A Tribute

Stanley Kubrick's death was a peaceful one. But the questions he left us with, the thoughts he evoked and emotions he forced us to ponder, suggest something dramatic lurks in his work now he has left us. Perhaps now we might endeavour to learn more about ourselves by learning his message, discovering it.

My use of the word 'forced' in the last paragraph is, admittedly, wrong. Such was the nature of Kubrick's films; perfectly shaped, deliberately suggestive yet beautifully formed, that we never swayed from enjoying them. He demanded our attention, yes. But he gave us a choice; we might enjoy the visual pleasures of his work, or choose to absorb ourselves in the intellectual undercurrent present in all of his films.

He bred in myself a love for film. Was it the grandeur of it all? The spectacle? No. Even as the spaceships danced their waltz during 2001 , even as the world reached the brink of nuclear war in Dr. Strangelove , even as Jack Torrance lost himself in the never-ending maze of the Overlook Hotel, there still remained a personal connection with the audience. It was a connection maintained through characters who spoke with such a deliberate banality. They seemed so absorbed in their Helvetica worlds, worlds of routine and courtesy and duty, that we felt at ease to observe their actions as being banal. We even felt above them.

They were all individual characters, but as individuals they lacked coherent mindsets; victims of Kubrick's world - a world dedicated to provoking thought through tapping into the 'bigger picture', one in which individuals hold little authority. During the war room scenes of Dr. Strangelove , did Kubrick keep deep focus as Welles so endeavoured to? Look around the war room table; as Peter Sellers and George C. Scott speak their words of ironic hilarity, do we see reaction on the faces of the other members of the war room? We cannot see their faces. They are faceless. The only ones with a face are the players in this whole calamity - players indeed, acting out roles in a drama so contrived yet so brutal.

Remember the Hyatt Hotel Space Station scene in 2001 . The exchange between Heywood Floyd and his friends is of such normality and blandness that we feel inclined to laugh. The gaps between words spoken, the perfect courtesy of each and every person; it draws no instinctive reaction, only creates a peace in the viewers mind. Floyd again boards his spaceship; the flight attendants enjoy their meals, and even in their walk they are restrained to a strange limp by the effects of gravity. Coupled with the flowing chords of a classical waltz, the viewer is again forced to smile at the innocent beauty of it all.

The pure personification of this calm is the meditative voice of HAL. But in using the word personification, we arrive at the core of Kubrick's intellectual argument, and the background of all this thoughtless peace. Kubrick's world is a Helvetica one; one in which we are all the same - same in mindset, in ideals, in habit. Same to such an extent that HAL wants to feel emotion; the human mind's most treasured gift. In similarity and in habit we face the danger of letting things go unnoticed. Just as we smile and cringe at the beauty of the sweeping hills of Colorado as the Torrance car drives towards the Overlook, just as we sit aghast at the rigid formality of marine corps life during a time of such insane informality during Full Metal Jacket , so again Kubrick warns us. Underlying every image of peace and calm there is always food for thought.

Kubrick died a peaceful death. A finite death; one wholly worked towards. He has left us with images of inexplicable beauty, but of such immense intellectual density. This density now on celluloid, Kubrick now deserves his share of the beauty and calm that come with his films, and comes with death.

by William Fox

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