MovieChat Forums > Eyes Wide Shut (1999) Discussion > Was Kubrick making fun of the conspiracy...

Was Kubrick making fun of the conspiracy theorists?


After the theory that kubrick directed the moon landing became well-known, what if he was just making fun of the theorists, in the Shining with the Apollo 11 sweater Danny wears and the fact that he himself made sure that EWS came out on the same week the Apollo 11 landed on the moon?
Plus, the ritual in EWS is way over the top, it looks like a parody to me
Now, I'm not saying that these things do no happen, because they do, but Kubrick surely wanted to joke around a bit, after all, it's possible that a man of his intelligence and sardonic sense of humour was just trolling us.

This signature is hilarious and original.
NAAAT!

reply

Seema highly likely, fact even is that this film was planed as a comedy with Steve Martin instead of Cruise

reply

Source of this information?

reply

http://www.filmbuffonline.com/FBOLNewsreel/wordpress/2008/10/19/steve-martin-in-eyes-wide-shut/ you can check on wiki too

[Excuse my english im not Canadian/American/English/Australien/whatever...]

reply

Well, in a way the rituals were comical, indeed.
But not for Bill.

I'm sure Stanley was making fun of conspiracy theorists, as you wrote.

-I don't discriminate between entertainment
and arthouse. A film is a goddam film.-

reply

Yep - and Scientology is a 'religion'.



Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride

reply

Scientology is a religion, it's just more shameless than the others.

reply

Just like Satanism is a 'religion'. 

reply

Scientologists are zealots, just like some other religions.
They certainly are 'believers'.

-I don't discriminate between entertainment
and arthouse. A film is a goddam film.-

reply

So we can discern 'true believers' from 'charlatans'...sounds like conspiracy theory to me..



Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride

reply

Hehe. I consider the contemporary crowd of conspirary theorists also as 'believers'. Not that there are no conspiracies ever.
It's the sound space of doubt between all given facts. Even good scientists have doubt.


-I don't discriminate between entertainment
and arthouse. A film is a goddam film.-

reply

Indeed. I suspect there have been/and are conspiracies at 'elite' levels. But I maintain my doubt and question my own bias. Like Mulder, conspiracy theorists want to believe. It's a reaction to the pervasive nihilism of modern life, I suppose. god is dead.

I think EWS was poking at that notion - as opposed to 'making fun' of conspiracy theorists. Kubrick was himself quite paranoid and most of his films involve a conspiracy of some kind.



Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride

reply

"Eyes Wide Shut" is a conspiracy thriller. It is not 'making fun' at conspiracies, but examining how the entire contemporary social system is fundamentally paranoiac and conspiratorial. Actually, the film where Kubrick was making fun, was satirizing some unhinged conspiracy fantasists was "Dr Strangelove", eg:

General Jack D Ripper: "But today, war is too important to be left to politicians. They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought. I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, communist subversion, and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids ... Do you realize that fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous communist plot we have ever had to face? ... Mandrake, come over here. The Red Coats are coming. Come on! ... Mandrake, do you realize that in addition to fluoridated water, why, there are studies underway to fluoridate salt, flour, fruit juices, soup, sugar, milk, ice cream? Ice cream, Mandrake. Children's ice cream? ... You know when fluoridation first began? Nineteen hundred and forty six. Nineteen fortysix, Mandrake. How does that coincide with your postwar commie conspiracy, huh? It's incredibly obvious, isn't it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual, and certainly without any choice. That's the way your hard core commie works ... I first became aware of it, Mandrake, during the physical act of love ... Women... women sense my power, and they seek the life essence. I do not avoid women, Mandrake, but I do deny them my essence."


Conspiracy is always unavoidable, for reality itself is inherently paranoid. Indeed, the majority of stories, novels, films, TV series entail conspiracies of some kind or in some form. The most popular and widespread narrative form of the 20th century, the primary genre, was that of the detective drama or story, a genre with multiple variations (thriller, police procedural, investigative reporter/journalist/PI etc, conspiracy thriller, gangster stories, killer-on-the-loose stories, terrorist plots, etc, and so on) and which seeps into other genres too, like science fiction, horror, and conventional melodrama. For instance, all of classic film noir and neo-noir are inherently conspiratorial and paranoid. Every filmmaker deals with conspiracies, portrays it, without exception, from Spielberg (all his SF and horror movies are conspiratorial and paranoiac) to Polanski, from Kubrick to Stone. The challenge, as always is to differentiate between the real conspiracies and the loony, fantasmatic ones.

reply

It's true that Kubrick became rather paranoid. He also was extrmely intelligent and perceptive. I consider his themes more like 'chaos', 'madness', 'power abuse' and 'man's dark side taking advantage' than a real conspiracy. It's in PATHS OF GLORY, DR STRANGELOVE, THE SHINING, LOLITA, 2001 that man's machinery has gone haywire.

-I don't discriminate between entertainment
and arthouse. A film is a goddam film.-

reply

Yes but in all of those films - there are very rich and powerful people conspiring for something. The conspiracy of the mine shaft in Strangelove, the conspiracy of the solider sacrifice in Paths of Glory, The conspiracy of the Overlook to seduce Jack into killing, Conspiracy of the moon monolith...the list goes on. I've always said Kubrick was zen - it's an acknowledgement of the complexity of the fabric of reality. Macro and microcosms, the uncanny. Personal and political conspiracies. Kubrick's real key theme was institutions of society.



Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride

reply

To me not one of what you mentioned are conspiracies.
Not every secret planning is a conspiracy (i.e. something criminally illegal or something to bring down an institution or a society; a smaller group formed to bring down a bigger group, like military coups).

I agree with you that Kubrick was interested in institutions.

-I don't discriminate between entertainment
and arthouse. A film is a goddam film.-

reply

"Not every secret planning is a conspiracy (i.e. something criminally illegal or something to bring down an institution or a society; a smaller group formed to bring down a bigger group, like military coups)."

It doesn't have to be about bringing down an institution or state. Most are at a different level entirely, even entail maintaining things as they presently are. For instance, in the area of finance, economy, and markets, conspiracies are routine, such as a company with a dominant market position (whether monopoly or cartel) conspiring to retain/expand that position (eg through market price rigging, bribes, blackmail etc). In addition to price rigging, there is also interest-rate rigging, exchange-rate rigging, share-price rigging, and so on. Or a group of companies/individuals secretly colluding with lawyers, politicians, and others to undermine, or prevent, or enact something destructive (employment legislation, environment policies and practices). The list is extensive, the shady practices systematic.

The most disturbing conspiracies, the ones with devastating, even genocidal, outcomes are often propagated by those who are themselves unhinged conspiracy fantasists. In the 20th century, when Nazis developed pathologically deranged conspiracy fantasies about Jewish people ('worldwide Jewish plot' etc), they became the ACTUAL conspirators, plotting to commit and actually committing genocide etc, the conspiracy called Nazism. So paranoia about some imaginary conspiracy often leads the paranoiac to himself become a conspirator, to become his own worst enemy, to become the enemy that he is in fact seeking: himself.

reply

Mate you need to educate yourself as to what a conspiracy is.

Almost any criminal activity is a conspiracy by definition.

*Richard 111 that is


Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride

reply

Your definition of a conspiracy is much too broad.
That way, the word loses its worth.
I heartily disagree with 'almost any criminal activity'.


-I don't discriminate between entertainment
and arthouse. A film is a goddam film.-

reply

Dictionary definition:

a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful

Like I said, conspiracies occur at large and small scales. It takes two people and a target to make a conspiracy.

Just about every Kubrick film has a conspiracy of some sort.





Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride

reply

"something unlawful or harmful"

This is further complicated by the fact that the Law itself is a conspiracy, is a Lie that is a collective collusion, is itself criminal and illegal, is founded on a crime, often an ethical obscenity, that everyone subsequently imagines, retrospectively reconstructs or re-imagines as some noble foundational gesture ...

reply

The LAWS - different in every country - are certainly not perfect, that's why opposition groups and NGO's like Amnesty International keep trying to better them.

But what alternative do you want: anarchy? Named after a terrorist group from around 1900, culminating in World War 1.


-I don't discriminate between entertainment
and arthouse. A film is a goddam film.-

reply

"The LAWS - different in every country - are certainly not perfect, that's why opposition groups and NGO's like Amnesty International keep trying to better them."

I wasn't referring to particular laws or rules, but the whole framework itself, the Law itself, the social-symbolic structure that frames everyone's everyday reality. This is invariably based on a fiction, a Lie.

Let's take the simplest example, from Hollywood movies, a film like Nolan's "The Dark Knight". The entire film is ultimately structured around preserving a Lie, perpetuating a falsehood: at the end of the film, Harvey Dent, the District Attorney who has gone mad, became a deranged vigilante who murdered people on the toss of a coin, now lies dead. But Batman and police commissioner Gordon collude to cover all of this up, arguing that revealing the truth about Harvey Dent would undermine morale, weaken city administration, ie that it would damage the Law and create further anarchy. Batman wants to preserve a false image of Dent as a heroic figure and instead be the scapegoat himself, that Batman take the blame for Dent's murders. Gordon agrees to this scheme and a manhunt starts after Batman as Gordon engages in pathetic and cynical public oratory glorifying the late Dent, lying about him. This is the film's ultimate message, the necessity of creating a Lie, of retrospectively re-writing history, in order to preserve public order, that redemption is granted through lying and deception. And now we can see that the film was sustained by a series of lies: Dent earlier reveals to the public that he is the Batman: a lie. Gordon pretends to be dead to help catch the Joker: another lie.

The first casualty of the Law is the truth.

Indeed, peoples' resistance to the truth, its underlying undesirability, might also explain the film's mass popularity, apart from the attraction of the film's core villain, the Joker (Hitchcock used to argue that the more convincing, extreme, and credible the villain is in a movie, the more successful the movie will be at the box office). In this sense, "The Dark Knight" is like many old westerns, like those of John Ford. In films like "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" or "Fort Apache" the basic message was the same: "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend", that is, in order to bring order to the Wild West, to 'civilize' it, the Lie has to be turned into the 'truth', to be believed, the Lie made real, of civilization being founded on a Lie.

reply

Thanks for the interesting and civil discussion, btw.


'A secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful.'
Okay, I was also about to cite this, so we'll go with this definition.

DR STRANGELOVE: The mineshaft idea is a common bunker idea for survival of a minor group of people. As it is part of a governmental procedure, it is not a conspiracy. What is your proof that it is unlawful?

PATHS OF GLORY: I agree that the soldier sacrifice might be considered a conspiracy, as it is a hidden agenda of the generals. Though I consider this more a war crime than a conspiracy.

THE SHINING: Bollocks. I certainly do not consider a ghostly teamwork a conspiracy!!! Keep it human, please.

2001: Floyd's project is covered up. But do you mean that every concealed planning is unlawful or harmful? Does that make Floyd a villain?


-I don't discriminate between entertainment
and arthouse. A film is a goddam film.-

reply

Unlawful or harmful.

The Shining one is more about how/why Jack gets the job - and the original cut ending of the film confirms it was essentially a conspiracy at work - the Overlook and it's minions conspire to use the Caretaker to kill.

Floyd is involved in an international lie and conspiracy to protect America's 'discovery'.

Paths of Glory is self-explanitory and you essentially agreed. War or not, that is a clear cut conspiracy.

Strangelove - using former Nazis to develop nuclear weapons that end the world and save only the people that caused the end of the world.....

...

EWS - self explanatory.

Full Metal Jacket - the media P.R job of vietnam in general - blatant lies about the killing of civilians in order to foster the image of 'winning' the war. A conspiracy between the U.S media and the military.

Barry Lyndon - among others, as already mentioned, Barry being sent to spy on the chevalier.


Like I said, a conspiracy can be two people and a victim. It can be a government and a whole nation of people. Harmful has many meanings - consider the conspiracy of Enron's collapse. Not all conspiracies have to be 9/11 or moon landing - far more practical ones occur every day and as I said, at both personal and political levels.

Like countdown is saying, EWS looks more broadly at the conspiracy of society, how we all are complicit in the pervasive idealogies that control and influence and shape our beliefs and actions. It's Matrix like in that internal thought and feeling systems are being presented externally in order to examine them and our place within/without them.


Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride

reply

Sorry for the delay. All work and no play make Rich a dull man.


DR STRANGELOVE.
The military plans with Von Braun and others were to create a balance of powers. Think of that what you want, but secret governmental plans are not necessarily conspiracies. Unless you consider all law a conspiracy, which I do not.
Besides this, general Jack D. Ripper was an insane conspiracy theorist himself ('the bodily fluids') who succeeded in starting up the doomsday machinery! And although he also was a schemer himself, his work succeeded not because others agreed with him, but because he was in a position with power to cause mayhem. A lone madman in the wrong place. Not a consiracy.


SHINING.
There are no people who conjured up a scheme, the powers behind the events are all superhuman. The man who hired Jack: no schemer just a performer. Jack: a victim and pawn in the events. Calling this a conspiracy is like calling a crashed building a conspiracy of stone.

You wrote 'it takes two people and a target'. At least two people to make the secret plan, not just to perform them. Two 'directors' who make the plan. In this case, ghosts, which I don't count as conspirators. We also don't include the uninformed pawns. So, no conspiracy.


BARRY LYNDON.
A spy job is no conspiracy in itself. What scheme did Barry have to follow? He had to spy on Chevalier, who was suspected to be a spy. Do you consider every secret service as conspirators? I don't.


2001.
Again: a cover up is no conspiracy in itself. It is not proven that Floyd's intentions were to break the law or cause (intentional) harm. It is the computer that took its decrees in an absolutist way. A different situation than in, say, ALIEN, in which the crew was considered expendable by the company. HAL took that conclusion for himself. Not proven as a conspiracy.


FULL METAL JACKET.
Yes, we were all cannon meat. My older brothers had to join the army and the marine in the late sixties. But that was the way things were back then. Before Vietnam and before WW2, authorities told us what to say and think. Wrong? With modern eyes, yes. Certainly not very democratic. A conspiracy? That's a bit of a stretch. If you were in the Roman army of Julius Caesar, would you have called the hushing of information a conspiracy? About every army does that. Is every army a conspiracy? Not my idea.


-I don't discriminate between entertainment
and arthouse. A film is a goddam film.-

reply

oy vey!

Generalize all you like, I'm not going to bother. I've presented my thoughts, you yours. You have a narrow definition of conspiracy - good for you. Spying, lying, employing nazis, national propaganda, assasinations etc. These indicate conspiracies to me - the covering up of these things indicate conspiracies, because someone along the way is being used for someone else's benefit. People conspire over things every day, groups conspire over things every day. Like Scientology and the Catholic Church. Definitions of conspiracies.

Some people consider being lied to by those in positions of authority as 'being harmed' - maybe you don't. My opinion is that Kubrick did, and all of his films deal with conspiracies, personal or organized.





Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride

reply

As I wrote before, your definition of a conspiracy is much too broad, and therefore loses its worth. (Ghosts as conspirators, for instance, is really too laughable. Presuming that ghosts exist, we don't know how they 'work'. Projecting human behaviour on them may be completely wrong.)

I do the opposite of generalizing. I just don't buy the conspiracy theorists' misconceptions - which cause generalizations.

Paranoid or not, in my opinion Kubrick was too great an artist and too smart a man to give answers in his films. He only raised questions and doubts. As we can read in Pauline Kael's great 2001 book.



-I don't discriminate between entertainment
and arthouse. A film is a goddam film.-

reply

Totally missed the point on the Shining 'conspiracy'. As with all of them in Kubrick's films, all too human.

I think we'll leave it at that unless we have some EWS content to discuss.



Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride

reply

Oy vey! I give up against this brick wall.
Indeed, let's leave it at that.
Have a good day.


-I don't discriminate between entertainment
and arthouse. A film is a goddam film.-

reply

"Besides this, general Jack D. Ripper was an insane conspiracy theorist himself ('the bodily fluids') who succeeded in starting up the doomsday machinery! And although he also was a schemer himself, his work succeeded not because others agreed with him, but because he was in a position with power to cause mayhem. A lone madman in the wrong place. Not a consiracy."

Firstly, there were (and still are, as a majority of the contemporary population are crackpot conspiracy fantasists; it's now the norm in most societies, a majority subscribing to some bizarre fetish to deflect from their actual everyday reality) numerous of nutters like Ripper during the Cold War. Second, in the film he's not a 'lone madman'; others, from bomber pilots to air-force base personnel, are actively colluding in the madness, 'carry out orders'. Why would they carry out such deranged orders if they didn't agree with them, if they believed them to be insane? Because they didn't, because they agreed with them, chose to agree with them, and, worse, carried them out. This is how many conspiracies work: those actively carrying them out are engaged in self-deception, are denying really doing what they in fact are doing even as they are doing it. And later, when held to account, claim that they were "just obeying orders", the miserable and cynical excuse of the anti-ethical scoundrel. The bomber pilot Kong, for instance, was just as deranged as Ripper, just as pathologically paranoid, both having fully subjectivized, fully internalized the same ideological condition.

reply

Soldiers and other military men were trained to follow orders. The bomber pilots had their doubts, sure, but they went on because they presumed that this would be a retaliation for a Soviet Union attack on the USA. What you call 'madness' with them is not a psychological madness, not by the diagnostic's book. Not like Ripper's madness. A policeman shooting a suspect normally tries to do what is needed; to protect himself & others.

The Cold War (which I remember as frightening) was a socially unhealthy situation. Caused by the possibilities of the A-bombs and H-bombs, there had to be a stand-still between nations who were able to use them. The bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki caused a worldwide trauma. (My parents survived the Japanese camps and death railway because of them, medicins could be distributed again.) This created a wish to stop the use of any big bomb, to cause a fright to ever use them again.
Even though the Cold War caused death and harm, I think that historically it also prevented more mass death.



-I don't discriminate between entertainment
and arthouse. A film is a goddam film.-

reply

"Soldiers and other military men were trained to follow orders."

This is radically false reasoning. You are suggesting that all trained soldiers are zombified robots who have lost all basic reasoning ability and are now deranged, psychopathic zombies who blindly "obey orders". They don't and they're not. So, if you were a soldier and General Ripper 'orders' you to slaughter your whole family and relations, you'd do it? You'd blindly follow orders without any hesitation? You'd be the ultimate (suicidal) fascist psychopath, the ultimate manifestation of pure Evil?

That's not how it works. Soldiers are not simply robotic, deranged zombies, haven't abandoned themselves to the whims of some Other. It's much more complex than such simplistic 'commonsense' assumptions.

"The bomber pilots had their doubts, sure, but they went on because they presumed that this would be a retaliation for a Soviet Union attack on the USA."

More false reasoning. You mean like a serial rapist who 'has his doubts' but then went on because he presumed that this would be a retaliation for Evil women plotting to take over the world?

They 'obeyed' the mad orders because they agreed with them, because they too were paranoid crackpots who had internalized the dominant political-militarist ideology, subjectivized it, normalized it, while all the time fantasizing that they were not a part of it, were removed from it, were still dignified human beings separate from what was happening, not really doing what they were actually doing.

"What you call 'madness' with them is not a psychological madness, not by the diagnostic's book. Not like Ripper's madness."

In many ways it is worse, much worse: they're convinced that what they are doing is normal and reasonable, a fully legitimized madness, banalized and normalized. Derangement rendered 'normal', 'commonsensical'. "It's just business", as Joker asserts about the genocide being committed in Vietnam in "Full Metal Jacket".

"A policeman shooting a suspect normally tries to do what is needed; to protect himself & others."

Are you for 'real'? So there's no such thing as a trigger-happy psychopathic cop? Most cops today - especially in the US, where they are now more dangerous than ever, more deranged as an institution, than anyone else - are 'trigger-happy psychopaths' ... "My nice friendly gun-toting fascist, who protects me from all evil!"


reply

What you quote from me is no 'false reasoning', but just stating facts. Soldiers ARE trained to follow orders, regardless of their feelings. Regardless of your sentiments or mine. How many military men do you really know? I've known a lot, just human beings like everyone else. How many policemen do you personally know?

And the STRANGELOVE bombers went on in spite of their doubts. You unjustly read any condoning on my part in my argument. I was saying that they were not mad like Ripper was (well, Slim Pickens maybe a little) and that you were wrong in thinking so. Which makes them not right, but only human.

Don't put your sentiments in my tekst, mate.
I was stating why your reasonings were false. Reality is regardless of what you and I think about it. Never mind assumptions or conspiracies. Kubrick knew reality. Beneath the layer of symbols, there are layers of irony and then heartfelt, profound interest in humanity. Which leaves all the conspiraphilia far behind.


-I don't discriminate between entertainment
and arthouse. A film is a goddam film.-

reply

"What you quote from me is no 'false reasoning', but just stating facts."

That's the problem here: you are simply listing 'facts' as if their interpretation is self-evident, neutral, or obvious, completely ignoring your bias, your naïve misinterpretation of those banal, obvious facts. You imagine you can perceive the 'facts' without having to perceive them? Without any thoughts? Without having to be mediated by concepts, ideas, notions, fantasies, without ideology?

"Soldiers ARE trained to follow orders, regardless of their feelings."

This, once again, is utterly appalling, a collapse of basic understanding. You are claiming that 'soldiers' are deranged zombies blindly 'following orders'? That they aren't even human? You are omitting to include the fantasies those soldiers construct for colluding in 'blindly following orders'.

It has nothing to do with 'feelings', but with basic reason, rationality, and Ethics. If you fail to see, comprehend this, you're already lost.

"Regardless of your sentiments or mine. How many military men do you really know? I've known a lot, just human beings like everyone else. How many policemen do you personally know?"

Now it's you retreating into sentimentality. "He's just a human being, leave him alone to get on with the job!" Such insular folk psychologizing is precisely what people invoke to legitimize all manner of obscenities, to justify doing anything, no matter how horrific.

I'm not interested in hearing their 'personal stories', in the fantasies, the lies, they construct to conceal, cover over, or justify their psychopathic behaviours. Would you take this approach to, say, Hitler, Stalin, Hirohito, Pol Pot, and countless other paranoid psychos? That they were 'just human beings like everyone else' whose 'personal stories' we just haven't listened to, that if only we sat down and listened to their personal views and stories, we'd be more appreciative of them and their positions and behaviours, more 'understanding' of them, see things their way and fully support them!!!???

This is the pathetic flaw in your reasoning, a total collapse of all critical faculties.

"And the STRANGELOVE bombers went on in spite of their doubts."

Yes, they COLLUDED in the conspiracy to destroy the Soviet Union using nuclear weapons, colluded in committing genocide, committing pure evil. "But they're just human! Leave them alone! Let them get on with it!"

You do realize how utterly horrendous your appeal to humanist mysticism actually is here? Invoking an egomaniacal fantasy of the "human" to justify mass extermination, psychotic derangement.

"You unjustly read any condoning on my part in my argument."

You ARE condoning it, justifying it (while pretending not to be, deluding yourself), and that, again, is exactly how conspiracies work: passively colluding in them, defending them, while fantasizing not being a part of them or even being opposed to them or denying that they even exist. Denying it even as they do it. Blinding themselves to what they are doing as they do it, having their 'eyes wide shut' ... Knowing but not believing, freely and knowingly endorsed by the subjects themselves while turning a blind eye, turning the other cheek, disavowing the knowledge and acting as if they don't know. Here, the conspiracy is full open, that is, there is no imagined 'hidden, secret agency', a Them behind the scenes pulling all the strings, manipulating, deceiving, orchestrating and choreographing the charade, the simulation. Everyone knows while deceiving themselves that they don't know. Nobody is fooled while everyone is fooling, not being fooled while fooling.

"I was saying that they were not mad like Ripper was (well, Slim Pickens maybe a little) and that you were wrong in thinking so."

Doesn't that make it even WORSE!? Doing insane things - committing genocide - while maintaining a grotesquely false semblance of sanity and 'dignity' (this is exactly what the Nazis did eg by day exterminating people in a death camp, then coming home in the evening for dinner with the wife and kids and sitting down to listen to a Beethoven Sonata. "See look! Not only am I just human, but I'm cultured too!!).

As for the 'lone madman' (Ripper) fiction: this is simple deflection, a scapegoating, an instance of the Bad Apple fallacy. That the barrel of apples is sound but just has a few bad ones; get rid of the rotten apple or apples and everything is then cleansed, restored, normal service is resumed, peace and harmony descends on the world once again. Except that the apples will continue getting rotten, continue becoming corrupted, because the cause of the rottenness is not simply the apples, but the barrel itself, the barrel itself is rotten, is inherently corrupt, the whole framework, the system itself.

"Which makes them not right, but only human."

Calling something "human", for you, places it beyond all accountability, beyond all question ... and into the realm of irrational superstition and hubristic egomania. All of Kubrick's films dismantle such unhinged fantasies.


"I was stating why your reasonings were false."

No you weren't, and no you are not. You are making knee-jerk, thoughtless dismissals of my earlier pointing out that your reasoning is deeply flawed and false.

"Reality is regardless of what you and I think about it."

So you can know all about 'reality' without ever having to think about it or know about it? You have immediate, direct, magical access to all reality and know all about it? Without having to know or think about it? This is Ultra-empiricism turned into a dogmatic philosophy. And unknowingly supported by obscurantist, theological-superstitious fantasies about the mystical 'human' ...

Don't you think that is a bit naïve? Worse, that it verges towards a subject with an egocentric God complex, someone who presupposes that they already know everything about everything, are omniscient such that they don't ever have to even think about or perceive anything, but know all about 'reality' already? Someone residing in an infantile, solipsistic fantasy world, mistaking it for all reality?

reply

Not in the slightest.

reply

[deleted]

No. He is confirming them though.

reply

Plus, the ritual in EWS is way over the top, it looks like a parody to me


The scene never struck me as parody. To me it seemed grandiose or a bit over the top. I believe Kubrick created it this way to have a somewhat surreal feeling, almost like a dream/nightmare, which reinforces Hartford's descent into confusion and paranoia.

In order to be parody it would have to be imitating a previous work, and I don't know of any previous mainstream film that had an elite-society orgy ritual scene. Maybe I'm off here, were there any previous mainstream works with a scene like this?

And on that note, regarding conspiracies, were the conspiracy theories of elite societies engaging in ritualistic orgies mainstream before this film was released? I know that there was a mainstream satanism scare in the 90s, but that didn't involve elite societies. Again, Kubrick satirizing these conspiracy theories would rely on them already being in the mainstream before this film was made, and I'm not sure if they were. Anyone have any incite there?

reply

Have a look into what came after..in England, no less. Some high level 'entertainers' and politicians.. Also some similarities with some of the Boho Grove stuff.

Question about the ritual: are the prostitutes making their own decisions about which people to approach or was that rehearsed as well? Roundabout way of asking whether Bill was approached by accident or on purpose at the ritual.



Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride

reply