A - False Hopes of Deliverance - Kubrik

8/10/2019 A - False Hopes of Deliverance - Kubrik

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The Crisis of Technology and the Basis of Hope By Harold Hatt

TECHNOLOGY WAS ONCE the dominant, although not the exclusivebasis of hope. Suddenly technology ushered Western civilization into anecological crisis. And so, technology became a significant, although not thesole, cause of the problem of hope.

In this study I want to explore the problem of hope from the perspectives of film study and theology.One of the prominent issues in film theory concerns the relation of the

film image to the real world, or of the reel world to the real one. "Can afilm faithfully represent the real? If a film reproduces the real, can it atthe same time be art? Is it artistically desirable to create a film that represents the real?" 1

In classic film theory, with Arnheim and Kracauer representing opposing poles, "reality" has been understood almost exclusively in terms of"physical reality." More recent developments have broadened the meaning. For example, phenomenology introduces a sense of the term "world"which is not restricted to the physical world, but which includes non-empirical realities. Dudley Andrew has aptly referred to "The Neglected Tradition of Phenomenology in Film Theory." 2 It is this phenomenological,rather than physiological, sense of the term "world" that \ am employingwhen I talk about "the world film creates." 3 The filmmaker expresses hisor her artistic vision in the creation of a world.

Stanley Kubrick is a master of the art of creating worlds. Each worldis consistently developed, with few lapses. And it is developed with all thefilmmaker's resourceslighting, sound, mise-en-scne, etc. If one attendsonly to the plot, a great deal of Kubrick's communication is overlooked.

1. Allan Casebier, Film Appreciation (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1976), p. 84.2. Wide Angle, II, No. 2, 44-49; cf. Dudley Andrew, The Major Film Theories (New Yorjs:

Oxford, 1976), chap. 9 and "The Gravity of Sunrise, 9' Quarterly Review of Film Studies, II, No. 3(Aug., 1977), 35(^387.

3. This phrase is the title of chap. 6 of Casebier's Film Appreciation. This is a helpfulchapter on the concept of the "world" of a film in general, and it includes a discussion of Kubrick,in particular, on pp. 106-110. For more philosophical treatment of the world of film, see GeorgeW, linden, Reflections on the Screen (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1970).+ Harold Hatt is Professor of Theology at the Graduate Seminary of Phil

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S par tac s is properly disowned by Kubrick because this creation of a worldis not carried out consistently. I concur with Kolker's remark concerningStanley Kubrick in which he says:

what I find of most interest in his work is the way he organizes a complexspatial realm that encloses his characters and expresses their state of being.For in Kubrick's films we learn more about a character from the way thatcharacter inhabits a particular space than (with the exception of Dr.Strangelove) from what that character says.4

In drawing the parameters of this inquiry, I want to draw one moreboundary line. To the problem of hope and the world of Kubrick I want tobring the theology of Reinhold Niebuhr. I am concerned to explore whatgoes on within the triangle joining these three points.

There are two grounds on which a dialogue between Kubrick and Niebuhr concerning the problem of hope can be established. One is formal,the other is material.

The formal ground is Niebuhr's preference for the dramatic/historicalover the scientific/rational."' The material ground is the challenge of sentimental idealism and romanticism with a realistic interpretation of the human situation

The "SK" that theologians have known is Soren Kierkegaard. It is myhope that this paper will help to establish Stanley Kubrick as another SKwith whom theologians may engage in meaningful dialogue.

In order to structure this dialogue and to move it along, I turn to JohnWiley Nelson who identifies five basic concerns which constitute a beliefsystem:

1. Shared views of what is unsatisfactory about present experience.2. Shared views about the source of that unsatisfactory situation.3. Shared views of the nature of the delivering force through which the

source of evil is defeated.4. Shared views of what a resolved situation would look like.5. Shared views of the "Way," or the path to follow, to this perfection,

if such a catechism is necessary.6

These concerns can also be expressed in the form of questions:4. Robert Phillips Kolker, A Cinema of Loneliness (New York: Oxford University Press,

1980), p. 72. In this regard, Kolker observes an influence from Orson Welles, although he alsodiscusses several contrasts between the mise-en-scne of Welles and Kubrick, ibid,, pp. 72-78.5. Cf. especially The Self and the Dramas of History (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons,

1955)


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The Crisis of Technology and the Basis of Hope 45

1. What is the nature of the problem?2. What is the source of the problem?

3. Who or what will deliver us?4. To what are we delivered?5. What is the way to follow?In this paper, I will explore only the response to questions three, four

and five. Kubrick and Niebuhr deal with the first two questions, but thereis not space to develop those answers in this paper.

The Deliverer for the Crisis

Who or what will deliver us? In popular culture, the deliverer hastraditionally been an individual "messiah." Institutions fail, be they thesheriff, the police force or the church, but individuals come through. Buttimes have been changing. The quick draw or the flying fists are not quiteso effective in a technological age. And so, many have looked to technology as our savior.

Kubrick critiques three basic forms of technology. Dr. Strangelove(1963) indicts the technology of national defense, such as that which computes with Herman Kahn and the Pentagon. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)indicts the more constructive technology of space travel, which is beloved byour astronauts and promoted by our beleaguered NASA. A ClockworkOrange (1971) indicts the behaviorist technology of behavior and society,so dear to the heart of B. F. Skinner and his behaviorist ilk.

In Dr. Strangelove, technology is portrayed as devastating and peopleare portrayed as complacent about the devastation. In 2001, technology isportrayed as devitalizing, and people are portrayed as quiescent because ofthe devitalization. In Clockwork Orange, technology is portrayed as de

valuating, and people are portrayed as decadent as a consequence of theirdevaluation.The characters in Dr. Strangelove are illogical. They talk in clichs

and jargon that are quite out of touch with reality. The characters in 2001are also out of touch with their reality. Their environment is awesome butthey take it as banal. They are certainly not illogical; quite possibly theyare hyperlogical. They are consistently insensitive. The characters inClockwork Orange are neither illogical nor hyperlogical; they are alogical.They feel no need to develop a logical rationalization for doing what theywant to do and they are certainly not going to let the constraints of logicalreasoning inhibit them.


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these films reflect the movement of the decade of the 60's. The 60's startedwith the Cold War spreading its chill over one and all. Dr. Strangelovedeals with this mood. But, under John F. Kennedy, the mood was soontransformed to a more hopeful one. He called us to new frontiers, and therace for space pre-empted the arms race, 2001 deals with this mentality.But the dream of Camelot was shattered by nightmares. The 60's becamethe decade of assassinations. Prosperity increased, but so did unemployment and poverty. Resentment grew against any and all establishments,with their privileged positions. With racial demonstrations and protestsagainst the Vietnam war, a tumultuous time was had by all. ClockworkOrange expresses the mood of this phase.

Technology for National Defense

The world of Dr. Strangelove is the world of advancedindeed, ultimatemilitary technology. The three basic locations are Burpelson AirForce Base, a SAC B-52 bomber, and the War Room. Although the goings-on in these locations assume a surreal quality, each setting is portrayedrealistically. The most striking example of this is the expense and care

involved in constructing a mock B-52. This was done on the basis of photographs in aviation magazines, and without the cooperation of the U. S. AirForce, which was rather suspicious of the enterprise.

Each of these three locations is filmed in a different, and appropriate,style. The bomber is filmed in hand held, newsreel style, with rapid cutting. The war room is filmed with stable camera and with establishingshots before we move in for significant detail. The filming of BurpelsonAir Force Base is more varied. There is a strong newsreel quality to thesequence in which it is attacked, but at other times it is filmed more in thestyle employed for the war room. And this mixture is appropriate becauseit is Burpelson that is the location that calls for the bomber to attack andthat resists the efforts of the war room to call off the attack. It is, as itwere, the war room under the command of the insane and it is the attackbomber that does not have to wait upon a code in order to swing into action.

Niebuhr's The Structure of Nations and Empires 7 is subtitled "A studyof the recurring patterns and problems of the political order in relation tothe unique problems of the nuclear age." Chapter 16 on "The Cold Warand the Nuclear Dilemma" is particularly pertinent to Dr. Strangelove.There is a lot of historical and theological material in which Niebuhr takesa run at the subject One might contend that when push comes to shove


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or when pushing the button comes to the mushroom cloudnuclear warfareis where the issue of nations and empires is. But this is not Niebuhr's pointof view. On the contrary, Niebuhr's study "was prompted by the conviction that our generation, which faced the seemingly novel perplexities ofthe nuclear stalemate and of our encounter with the new secular religion ofcommunism, might be tempted to forget the lessons which the past history ofman offers every new generation."8 And so, Niebuhr sets the "present perplexities" in the context of "perennial patterns."9

Niebuhr grants that there are some radically novel features of thepresent. We have had opposing empires before, but in the current contest

between alliances each has roughly equal power to destroy the other. Thisis the nuclear stalemate. It is a no-win situation, which could tragically become a both-lose situation. But the way to prevent that tragic outcomeseems paradoxically to be willing to risk it and to let the opponent knowthat you are prepared to meet annihilating force with annihilating force.The balance of power has become the balance of terror. This changes therelationship. For example, surprise is no advantage. You want your opponent to know what your capability is, because your intention is not to takeadvantage, but to deter your opponent from acting. Nevertheless, Niebuhrsticks to his guns, if I may be permitted to use this metaphor in this context.Niebuhr insists: "If mankind should have the good fortune to avoid theultimate and suicidal holocaust, it will be necessary to turn from the unprecedented factors of our situation, which have naturally preoccupied us,to the perennial and constant factors, which have emerged in all imperialand national rivalries through the ages."10 The risks are greater and themargin of error is slimmer, but Niebuhr sees this as a new phase in thepower struggles that have been a part of human relations throughout history.

The nuclear crisis has accentuated, but not changed, the ambiguous characterof the political arena. This is Niebuhr's way of taking account of the moralambiguities that are central to his understanding of the source and natureof our crisis.

By way of contrast, Kubrick eschews all of the calculation of Niebuhr,and goes directly to explore the possibility of miscalculation. If we musthave the capacity to retaliate, and to do so quickly, then retaliation may beset in motion by miscalculation. This miscalculation could occur in the

8. Ibid., p. ix. He continues: "I thought the temptation to overestimate the novelty of thepresent situation was paricularly great in a young nation, suddenly flung to a position of worldresponsibility by its great power," ibid. Cf. ibid., p. 9, and Reinhold Niebuhr, "How My MindH Ch d " i H M Mi d H Ch d d b H ld E F (Cl l d W ld 1961)


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sophisticated support devices, but Kubrick lodges it in the mind of one towhom control of these devices is given. The breakdown he explores is notin the technology itself, but in the technocrat. This is Kubrick's way oftaking account of the ambiguities of our crisis.

In one sense, Kubrick's approach seems to me to be more on target, ifI may use this metaphor in this context, than Niebuhr's approach. There issomething disturbing about Niebuhr's historical deliberations and carefulcalculations in response to a situation which is fraught with impersonal anddemonic calculations and rife with the possibility of tragic and devastatingmiscalculations. Like Kubrick's characters, Niebuhr seems to be obliviousto the folly of dealing with an insane situation as if everything were normal.Kubrick is sound in his decision to approach by going right to the heart ofthe farce by means of a vicious caricature of our folly. His film is stillsavagely true and it is still diabolically funny. His absurdist perspectiveis a tour de farce.

And yet, there is a fatalism about Kubrick's approach that brings usback to Niebuhr. President Muffley's frustrated attempts to work out asolution with Premier Kissoff, while the big board in the War Room displays their failure, is the kind of situation that Niebuhr describes as one "in

which the hopes of liberalism for a universal community have been ironicallyfulfilled and refuted."11

For me, Kubrick drives to the heart of the matter, exposing the fatalflaw of our policy of deterrence. Niebuhr provides both perspective andresources for rethinking the situation. The two together perform the function that Paul Ricoeur attributes to the parables. Kubrick's ferocious caricature disorients in order that Niebuhr's deliberate calculations might reorient.

Technology for Space Exploration

The majesty of space flight and the excitement of encountering the unknown was capturing the public imagination in the 60's. Kubrick transported us to a time when space flight was routine. The audience mightsense the majesty of space, but the characters in the film are bored and banal. Space flight is beautifully choreographed, but is long and tedious forthe crew. The technology of space travel was a tremendous accomplishmentof computers, but the people who worked with these machines had becomemachine-like.

And Kubrick creates a sterile setting to match. He has visualized the


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lights flashing in the work areas. Food is synthetic and squeezed out oftubes. Kubrick even reveals a death to us through the reading on the monitor. How impersonal can death become? And in the recreation areas wehave an orbiting Hilton Hotel and Howard Johnson's Restaurant. Furnitureis plastic and in the latest style. And yet, it's not something you would wantto write home about. But who would want to write home when you canplace a credit card call from space to home, and with a TV screen to bootand who cares that Mom is out anyway?

In discussing the use of technology for national defense, I came to anappreciation of Niebuhr's deliberations concerning the conflict of powers,

after an initial feeling that this was inappropriate. Certainly the course ofhistory since Niebuhr's study supports his judgment. Somehow or otherwe did manage to avoid doomsday, and we have been able to talk about nuclear nonproliferation and nuclear arms limitation, even though the wholeprocess is complicated by the sorts of factors Niebuhr insists that we mustbring into view.

Partly because of such developments, and partly because we have become accustomed to living on a nuclear power keg, we were able to move

beyond the cold war mentality, or at least the obsession with it. The armsrace yielded to the space race, and this is a much more constructive form ofcompetition.

With the shift from emphasis on technology for national defense to theuse of technology for space exploration, optimism and even euphoria beganto flourish. The concept of progress, which had been prominent in the evolutionary optimism of the 19th and early 20th centuries, but which had declined under the impact of two world wars and the great depression, wasmaking a comeback.

In respect to the hope for progress, as much as in respect to the fear ofannihilation, Niebuhr's historical perspective is apropos. He had given attention to this topic in the late 40's, culminating in the publication of Faith

and History 12 in 1949. Niebuhr elaborated a theology of history whichrecognized both a creative and a destructive potential in the growth of human freedom and power. Science may be marked by progress, but humanrelations and collective achievements are in the historical order, not in thenatural order, and there is no guarantee of inevitable progress. "Historyis the fruit and the proof of man's freedom. Historical time is to be distinguished from natural time by the unique freedom which enables man to


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envisaging future ends of actions which are not dictated by naturalnecessity."18

The 18th century's confidence in reason gave way to faith in history.Time was not only expected to heal all wounds, but to deliver all goods. ButNiebuhr challenges this optimistic theology of history which sets it as notmerely the sphere, but the agent, of redemption. "AH the structures of history are a complex unity of the natural and the spiritual, even as individualman exhibits this unity. History is thus a proof of the creatureliness of manas well as of his freedom."14

History is for Niebuhr the sphere of freedom and necessity.

The ultimate question raised by the facts of freedom and necessity inhistory is how human freedom is related to the patterns and structures ofhistorical existence. If human freedom were absolute, human actionswould create a realm of confusion. If the patterns and structures, whethernatural or historical, were absolute, human freedom would be annulled15

Modern culture has generally recognized our human relation to nature, buthas miscalculated at two points. First, it has "exaggerated the degree ofgrowth in human freedom and power"; and second, it has identified freedom with virtue.16

Niebuhr helps us to free ourselves of the illusion of progress. We havenot always been mindful of them, but there always have been limits togrowth, even when that growth is achieved by the use of technology to extendhuman powers. We have tended to see evil as stemming from human fini-tude, but we have not left evil behind as we have overcome our limits throughthe application of technology. Try as we will to locate it in the past, evil isa present reality. Try as we will to transcend it, evil is a future reality.

Niebuhr's Faith and History intends to help us cope with the shattering

of our complacency. Kubrick's 2001 : A Space Odyssey intends to help usfrom lapsing back into it. But Kubrick takes note of the same factors, viz.,the exaggeration of our growth in freedom and the identification of freedom with virtue. Both caution us against sanguine hopes that will be dashedby bitter experience. The technology that is welcomed as a liberator willlead us into new forms of bondage.

Kubrick's choice of Richard Strauss's "Also Sprach Zarathustra" forthe soundtrack of 2001 has appropriate connotations of Nietzsche. Kubrick'shope is a Nietzschean hope for the apes (featured in "The Dawn of Man"section) to evolve into humans (featured in the "Jupiter Mission" section),

13 Ibid p 55


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who in turn have hope of being transformed into the superhuman orbermensch (introduced in the "Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite" section).The last section could echo the first by being entitled "The Dawn of theSuperman." If life is evolving, then what we have now is not the final goal,but merely a step on the way to something higher and better. 2001 certainlyseems to be Kubrick's most optimistic film.

But Kubrick, even at his most optimistic, is staunchly realistic. BothKubrick and Niebuhr agree that essentially optimistic views of humanprogress are untenable. Human reason and technology make possible significant achievements, but even the constructive use of technology is not the

basis of our hope.Well, perhaps we were mistaken to ignore the links between the use oftechnology for aggression and its use for space travel. Perhaps we wereblind to the devitalizing consequences of our assimilation to machines. Perhaps there i yet hope if we redirect our technology from the control of machines to the control of human beings. Whether there is any hope in thisredeployment and reorientation is the concern of Kubrick's next film.

Technology of Behavior and Society

If neither technology of national defense nor technology of space travelis the deliverer, perhaps it is technology of behavior and society to which weshould turn. Rather than exaggerate human dignity and freedom, perhapswe need, as B. F. Skinner has recently urged, to give up these platitudes infavor of a technology of human behavior and social engineering. What doKubrick and Niebuhr have to say about this proposal?

Clockwork Orange explores the application of technology to behavior.In 2001 technology affects behavior; in Clockwork Orange it is applied tobehavior. Kubrick, unlike Skinner, is not at all enthused by the prospect.Kubrick's gloomy vision is of a future society in which we experience anincrease of technological control and a decrease of community.

In certain respects, the cultural ambience of Clockwork Orange is animprovement over our present technological society. But, in general, thistechnological development does not satisfy the human spirit. It seems tobe out of boredom that the aggressive spirit is formed in Clockwork Orange.

And aggressiveness is the name of the game for Alex and his droogs

(buddies). They beat up a hobo, fight with another gang, fight amongthemselves, and they cripple a writer and kill his wife. But when they atk h " l d " Al i h H i j il d d h l f


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the music of his beloved Ludwig von Beethoven is playing as backgroundmusic in the conditioning films, and he has aversive reaction to the musicalso.

When he is pronounced "cured" and released, Alex begins a reverseroute. The hobo whom he beat up earlier now turns on Alex. The policewho come to his rescue are his former droogs, who revenge his earlier violence on them. He ends up at the home of the writer whom he had attackedearlier. At first, the writer just sees in Alex an opportunity to embarrassthe government which supported this conditioning technique. But when hehears Alex singing, he recognizes him as his" earlier assailant. He then triesto get revenge by driving Alex to suicide, and almost succeeds.

A Clockwork Orange puts our hope to the test. After all, there is anelement of novelty, perhaps even of charm, in identifying with HAL thecomputer. But why are we drawn to Alex, who is senselessly vicious? Evenwhen he likes the "right things" (such as Beethoven or the Bible), Alex likesthem for the "wrong reasons" (sex and violence).

I do not find Alex a likeable character, and I do not think he is intended to be likeable. I cannot admire his life style. The things he prideshimself on are signs of decadence rather than achievements, from my pointof view. The senselessness and violence of Alex's behavior is not, however,gratuitous. It is intentionally heinous. And so, when we see society's response for constraining such misfits, we are able to say that as terrible asAlex's violence may be, the violence done to him is even worse.

Hans Feldmann employs Freudian categories to exposit a juxtapositionthat runs through A Clockwork Orange.

The popular son "Singin' in the Rain," for example, is a sentimental,sublimated expression of the same urge that is compelling Alex to the acthe commits while singing it. Beethoven's music is a "higher" expressionof the same instinctual compulsions, and when Alex attacks the health-spa proprietress with the sculpture of a phallus, she counters by swinginga bust of the great composer at him. Political activity is also no morethan the sublimated urge to overpower all that is outside the id. The finalscene of the movie, in which the government minister attempts to winAlex's endorsement and frees him to the strains of Beethoven's NinthSymphony, is perhaps overly contrived in its symbolism: the minister ismetaphorically feeding his id as he is literally feeding Alex. Yet MalcolmMcCowell's (sic) chewing performance in the scene projects all the libidinal energy that is Alex's vital characteristic and that somehow marks him

h h l hi i di id l i h i17


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The Cris of technology and the Basis of Hope 53

But why not sublimate? Is the conditioned behavior and state of Alexreally all that bad, especially in comparison with the uninhibited alternatives? This is a common response and a fair question.18 But I think that itmisses Kubrick's point. He is not advocating a world without restraints.His point, to continue with Feldmann's Freudian analysis, is that the formsof society are devised to control the impulses of the id. When a societyfails to exercise this control effectively, it is declining. So where does Alexcome in? "Alex is thus the chief manifestation of a collapsing civilization,as well as the chief threat to the continued viability of his culture's claimto meaningful forms."19 Moreover, Kubrick "also perceives that Alex em

bodies the libidinal energy which will drive the faltering human spiritthrough the collapse of that civilization."'0 And that, Feldmann argues, iswhy we feel sympathy for Alex.

Way back in 1932 Niebuhr published Moral Man and Immoral So- ciety. 21 Niebuhr authorized a reissue in 1960, reaffirming the central thesis,despite the datedness of the details. That thesis is clearly stated in the "Introduction." Niebuhr defends the position "that a sharp distinction mustbe drawn between the moral and social behavior of individuals and of social

groups, national, racial, and economic; and that this distinction justifies andnecessitates political policies which a purely individualistic ethic must always find embarrassing."22 "Moral Man and Immoral Society" may oversimplify the distinction, but it states the case that "individual men may bemoral in the sense that they are able to consider interests other than theirown in determining problems of conduct, and are capable, on occasion, ofpreferring the advantages of others to their own."23 In groups, on the otherhand, "there is less reason to guide and to check impulse, less capacity forself-transcendence, less ability to comprehend the needs of others and therefore more unrestrained egoism than the individuals, who compose the group,reveal in their personal relationships."24 Such is the thesis that Niebuhrelaborates and defends.

One elaborating statement from the "Introduction" is particularly pertinent to dialogue with Kubrick's Clockwork Orange.

18. Cf. Pauline Kael's review of Clockwork Orange in The New Yorker, Jan. 1, 1972; reprinted in Pauline Kael, Deeper Into Movies (Boston: Little, Brown), pp. 373-378.

19. Feldman, "Kubrick and His Discontents," p. 16.

20. Ibid.21. Niebuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society (New York: Charles Scribner's Dond, 1932,renewed 1960). Niebuhr's dialogue was with the social philosophy of John Dewey, rather than


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The most persistent error of modern educators and moralists is theassumption that our social difficulties are due to the failure of the social

sciences to keep pace with the physical sciences which have created ourtechnological civilization. The invariable implication of this assumptionis that, with a little more time, a little more adequate moral and socialpedagogy and a generally higher development of human intelligence, oursocial problems will approach solution.26

Niebuhr notes that "a realistic analysis" of our life together "revealsa constant and seemingly irreconcilable conflict between the needs of societyand the imperatives of a sensitive conscience.""0 This inevitable conflictstems from the double focus of the moral life upon the social and personalor individual dimensions. "From the perspective of the individual the highest ideal is unselfishness."27 In its quest for justice, society may employmethods of control that cannot merit or gain the sanction of the individual.The claims and moral perspectives of the society and the individual are notmutually exclusive, but they are difficult to harmonize.28

Whereas Niebuhr deals with the complexity of cultivating the highestpossible attainment of individual unselfishness and social justice, Kubrickexplores the breakdown of this complex goal. The result is that individuals

are motivated by selfish goals and desires and society has taken social orderrather than social justice as the criterion of social policywith the rehabilitation of criminals as the key case in point.

Kubrick and Niebuhr both attack the idea that technology is our deliverer, although they employ different tactics in their critique. Niebuhrpulls back to get things in perspective and thereby exposes the lack of realitypresent in the dream of technological progress. It not only hasn't worked;it can't. Kubrick imaginatively pushes ahead, and by so doing he revealsthe nightmare that is latent in the dream of technological progress. It notonly has not worked; it can backfire.

If we reject the hope in technology as presumptuous, it does not necessarily follow that we must lapse into despair. But we must certainly lookelsewhere for hope. If there be any hope, Kubrick and Niebuhr are convinced that we must look somewhere other than technology, regardless ofwhether it be employed for national defense, space exploration, or socialcontrol.

The Desired Situation

In popular culture, what are we looking for when the threat has been25 Ibid p xiii


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removed? The family, or its extensions, are marked by stability, andorderliness.

Kubrick critiques two traditions of order, viz., the order produced bythe submission of all things to the control of reason and the order producedby allowing the dynamic powers of life to operate uninhibited or unconstrained by reason or any other controlling force.

In the two most recent Kubrick movies there is a failure of the family,which is the traditional hope of popular culture. In Barry Lyndon (1975),Redmond Barry would have married for love, but he was pre-empted by amarriage of convenience. When he marries Lady Lyndon, he is engaging

in a marriage of convenience. He shows his lack of respect on the way homefrom the wedding by responding to her complaint about his pipe by blowingsmoke in her face. It is when he is seen dallying with the maid by LadyLyndon and her son Lord Bullingdon that his conflict with Lord Bullingdonbegins. It is heightened when Barry Lyndon and his wife have their ownchild, whom Barry Lyndon spoils. The child is killed when thrown from ahorse which he has begged from his indulgent father. The family is not aplace of support but of conflict and tragedy.

In The Shining (1980) we see, again, the breakdown of the family. Aprevious caretaker of the hotel had succumbed to cabin fever and hadchopped his two daughters with an ax, then murdered his wife and finallyshot his own brains out. We learn that at an earlier point Jack Torrance, ina fit of violence, had grabbed his son and dislocated his shoulder. The boyis traumatized with the fear that he and his mother will be the victims ofJack's crazed rage. And this is just the foreshadowing. The family is nota realm of love and relationship, but of frustration and rage.

The Way or Path to FollowIn discussing the "Way" toward the goal in the creed of popular culture,

Nelson notes that the dominant belief system expresses salvation in termsof some sort of community, but that there is often joined with this a secondary system which "focuses upon a particular image of humanity as thefulfillment of the individual. The fulfilled individual is able to controlsocial situations through mental and physical preparedness." 20 He mentionssuch popular heroes as Bogart and Wayne who are "ready" for any situation.

Kubrick's last two movies focus upon the issue of the secondary beliefsystem. But he does not start with an exploration of the macho type ofh it K b i k i t d l k b k t hi h h d b l


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reason. And in his next movie, The Shining, Kubrick explores an irrational,or perhaps we should say extrarational life style. Barry Lyndon asks:What is the power and virtue of reason? And The Shining asks: What isthe power and virtue of "the shining" (beyond reason)?

The age of reason gave people rituals, codes, ranks, and so forth. Butas Redmond Barry found to his surprise and dismay, it was a world of formwithout substance. He gave himself to what was generally acknowledgedto be the road to dignity and fulfillment, and it lead him to disaster and ruin.

The experience of living does not improve Redmond Barry. Rather,it weakens and then defeats him. There is a change in his station, but not inhis nature. And it is the very qualities, along with fortune, which accountfor his rise that later, along with his inability to inhibit his emotions, whichbring about his downfall. In Part One, a nobody becomes a somebody. InPart Two, the somebody becomes a nobody. Like Alex, the events on theway up are paralleled by those on the way down. For example, on the wayup he becomes an enforcer to make people pay their debts; on the way down,he tris to avoid paying his own debts. But the final state is not just a return. He is worse off than before, lonely and defeated.

Redmond Barry was not corrupted by his low birth, but by high society. He had no principles of his own, and so he accepted those of hissociety. He rose and fell on the basis of its values.

There was a general appreciation of the beauty of the photography ofthis film, but it was often added that the film lacked substance. For example,in her New Yorker review, Pauline Koel said of Lady Lyndon that "her hairdos change more often than her expressions." She means that as a put-down, but it may be a clue to the theme. Wigs, rouge, powder, beauty spots,etc., are all surface. Civilized society is a veneer covering a depth which isvicious. The duel is conducted in an orderly and civilized fashion, but itcovers over seething disorder. Lord Bullingdon diligently observes theamenities, but he cannot control or conceal his emetic reaction.

Kubrick presents a beautiful nature as the setting for an ugly society.The traditional movement from establishing shot to close shot is reversed inorder to submerge people in their natural environment. As the epiloguecalls to our attention, all of these people are equal now. The transience oflife has swept away all the matters which obsessed and consumed them.

If we are brutal, weak, silly, selfish creatures, covered over with aveneer of reason, what if we exchanged a rational life style for one thatld k t d l i t f it l ? W ld thi l d t


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commercial success in his next film. So in the period from 1975 to 1980he worked for over three years on a film version of The Shining 9 a gothicthriller by Stephen King. And yet, there may have been more than sensationalism that attracted Kubrick to this property. Even though respondingto commercial pressures, he has not forsaken his own artistic line of inquiryhe explores the rational and then the extrarational. Nor has heforsaken his style. The Shining is a horror film, but it is not gimmicky andit has a definite Kubrick touch.

Actually, far from producing a commercially viable pot-boiler, Kubrick has done his own thing. In doing so, he may have slighted the commercial demands. The critical reviews are certainly mixed, but tend toward the negative. The initial box office response was strong, but notspectacular.

The world that Kubrick creates here is the Overlook Hotel in the mountains of Colorado. Surprisingly, this was created entirely on the soundstage, and not on location. There is a beauty to its elegant decor and itsgrandeur. And yet we, like Jack Torrance and his family, feel like aliensin it to an even greater extent than the astronauts of 2001 felt out of theirelement. And the effective use of the steadicam for wide-angle trackingand dollying shots draws us into this cavernous and threatening environment.And our mood is intensified by the music of Penderecki, Ligeti and Bartokon the soundtrack.

There are two people who have the gift of "the shining" or of extra-rational and extra-sensory powers. One is Danny, the young son of theTorrance family who are going to be caretakers in the hotel while it is shutdown for the winter. The other is Dick Hallorann, the head chef. In both,

the power of the shining is benevolent, and yet basically impotent to preventthe horror it foresees from unfolding. Indeed, poor Danny is forced to experience both the horrors of the past and the impending threat of the present.

The horror includes the' irrational, but Kubrick subordinates that dimension to the personal.

The real horror of the film is expressed in Torrance's frustration. Noblood vision or demon lover or putrefying corpse is as frightening as themoment when Wendy looks at the writing that Jack has supposedly beenworking on and finds that it consists of reams of paper with the singlesentence, "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," repeated in endless typographic variations.30


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58 Encounter

tempted to evil, but that cannot easily be controlled by the exercise of reasonnor transcended by the uninhibited sway of the vital forces of life.

We find in Niebuhr a diagnosis which is basically similar to that ofKubrick. Both are realistic, rather than idealistic about human nature. InNiebuhr we also find a cure. In responding to the question of where wewant to get and how we can get there, Niebuhr calls for "The Unity of Vitality and Reason."31 In Barry Lyndon, Kubrick has presented a world inwhich the vital is repressed by the rational. In The Shining, Kubrick haspresented a world in which the vital is unconstrained by the rational. Niebuhr calls for a unity of the vital and the rational. The situation for which

we hope cannot be purely rational, nor purely vital. To tell the truth, nohuman community in which we live can be a product of one of these alone.No human community is, in short, a simple construction of conscience

or reason. All communities are more or less stable or precarious harmonies of human vital capacities. They are governed by power. Thepower which determines the quality of the order and harmony is not merelythe coercive and organizing power of government. That is only one ofthe two aspects of social power. The other is the balance of vitalities andforces in any given social situation. These two elements of communal

lifethe central organizing principle and power and the equilibrium ofpowerare essential and perennial aspects of community organization;and no moral or social advance can redeem society from its dependenceupon these two principles.82

So these are the two principles with which we must work and on which wemust base our hope. But "the organizing principle and power may easilydegenerate into tyranny" and "the principle of the balance of power is always pregnant with the possibility of anarchy."3" And so these are proxi*mate, and not ultimate, grounds of hope. Our hope is not in our own abilityto resolve our dilemma, nor in our organizing principle and balaneingpower. Indeed, efforts to solve things by our own resources only introduceevil.84 Our ultimate hope is in the grace of God, and in the divine consummation of life and history in judgment and mercy.

According to Niebuhr, it is folly to hope for an inherent force in history or to hope for our own innate resources to provide the way to the goalwe hope for. We have a hope which is for something beyond history, andwhich yet fulfills rather than negates our history.

The paragraph with which Niebuhr closes The Nature and Destiny of Man, II, is also appropriate as a way to close this section:

31 Ni b h II 258 260


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Thus wisdom about our destiny is dependent upon a humble recogni-tion of the limits of our knowledge and our power. Our most reliable

understanding is the fruit of "grace" in which faith completes our ignorance without pretending to possess its certainties as knowledge; and inwhich contrition mitigates our pride without destroying our hope.85

Conclusion

If we look to more recent theological work than that of Reinhold Niebuhr to deal with issues raised in this paper, where do we turn? Theologyof hope has the right sound to it. However, although it has much to teach us,it is not the definitive treatment. Moltmann has remarked that his theologyrelates eschatology to history whereas that of Teilhard de Chardin relateseschatology to nature. As Walter H. Capps observes, in the contemporarycontext in which environmental questions loom larger, the theology of hopeis better qualified to deal with the socio-political aspects of creating the newage than it is to deal with the ecological^environmental aspects.36

Theology of hope is not the only theological resource for dealing withhope. The Conference on Hope and the Future of Man, held in New YorkCity, October 8-10, 1971, assembled representatives from three theological

traditions that have had a special concern for the futureContinental theology of Hope, American process theology, and Teilhardian theology.87But what we can learn from all of the systems of theology and all of

the interpretations of our crisis is that Christian hope and optimism are notto be identified. Optimism is the belief that the projection for the futureis favorable. The current prognosis is not good. But we live in hope, andnot in optimism. The crisis of technology is a crisis for optimism but itdoes not undermine the basis of hope.

35. Ibid., p. 321.36. Walter H. Capps, Time Invades the Cathedral (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1972), p. 137.37. Much of this conference is available in the book Hope and the Future of Man, ed, by

Ewert H. Cousins (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1972).


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^ s

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A - False Hopes of Deliverance - Kubrik

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