In the Temple of Stanley Kubrick.

Kubrick's filmography spans many genres and themes, from horror to comedy and war to costume drama. A multitude of themes and messages can be found in these films, often concealed through semiotics and steganography, in Kubrick's works. Kubrick's first big hit Paths of Glory which, as  noted by Žižek, was a pacifist film in that soldiers are depicted as exposed to suffering and death without meaning as sacrificial lambs slaughtered for "an obscure and manipulated Cause." Contrast this with Spielberg's Schindler's List in which the Nazis represent the material rage of the paternal superego and Schindler is the paternal figure of the Jews, who are helpless children for which Schindler has be transformed into a responsible father. As Hannah Arendt pointed out that there is nothing fundamentally evil about the character of bureaucrats like Adolf Eichmann. The psychological and personal profile of Eichmann tells us nothing of why he committed such atrocities against Jews. Similarly the attempt by Spielberg to investigate Amon Göth as a person and not a cog in the most homocidal regime in history.

The work of Kubrick is far less simplistic and can actually convey fascinating ideas to the audience. Just take 2001: A Space Odyssey which begins with the dawn of man, the apes handling bones and encircling the monolith. Near the end of 2001 we encounter the imponderable X, which Lacan would describe as objet petit a, when the view penetrates the monolith and an intense abstract visual sequence follows. It soon turns to a hyper-realist representation of fantasy-space. As Ager pointed out, the monolith of 2001 is actually symbolic of the cinema screen and correlates with the fetishisation of art that Walter Benjamin identified within culture. Originally art became fetishised out of the way it exists in one place and can be seen only in that place at any one time. Through its own uniqueness in space and time, the work of art resists becoming truly available to the rabble. This is captured by the incomprehensible nature of the monolith and it's unexplained fetishisation by apes and spacemen alike, which is constant throughout. In a sense it is a meta-fictional aspect of the film, it's presence an insightful joke about art at the expense of the viewer.

On this blog I intend to review in depth specific films and novels, in the past the works of Chuck Palahniuk and JG Ballard been the subject of articles. There will no doubt be many more analyses on this blog, especially when it comes to artists of Kubrick's calibre. So far I have looked in depth at The Shining and Full Metal Jacket so far, both of which are adaptations of books and great examples of the two genres of war and horror:

The Shining and the Slaughter

This is Vietnam, the Movie!

These two articles look at the films in socio-political terms. In The Shining the "founding crimes" of the American Republic emerge from the elevator as a river of blood, whilst Kubrick ignores the perspective of the victim in his take on Vietnam - with unsettling implications. The critical look at Full Metal Jacket is appropriate as it is devoid the bravery shown previously to fill The Shining with hints and themes related to the genocide of Native Americans. A general suspicion of all forms of authority runs through Kubrick's work, although his earlier films are more liberal than his later movies. From lampooning a campaign by the John Birch Society against fluoridation in Dr Strangelove. Though this suspicion of authority led him to permit the atrocities committed against the Vietnamese in the name of anti-Communism. The mockery of the red fear rampant in America throughout the Cold War is almost totally absent, except in the form of the drill instructor's absurd jingoist rhetoric.

It also may be the reason for the conspiratorial themes throughout many of Kubrick's films, which were displayed most overtly in Eyes Wide Shut. In a scene reminiscent of the widespread rumours of orgies, organised and attended by the KGB, in Stalinist Russia the super-rich and powerful meet to engage in ritualistic sex. The faults of the system cannot be a result of a systemic flaw that inevitably produces certain consequences over time. Instead, there must be some meddlesome entity which disrupts the system and must be stopped. For Kubrick is the authorities, who are responsible for nuclear weapons and indulge in orgies at an obscure estate in New York. At the same time, The Shining reflected the emergence of the angry white male phenomenon which would dominate American politics years later. It would represent a new take on the right-wing authoritarianism Kubrick mocked in Dr Strangelove. Except it was Timothy McVeigh who learned to love the bomb in the 1990s.

This is Vietnam, the Movie!

First to Go, Last to Know.

After 20 bloody years of US military intervention in Vietnam, the war ended and the country was united. The understanding of the war is that it was undertaken to prevent the spread of Communism from North Vietnam. However it was South Vietnam that was the major target of US aggression in the early years of the war. The Diem regime, which was installed and supported by the Eisenhower administration, was overthrown at the behest of the US in 1963. Even still it is the only war which the US did not come out of officially the victor. But it was a success in that the currents of independence in the region were crushed and Vietnam was prevented from emerging as a positive model of independence. To help soothe the wounds of this loss Hollywood has pumped out flicks like The Deer Hunter and Platoon which depict the American experience of the war. Oliver Stone tells us the first casualty of war is innocence, not the Vietnamese who died first, whilst Michael Cimino tells us that the Vietnamese liked to force American POWs to play Russian roulette - a lie of proportions fit for the Third Reich. These films take the side of the aggressor, not the victim.

Full Metal Jacket is in part a deviation from this trend. It is not a tissue of lies rarefied by the American national anthem, a tear sodden tale of lost innocence or a roid-pumped theme park for the white man to go "wild" in. Essentially the range goes from the jingoist celebration of violence to the shibboleths of liberal cinema, which see the need for thousands of deaths for the sake of a character arc. But it is still a film which takes the view point of the aggressor and, in doing so, inevitably sides with the oppressor. Where the Vietnamese perspective should be, there is only the American experience. The central focus of Full Metal Jacket is the process of training and indoctrination through which civilians are turned into killing machines - complete with nom de guerres like Cowboy and Joker - which is a way for the soldiers to be humanised for the audience. By contrast the Vietnamese are presented as faceless drones all too deserving of a death at the hands of American troops. The only real appearances made by the Other are of Vietnamese women, again only as prostitutes and killers.

The work of Stanley Kubrick is far too complex and so polysemic that to write it off so soon would be to ignore his ingenuity, greater discussion is required. Rob Ager argues that the scenes set in Vietnam are a satirical take on pro-war propaganda. Joker is writing for Stars and Stripes and in one scene the Chief Editor bluntly instructs the team on how to distort the coverage of the war. Behind him a banner reads: first to go, last to know. Joker and Rafterman enter the field to cover a platoon in battle, but they are part of a propaganda outlet and therefore we get a biased take on the story. Take the first battle of the film. It is an unbridled display of firepower and machismo, which quickly subdues the invisible enemy, which necessitates a piece of 1960s surf-rock soon after. The surf-rock continues to play as we see Joker's camera team filming the platoon in battle, the soldiers are lying down as if using concrete rubble for cover from enemy gunfire. But the camera men are not shot and are undeterred to carry on filming, there was no danger from enemy fire and the platoon was putting on a show for the press. A soldier even shouts "This is Vietnam, the movie!"


The "verfremdungseffekt", a distancing effect, which keeps the audience aware that the story is not of reality but an artefact of it. It keeps the audience in a state of heightened awareness, that prevents a emotional attachment with the story and keeps the theatrical set up from "naturalising" what appears as so unnatural. The dialogue of the soldiers is risible, particularly evident in a set of mock-interviews, contrasted with the serious and tragic nature of warfare. Before all of this we have observed the indoctrination process and not to mention the cynical instructions to rewrite a story and give it a "happy ending, say one kill". The satirical battles of previous scenes are cut away to make room for real combat as the squad descends into cowardice when faced with a sniper - who picks them off, one by one. After Cowboy's death the remaining members of the Lusthog Squad seek revenge on the sniper. Joker is caught off guard as his weapon jams and the sniper turns around - it's a woman! But she is swiftly gunned down before she can do him any harm and Joker puts her out of her misery.

The Shadow of White Men.

In the scene in which Joker and Rafterman cover a recently unearthed mass-grave, an atrocity committed by the Vietcong, a Colonel states "We are here to help the Vietnamese because inside every gook there is an American trying to get out." The depiction of the Other in the film is not just a simple case of "faceless drones" but of shadows which represent what the American troops have repressed as part of their training. This is down to the Jungian influence on co-writer Michael Herr, which made way for the concept of the Shadow - consistent of repressed weaknesses and instincts . The enemy is almost always to distant to see in battle, and when the enemy can be seen they are depicted as faceless silhouettes. It could be that the silhouettes of Vietcong killed in the film represent the weaknesses and instincts that the American soldiers have repressed as part of military training. Back at the mass-grave, the bodies of the deceased have been covered in lime and have been laid out in a similar symmetry to the recruits sleeping in their beds in previous scenes.

The objective violence of war is absent and filled by the subjective violence suffered by American soldiers. The suffering of the Vietnamese remains in the background and only occasionally comes to the forefront of Joker's story. The unearthed mass-grave is a crime committed by the Vietnamese against other Vietnamese, but similar crimes are absent in the film or only arise in allegorical forms. As is the case with the shooting at the end in which it is still Joker's perspective which matters and, like the prostitutes, she was asking for it and her death will be his burden to bare. We should build on the interpretation of the Vietnamese as a kind of Shadow for the Lusthog Squad and conclude that the women in the film are the realisation of man's guilt. This radical anti-feminist theme goes back to Adam and Eve, woman is conjured up out of man's desire and so if man "cleanses" himself woman will cease to exist. This is man's lowest mythology. In killing the Shadow the Lusthog Squad "purge" themselves of such desires and thus absolve themselves of guilt. 

There are plenty of Vietnamese who die at a distance in the film, but Vietnamese women are given greater screen time (out of the victims). Out of these women two of them are prostitutes and the third is a soldier who wastes three marines before being killed herself. Three soldiers killed for each appearance of women, one of whom is also killed, the cost of their sins is implicit and we might even interpret the sniper's killings as a form of violence which differs from the objective-subjective distinction. Similar to the Biblical locusts which comes seemingly out of nowhere, a means without an end, the divine punishment for man's sins - divine violence. The Benjaminian divine violence should be understood not as the vengeance of the People's Will, but as a sovereign decision to act made on the assumption of absolute solitude. The decision to risk one's life and strike blindly against the oppressor, enacting the point of non-distinction between vengeance and justice. It is Judgement Day for all the rape and carnage so flippantly indulged in by the Squad. Tragically the swarm of locusts is cut short as the sniper is wasted.

We could view the sniper as a vanishing mediator for Joker, a necessary even in his arc and we might generously note that in the context of a satire on pro-war propaganda the kill is necessary. The kill is the "happy ending" demanded by the Chief Editor, it is the inhumanity of Joker's institutional role - that of a war correspondent - revealed by Kubrick for the viewer to judge. So the death of the woman was a necessity in the narrative. In the ending we watch as Joker and the Lusthogs march onwards and childishly sing, oblivious to the depravity of their actions. Joker's mind turns to fantasies of a home-coming fuck with a "Mary Jane Rottencrotch". It does not seem as though this conclusion required the killing and that might be a testament to the meaningless and absurd nature of war. But it still feels too generous to Kubrick, the indifference of Joker at the film's conclusion is hardly noteworthy. Though Kubrick was interested in the indoctrination of young men which turns them into killers, it cannot be glossed over, this is not the side of the victim.

Ablution of the Oppressor.

When Joker encounters the first of the two prostitutes he remarks that half of Vietnamese prostitutes are members of the Vietcong. This comment is not meant seriously but hides a certain truth which is expanded on later. In the scene in which another prostitute is encountered, this time by the Lusthogs and we might infer that the death of the sniper is actually an allegory of the gang-rape of this prostitute by the soldiers. In war sexual deviancy and gang-rape are not uncommon, for instance in the Second World War Russian soldiers committed mass-rapes in Eastern Europe. The Vietnam war was no different and so we can make the assumption that the prostitute was subject to gang-rape by the Lusthog Squad. The sniper is taken by surprise, but Joker's weapon jams  and he can't fire and has to take out a smaller handgun while taking cover from her retaliatory gunshots. It is then that the sniper is cut down in a blaze of gunfire by Rafterman. When viewed as an allegory this scene changes and becomes particularly despicable.

We can see as Joker is about to pull the trigger, the peace symbol on his jacket is concealed behind his collar as he turns slightly. The shot fired is on the surface a crime which he has participated in, at the same time it symbolises his part in the sexual humiliation of the Other and the merciless destruction of Vietnam. In defence of Joker we might point out that he is a reluctant participant in this crime, there is nothing inherently monstrous about him nor malicious about his intentions. It is just a by-product of the indoctrination process and so on, which of course may well be true. There is still the troubling mystification of the victim, a killer yearning to be killed as a prostitute yearns to be fucked. Joker is devoid of a basic level of decency in the end, there is no grand reflection on his part in all of this. The juxtaposition of the sniper sequence and the scenes involving prostitutes may be an intentional hint on Kubrick's part, it is impossible to tell, that the sexual degradation of the Vietnamese in this way is equal to killing them. Again, this feels too generous but it is a possibility.

We could also read the sniper's death at Joker's hands as an allegory for the role he played in Pyle's descent into madness and eventual murder-suicide during the training scenes. It might even be a direct allegory of the scene in which Joker takes part in the beating of Pyle with soap bars. Out of the guilt for his conformity in beating a fellow cadet emerges the Other - a Shadow of this guilt that must be "cleansed" - which functions as a vanishing mediator. Once it has challenged Joker and he rises to that challenge, it can cease to exist. The challenge is the divine violence of luring the Lusthogs one-by-one to a drawn out death. But just as he failed to disarm Pyle, and "stomp" his guts out, Joker also fails to waste the sniper when it finally comes down to it. There is a sense in which Hartman took Joker's place in the murder-suicide which Joker was unable to prevent. We might go further to say that the sniper took Joker's place in being killed and that is the greatest humiliation for Joker. Note that the focus is still on the suffering of oppressor, even as he commits murder or fails to do so.

From this only a fractured normality can be restored, things will never be truly the same, in the aftermath. A reversion to youthful memories of Disney cartoons and immature sexual fantasies, coupled with the indifference to the magnitude of war crimes, is ultimately where the American troops are left. The indifference is all that is left over after the guilt has been "cleansed" and the Vietnamese, in all forms, no longer need to exist. A lot like the flushing of a toilet, shit is problematic only when there is a blockage and once this blockage is gone we can continue as normal. This is the horror of war cinema. The Other is just the filth conjured up by the American desire to fight Communism, promote democracy and freedom etc. The consequent guilt can only be "purged" with a full bucket of fake blood, strident imperial arrogance and persistent self-pity. The crimes can be recognised only to reassure us that we were the true victims all along. The Other can then be flushed away, it is no longer needed once it has served it's purpose in the narrative.

The Shining and the Slaughter.

The Genius of Kubrick.

The 1980 film The Shining, adapted from the Stephen King novel, directed by Stanley Kubrick  is a cinematic masterpiece of psychological horror. Today tales of madness and isolation, telepathy and the supernatural, are commonly churned out of the Hollywood machine in such a manner that it can only be put down to the profit motive. But The Shining is one of few great films in the horror genre that has not been diluted by the "invisible hand" that pushed out The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and then squeezed out as many sequels as possible, before resorting to remaking the entire bloody saga. Though it could easily be asserted that The Shining is of a superior standard of art and film, by comparison the slasher flicks of that era appear exploitative and devoid of the intelligence which refined King's story into a classic that stands the test of time. Even 30 years after it's release, the film can be watched and appreciated on many different levels due to the polysemic nature of the story.

To the displeasure of Stephen King fans everywhere, Stanley Kubrick altered the plot of the story, cutting away a great deal of back story, and in doing so diminishing the themes developed throughout the novel. For instance, Jack Torrance is a much more sympathetic figure in the novel and has a moment of redemption as the plot concludes. Whereas, Kubrick's Jack Torrance is devoid of such qualities and in that respect may have more in common with Alex DeLarge of A Clockwork Orange. Perhaps this is indicative of the pessimism often associated with Kubrick's films. Though similar arguments have been made regarding Kubrick's preceding adaptations, notably A Clockwork Orange and Lolita, but the completed projects were some of the most innovative and enthralling contributions to modern cinema. Though there is another side of The Shining that is often overlooked, no pun intended, the political themes and messages in the film that most horror films are simply devoid of.


What should not be ignored is the way in which Stanley Kubrick littered his films with socio-political messages. For instance, in 2001: A Space Odyssey the HAL 9000 computer represents IBM. Each letter of the acronym "HAL" is one letter ahead of the letters that make up "IBM". But there are other references, towards the end of the film while HAL is being dismantled the computer begins to sing 'Daisy Bell'. The first ever synthesised computer speech was produced by an IBM 704 computer which first sang 'Daisy Bell'. It was at a lab in Urbana, Illinois that this demonstration first took place in 1962. While being dismantled HAL makes reference to this historic event by naming the same location as the place of which HAL was built. The scene in which HAL cheats during a chess game may imply that Kubrick distrusted and was suspicious of IBM. Kubrick had good reason to be, IBM had devised a traffic management system, centred around punch-cards, for the concentration camps of the Third Reich.

Sins of the Nation.

If we accept that the work Stanley Kubrick is typically littered with politicised symbolism and messages, it seems highly likely that The Shining also carries such symbolism and messages. The idea that The Shining could be interpreted as commenting on the slaughter of Native Americans is nothing new. It goes back to an essay written by Bill Blakemore and has recently been explored in great depth by film analyst Rob Ager. Today this is still a commonly neglected interpretation of the film and is no doubt an interesting view of the story. Arguably, the major political theme of The Shining is the suppression of a violent history. At the time, Kubrick was planning to make a film about the Third Reich and the Holocaust. He would later abandon the project after Schindler's List was released in 1993 and the overwhelmingly depressing research that he had undertaken in pursuit of his goal. It could be that Kubrick focused on political themes relating to war and ethnic cleansing in his films, like Full Metal Jacket and The Shining, out of an obsession with producing a film about the Holocaust.

The way in which the United States was "created" is often described in semi-biological terms which distort the magnitude of the slaughter and displacement of Native Americans, what is understood in terms of genocide and ethnic cleansing today. The genocide of Native Americans was downplayed for over 150 years, while Hollywood capitalised on the slaughter by churning out dozens of Westerns featuring the typical "Cowboys-and-Indians" dynamic. It wasn't until the 1970s that there was even a real debate on the issue that there was once an advanced civilisation consisting of over 80 million people, around 95% of the Native population had been exterminated by the mid 17th Century. It was following the American Revolution that Thomas Jefferson, an advocate of assimilation and acculturation of the Natives, first proposed the idea of an "Indian Removal Plan", a precursor to the Indian Removal act of 1830 which Andrew Jackson put in place and used to drive many tribes to west of the Mississippi.


As Rob Ager points out in his analysis of the film, there are numerous references to Indians and settlers throughout. The music, as Jack Torrance is making his way to the Overlook Hotel by car, is at one point reminiscent of Native American chanting. Jack and Wendy are informed by Ullman that the Overlook Hotel, itself riddled with Native American artwork and symbols, was built on an Indian burial ground and a few attacks by tribes had to be "repelled" to complete construction. In the car, with his wife and son, Jack tells a story about a group of settlers who get lost in the wilderness and resort to cannibalism to survive. The Hotel is littered with art that appears to be Native American in origin, the paintings above the fireplace for instance are Native American sand paintings. The 'Gold Room' is the place in which Jack goes to get away from his wife and first encounters the mysterious bartender. The room is a clear reference to the days of the gold rush which motivated many to head west in search of prosperity.


The twin girls, who were killed by the caretaker Grady, have parallels in Navajo folklore in which twins were used to depict the duality between "father sky" and "mother earth". There is also symbolism which suggests that Wendy is representative of a Native American wife. The way she dresses and braids her hair is very similar to that of a Native American woman. Many Native American women had to marry white men to gain citizenship in the US. But also many slave women were exploited sexually by their masters, which is a reason that many African-Americans have white ancestors. So it is possible that Wendy represents either a Native American woman or an African-American. The river of blood that rushes out of the elevator could quite conceivably represent the blood of Native Americans that the Overlook Hotel was built upon. The colours red, white and blue are seen in several scenes, on clothing worn by Wendy, Danny, Jack and Ullman. These are the well known colours of the American flag, which also appears in several scenes and carries patriotic connotations and indifference to the ethnic cleansing that the Republic was built upon.


The character Dick Hallorann may represent the Otherness, composed of both African and Native Americans, which was destroyed. Hallorann is juxtaposed with a can of baking powder that has a stereotypical "Indian Chief" as its logo. It could also be argued that Hallorann is resembles a Native American in terms of his facial features. As Jack is talking to the phantom bartender and sipping a glass of bourbon he refers casually to the "white man's burden", a reference to Rudyard Kipling's poem on imperialism. It isn't until Jack meets Delbert Grady that the implicit racism of the characters spills out onto the floor for all to see. It is done so  suddenly, Grady casually drops the deeply repugnant slur "nigger" with a look of complete hatred about him. Interestingly, the conversation takes place in a gentleman's toilets which is decorated entirely in white and red, the toilets are also immaculate. This reflects the decades of white supremacy that the US went through and the blood that it was predicated on. Hallorann is later murdered by Jack with an axe, he dies on a floor made up of tiles with a pattern similar to fabric seen in Native American culture. 


Delbert Grady describes the killings of his daughters and wife in terms of doing his "duty" and "correcting" them. Presumably, Grady believed the duty to protect the Hotel outweighed his responsibilities as a father and husband. Similarly, Jack rants at Wendy about his "responsibilities" and emphasises the importance of the "contract" which he signed freely and in doing so accepted such "responsibilities". This is just after Jack caught Wendy looking through what he has been working on for so long. The idea of a "social contract" was a liberal idea associated with the philosopher John Locke. Locke's work inspired many of the ideas expressed in the US Constitution and in the Declaration of Independence. In this sense, it could be that the "writing project" that Jack Torrance was working on for so many months was symbolic of the Declaration of the Independence. An implication of this may be that Jack represents Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration, who had a relationship with Sally Hemings, a slave who bore him a child.

 Time to Shine.

The Shining was released in March of 1980, which would place it in the limbo nearing the end of Jimmy Carter's time in office just before the "Reaganite Revolution" that heralded a new era in American politics. Carter was elected as a figure of "hope" in the aftermath of the scandalous Nixon era, which decimated the public belief and trust in politicians, but disappointed and left largely a failure after just one term. This led the way for the Reaganite zeitgeist of 1980s America to fill the void left by the perceived failure of "liberal politicians" in the 1960s. This is the source of the prevalent disdain of liberals on the American Right and the demonising of liberalism that has taken place in the US over the last 30 years.  But on the back of the failure of Democratic administrations under the likes of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, the Republicans have continued to reinvent themselves and have led populist "rebellions" against the "liberal elite" who want to destroy the American way of life.


It could be argued that the story of The Shining is indicative of this transition from liberal disillusionment with politics to reactionary anti-politics. Jack Torrance is a hard-working blue-collar guy and the primary breadwinner in a nuclear family. The reason Jack took on the job as a caretaker at the Overlook Hotel is to find the time and seclusion he needs to complete a novel. The inspiration for the story came from the months Stephen King spent writing in isolation at an almost totally empty hotel.  Though the risk posed to his son Danny and Wendy's instant reaction, to get Danny to a doctor as soon as possible, are obstacles to Jack's writing ambitions. In a sense, it is his self-interest that he sees blocked by the interests of his family. This is much like the clash between conservatism and liberalism in America, the latter representing individualism and the former being social democracy. What should be kept in mind is that conservatism and liberalism in the US differ greatly from the traditions of conservatism and liberalism.


Perhaps Jack's murderous rage and delusions of a glorious past represent the most vicious and reactionary tendencies in what is commonly referred to as "conservatism" in the US today. A precursor to the angry white men who emerged in the early 1990s, at first it was to seize the House of Representatives and the Senate from the Democrats. But a much more ugly side to this phenomenon has emerged, the oldest example being shooting sprees targeting civilians. A more "modern development" is the killing of abortionists being primary examples. Let alone the thousands of private armies, commonly mislabled as "militias", who are preparing to take on the Federal Reserve, the UN or the Devil. The culmination of years of neglect that led to the Oklahoma City Bombing in 1995, an act of terrorism perpetrated by men with extreme right-wing views and sympathies with the militias. Today it is the Tea Party Movement, which is another figment of the angry white male phenomenon, and is doing it's best to stifle the moderate changes proposed by the Obama administration.

Significant Links:

The Shining analysis by Rob Ager Part 1 
HAL = IBM

Noam Chomsky Meets the Pioneer Spirit 
A People's History of the American Empire  
Noam Chomsky on "anti-politics"