The Long-Lost Stanley Kubrick Interview Where He Discusses The Concept And Meaning Behind “2001: A Space Odyssey”

An interview with Stanley Kubrick has recently surfaced where he discusses the philosophies and concepts he examines in his 1968 masterpiece.  I have never, ever found anything like this interview before.  Ever.  When I read it I practically had goosebumps.  The beauty of “2001” is its exploration of the possibility that mankind’s reign as Earth’s most intelligent and conscious species was actually a gift from an interstellar life form even more evolved than us.  I’ve always been a firm believer in extraterrestrial life, and my logic is this: what are you losing by believing?  Nothing.  The second you do choose to believe in it, life (and your perception of the universe) instantly becomes more interesting.  And why should we believe in extraterrestrial life?  Consider this thought experiment that Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist George Will pointed out in his book One Man’s America: The Pleasures and Provocations of Our Singular Nation: “There are perhaps 140 billion galaxies in the still-unfolding universe.  If all the stars in the universe were only the size of the head of a pin, they would fill Miami’s Orange Bowl Stadium to overflowing 3 billion times.”

You would have to be as dumb as a white trash ape to believe that our singular pinhead Sun has the only intelligent life in its galaxy, and by extension that there wouldn’t be intelligence far greater than our own out there somewhere.  Here is an excerpt from the Kubrick interview:

Q:  Did you deliberately try for ambiguity as opposed to a specific meaning for any scene or image?

Stanley Kubrick:  No, I didn’t have to try for ambiguity; it was inevitable … But it’s the ambiguity of all art, of a fine piece of music or a painting – you don’t need written instructions by the composer or painter accompanying such works to “explain” them. “Explaining” them contributes nothing but a superficial “cultural” value which has no value except for critics and teachers who have to earn a living.  Reactions to art are always different because they are always deeply personal.

Q:  The final scenes of the film seemed more metaphorical than realistic.  Will you discuss them — or would that be part of the “road map” you’re trying to avoid?

Kubrick:  No, I don’t mind discussing it, on the lowest level, that is, straightforward explanation of the plot.  You begin with an artifact left on earth 4,000,000 years ago by extraterrestrial explorers who observed the behavior of the man-apes of the time and decided to influence their evolutionary progression. Then you have a second artifact buried deep on the lunar surface and programmed to signal word of man’s first baby steps into the universe – a kind of cosmic burglar alarm. And finally there’s a third artifact placed in orbit around Jupiter and waiting for the time when man has reached the outer rim of his own solar system.  When the surviving astronaut, Bowman, ultimately reaches Jupiter, this artifact sweeps him into a force field or star gate that hurls him on a journey through inner and outer space and finally transports him to another part of the galaxy, where he’s placed in a human zoo approximating a hospital terrestrial environment drawn out of his own dreams and imagination.  In a timeless state, his life passes from middle age to senescence to death.  He is reborn, an enhanced being, a star child, an angel, a superman, if you like, and returns to earth prepared for the next leap forward of man’s evolutionary destiny. That is what happens on the film’s simplest level.  Since an encounter with an advanced interstellar intelligence would be incomprehensible within our present earthbound frames of reference, reactions to it will have elements of philosophy and metaphysics that have nothing to do with the bare plot outline itself.

Q:  What are those areas of meaning?

Kubrick:  They are the areas I prefer not to discuss because they are highly subjective and will differ from viewer to viewer.  In this sense, the film becomes anything the viewer sees in it.  If the film stirs the emotions and penetrates the subconscious of the viewer, if it stimulates (however inchoately) his mythological and religious yearnings and impulses, then it has succeeded.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ML1OZCHixR0[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlkV1ybBnHI[/youtube]

Sources: Kottke and Prosthetic Knowledge