted); portions from Wikisource used on this blog are released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.
Saint Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica from the 'Logos Virtual Library' website (except where otherwise noted), compiled and edited by Darren L. Slider; believed to be in public domain.
