The Shining analysis - part 3: Clarification on Wendy's sexual abuse of Danny

Top left: Early in the movie, with Danny and his mother home alone together in the Torrance apartment in Boulder, Colorado (near Denver), Danny converses with 'Tony' while in the apartment's bathroom. Note that Danny is using his left index finger to represent Tony; Carl Jung indicates that the left represents the unconscious mind (and that the right represents the conscious).[a] Tony not only says that he doesn't want to go to the Overlook, since he 'knows' that he (Danny) is to continue to be sexually abused there, but he also here refers to Wendy by her first name while speaking, suggesting an inappropriate level of familiarity between Danny and his mom. Top right: The next thing we see is a (boiling) 'river' of blood, representing, in part, Wendy's menstrual blood. Wendy is menstruating while having sex with Danny. Above left: Danny's facial expression while being sexually abused by his mom, indicates that he is in a trance state during the episode. Above right: A short while later, Wendy has called a doctor to come over and speak with Danny. Note that the doctor doesn't question Wendy as to why Danny's pants are off. It's not as if the doctor herself would have him remove them, in order to examine him for psychiatric or neurological problems. It is evident from the doctor's conversation with Danny that she is completely overlooking the possibility that Wendy has just sexually abused him. Although what we see here is part of Susan Robertson's dream (as is everything else in the movie), the scene represents a real-life event, whereby the woman in the red VW that Susan was riding in had abused her own son while with him in an apartment in Boulder; this woman later told Susan about the abuse incident, while she and her family were with Susan in the snowstorm, at the crash site.

Note the bear face that is part of Danny's pillow (above left), on his bed while the doctor is examining him. At a later point in the movie, Wendy tells Dick Hallorann that her first name is Winifred, and Hallorann responds by asking her if she is a Winnie or a Freddie. Winnie-the-Pooh is a fictional anthropomorphic teddy bear created in the early 20th century by English author A. A. Milne, that is a character in various children's books. The point is that Wendy is being connected with a kind of bear 'theme' in the movie. The eyes of the bear on Danny's pillow (indicated by the arrow in the above left screencap), look very similar to the floor indicator dials of the Overlook's two elevators (the dials are circled in the above right screencap). What we are to do here is connect the pillow bear's eyes with the elevator indicator dials, take this together with the connection between Wendy and bears, and then derive the idea that Wendy's 'eyes are on' Danny when the elevator doors (and blood) are shown (i.e., in the scene in the Torrance apartment in Boulder, described above). This functions as a hint that Wendy is sexually abusing Danny (and thus, that Susan Robertson was sexually abusing her own son, in real life).

The above-mentioned indirect reference to Winnie-the-Pooh in the movie, is an additional indication that the person in the bear suit represents an aspect of Wendy, i.e., her Jungian Self, as indicated in part 2 of the analysis. Since Wendy is, in part, a representation of Susan, the 'bear person' ultimately represents Susan's Self.

Wendy only feigns nervousness, by forcibly shaking her right hand when lighting a cigarette, while she converses alone with the doctor after the doctor has examined Danny. During this conversation, Wendy tells the doctor that Danny started talking to Tony at about the time he was placed in nursery school, then just after this, she seems to indicate that this behavior started at the point at which he was taken out of school due to an injury. She says that the injury was accidentally caused by Jack, while he was angry and drunk. She says that Jack stopped drinking immediately after the incident, but then she says that Jack has not had a drink for the last five months. Wendy is being inconsistent in what she tells the doctor. She says that her family has been in Boulder for three months, implying that the injury incident would have had to occur just two months prior to the family's move from Vermont to Colorado. Wendy says that Danny was kept out of school "for a while" due to the injury, implying that he was later placed back in school. Since "for a while" implies at least two or three weeks, and since it would have taken about a week for the family to drive from Vermont to Colorado in their VW bug, then Danny would have to have been placed back in nursery school around four to five weeks, at most, prior to the family's arrival in Colorado. However, Danny physically looks old enough (six, as stated earlier in the analysis) to be done (or almost done) with nursery school. Since Wendy also conveys the impression that Danny was taken out of school not too long after he started there, we realize that the time span implied by Wendy regarding how long it's been since the injury incident occurred, is too short; if we go by Wendy's story, Danny will not have attended nursery school for a long enough period of time to be done, or almost done, with it. We thus see that it must have been more than five months ago that Danny was injured. In fact, in a later scene Jack tells the hotel's bartender, Lloyd, that he stopped drinking five months ago, but he also says that the injury incident itself occurred three years ago. (Jack has only been drinking at Lloyd's bar for a couple of minutes before he says this, so he cannot yet be under the influence of alcohol when he says it.)[b] Jack's three-year time span is a much better fit with Danny's current age, than is the time span implied by Wendy. The point is that Wendy is lying to the doctor.[c]

Wendy's sexual abuse of Danny in the apartment, discussed above, takes place very soon after she finds out, by phone, that Jack got the job at the Overlook. In the story she gives the doctor, Wendy is trying to make the time span between the arm incident, and any injury to Danny due to her sexual abuse of him which might occur later at the hotel (such as neck bruising due to erotic asphyxiation - see below), to appear to be relatively short, so that the two events will be more likely to be linked together in peoples' minds, i.e., so that the latter injuries will appear to have been caused by Jack. (Note that one implication of this is that Wendy planned on using erotic asphyxiation while having sex with Danny at the hotel).

At the same time, Wendy wants the doctor to know that Jack quit drinking immediately after he injured Danny's arm, so that the neck injuries will be believed by anyone else who might later find out about them, to have been committed by Jack while not under the influence of alcohol. This way, Jack cannot later 'blame' alcoholism for causing him to injure Danny at the Overlook, were he (Jack) to survive events at the hotel and then later be formally held accountable for child abuse by the legal system. Wendy wants to be sure that Jack will receive the maximum punishment for any supposed physical abuse of Danny at the hotel, or to at least be completely removed from the family, and thus, not be around to interfere with her plans for Danny. And, whether or not Jack does make it out of the hotel alive, Wendy has planted the necessary information in the doctor's mind so that anything the doctor tells the authorities later, will be consistent with Wendy telling them that Jack injured Danny's neck. For once Wendy escapes down the mountain at the end of the movie, she will no doubt report that Jack, having been driven crazy by the lengthy confinement in the hotel, caused Danny's neck injuries, and that soon after this, he pursued, and tried to kill, her and Danny. The conversation between Wendy and the doctor is Susan's dream-representation of a real-life conversation between the woman in the red VW and a doctor this woman had called, to come over and look at her son after she had abused him. While Susan and this woman's family were stranded on the highway during the snowstorm, the woman mentioned to Susan that such a conversation had occurred.

Danny's full name spelled out, Daniel Torrance, is an anagram for 'ordeal in trance'. Danny is effectively in a state of hypnosis during each abuse incident. As described above, Wendy is only leading the doctor along while conversing with her, so that things will later appear that Jack is the one who caused Danny's neck injuries. As indicated in part 1 of the analysis, Wendy is taking advantage of the entire scenario of looking over the hotel, to get rid of Jack so that she can be alone together with Danny after leaving the Overlook, and then continue to abuse him.




Above left: Once the Torrances have arrived at the Overlook hotel and are being shown around the place, Danny, at one point, believes that Mr. Hallorann (shown) is sending him a telepathic 'message'. Danny has also, by this point, 'seen' the twins in the hotel at least one time. Childhood abuse is a risk factor for psychotic experiences, which can include visual and auditory hallucinations. Above right: A short while later, Danny uses his right index finger to represent Tony. This indicates that his sexual abuse experiences up to this point have, in some manner and to some degree, worked their way into his conscious mind; for recall from above that Carl Jung indicates that the right side represents the conscious mind.





Above left: Wendy and Danny watch the movie Summer of '42 on television. Summer of '42 is a 1971 drama film, about a 15-year-old boy who loses his virginity to an older woman, whose husband has just been killed in World War II. The mutual attraction between the boy and the woman begins while the husband is still alive. Above right: Kubrick inserted this scene of intimacy between father and son, to show that Jack really does care about Danny, and that he is well-intentioned.





Above left: Wendy looks shocked and saddened upon seeing bruises on Danny's neck, but this is only a pretense - as already stated, it is she who has choked Danny. Of course, she is here trying to get Danny to believe that Jack choked him. Above right: Jack, here observing Wendy and Danny, is in an almost complete stupor due to the cumulative effects of chronic mercury poisoning. Thus, he can only react with confusion when Wendy blames him for Danny's injuries.


a. "[A] leftward movement is equivalent to a movement in the direction of the unconscious, whereas a movement to the right...aims at consciousness." (--Jung, C.G., The Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Vol. 12, Princeton University Press, 1968, p. 127.)

b. In actuality, Jack doesn't consume any liquor at all during the Torrance family's stay at the hotel. He only hallucinates the presence of Lloyd, and the act of drinking; for recall that near the beginning of the film, Ullmann tells the Torrance family that there will be no liquor sitting out anywhere in the hotel while it is closed for the off-season. The seeming conversation between Jack and Lloyd is really only between Jack and himself, while he looks at his own reflection in the glass panels behind the bar (see below).

While Wendy runs toward Jack in the Gold Room, to tell him about Danny's claim that there is a woman in room 237, we can see that Jack has been sitting by himself at the bar, facing some reflective glass panels, with no bartender or alcohol present.


c. The part of the conversation between Wendy and the doctor in which Wendy conveys the impression, that Danny was taken out of nursery school (due to his arm injury) not long after he started there, has been placed in boldface (with part of it also being italicized), in the below-quoted fragment of the conversation:

Doctor: Have you been in Boulder long, Mrs. Torrance?
Wendy: Only about three months - uh, we're from Vermont. My husband was teaching school there.
Doctor: Did the appearance of Danny's imaginary friend...
Wendy: Tony.
Doctor: ...Did Tony's first appearance happen to coincide with your arrival here?
Wendy: No, um, let's see...I guess Danny started talkin' to Tony about the time we put him in nursery school.
Doctor: Did he adjust well to school?
Wendy: Mm, no, he didn't like it too much at first. And, then he had an injury, so we kept him out for a while - yeah, I guess that's about the time when I first noticed that he was talkin' to Tony.

The italicized part of the boldface portion of the above conversation fragment, taken within the context of the entirety of the contents of the statements made by Wendy (that are in boldface), indicates that the point in time at which Danny started school, and the point in time at which he was taken out due to the injury, are so close to each other that for the purposes of the conversation, Wendy considers the two points in time to effectively almost coincide. Either the doctor understands that this is what is being implied, or else she's not paying enough attention to what Wendy is saying. Otherwise, she should have asked Wendy which scenario was actually the case: whether Danny started talking to Tony when he was placed in school, or when he was taken out. If the two points in time are not so close to each other, then Wendy would be contradicting herself regarding when it was that Danny started talking to Tony, and thus, she would be telling an inconsistent (and therefore untruthful) story on this basis.


   

The Shining analysis - part 2: Strange happenings and Wendy's Jungian Self

Above left: While searching for Danny late in the movie, a panic-stricken Wendy happens to look through a bedroom doorway, and sees someone wearing brown, with their buttocks exposed, leaning over another person's lap such that they could be performing oral sex on this person. Above right: The person wearing brown turns out to be someone wearing an animal costume resembling a bear, and the other person is a man wearing formal clothing. Swiss psychologist and psychiatrist Carl Jung (1875-1961) considered the bear to be the symbol of the dangerous aspect of the unconscious.


Jungian psychology (also known as analytical psychology) is a school of psychology that originated from the ideas of Swiss psychologist and psychiatrist Carl Jung. Analytical psychology is fundamentally distinct from the psychoanalytic school of Sigmund Freud. In Jungian psychology, a person's shadow is an unconscious complex defined as the repressed, suppressed or disowned qualities of his or her conscious mind; the animus is the unconscious masculine component in women; and a person's Self represents his or her psyche as a whole, and signifies the unification of consciousness and unconsciousness in a person. The Self, according to Jung, is realized as the product of individuation, which in Jung's view is the process of integrating one's personality.[a]

To explain the meaning of certain unusual sights in The Shining, such as the person in the bear suit, the woman in room 237, etc., we need to look at Jung's The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, and specifically, to the section in part IV titled "The Psychological Aspects of the Kore." Below are quoted the relevant passages from Jung (all emphasis is in original).[b]

"Not only is the figure of Demeter and the Kore in its three-fold aspect as maiden, mother, and Hecate not unknown to the psychology of the unconscious, it is even something of a practical problem. The "Kore" has her psychological counterpart in those archetypes which I have called the self or supraordinate personality on the one hand, and the anima on the other. ..."

"The figure of the Kore that interests us here belongs...to the type of supraordinate personality. It is an essential character of psychic figures that they are duplex or at least capable of duplication; ..."

Recall the twins in the movie - they could be considered to be duplicates of some 'unknown young girl' (see immediately below).


"As a matter of practical observation, the Kore often appears in woman as an unknown young girl...An occasional variant is the nixie or water-sprite, who betrays her superhuman nature by her fishtail."

The young woman in the tub in room 237, initially with her lower body submerged (see screencap below), is the "water-sprite."

"Sometimes the Kore and mother-figures slither down altogether to the animal kingdom, the favourite representatives then being the cat or the snake or the bear, or else some black monster of the underworld like the crocodile, or other salamander-like, saurian creatures. The maiden's helplessness exposes her to all sorts of dangers...Sometimes it is a true nekyia, a descent into Hades and a quest for the "treasure hard to attain", occasionally connected with orgiastic sexual rites or offerings of menstrual blood to the moon...There are drinkings of blood and bathings in blood, ..."

Wendy (below left) is in a state of helplessness while she's searching for Danny. She is, metaphorically speaking, in Hades, as indicated by the roomful of skeletons that she sees (below right). The 'bear' and the man shown in the two screencaps at the top of this post, could be taken to be engaged in an orgiastic sexual rite.

The menstrual blood Jung mentions appears to Wendy as this 'river of blood' (above left), which as we said in part 1, represents the Phlegethon, a river of blood in Hell. The man Wendy sees with blood streaming down his face (above right) is holding a drinking glass that appears to contain alcohol mixed with blood; this suggests Jung's "drinkings of blood".

One of the general ideas to be taken from all of the above, is that the person in the bear suit, the twins, and the young woman in room 237 (who transforms into a rotted old woman while interacting with Jack in the room - see screencap at left), all represent aspects of Wendy's Jungian Self.


Since the Self is same-sex, this implies that the person in the bear suit is a woman.

One 'complication' with the bear in the dream is that if the viewer looks carefully, he or she will notice that the face of the animal also somewhat resembles that of a pig - it is as if the creature is a 'combination' of bear and pig. To address this, we must turn to the writings of Jungian analyst Jolande Jacobi (in Jung's Man and His Symbols):[c] "In alchemy, the "prime material" was often represented by such monstrous and fabulous creatures - mixed forms of animals. In psychological terms, they would probably symbolize the original total unconsciousness, out of which the individual ego can rise and begin to develop toward maturity." Jacobi also points out that "In the minds of many people, the pig is closely associated to dirty sexuality. (Circe, for example, changed the men who desired her into swine.)" The fact that Wendy's 'bear person' has a portion of its costume removed to expose the buttocks, is no doubt meant to suggest the idea of anal sex, which could be considered a form of dirty sexuality.

The animal that Wendy sees also looks somewhat like a dog. Again, from Jacobi in Man and His Symbols: "[A] dog may stand for loyalty, but also for promiscuity, because it shows no discrimination in its choice of partners."[c] In this context, the bear scenario represents Wendy cheating on her husband with another man. Since Wendy is, in part, the dream-representation of Susan Robertson herself, this in turn suggests that Susan, at some point, considered cheating on her own husband, which is consistent with what we said earlier about her wanting to leave him.

The fact that Jack Torrance, who is, in part, a dream-representation of Susan Robertson's husband, is shown 'ogling' two women at the hotel (see screencap at left), is an indication that Susan knew her own husband was considering cheating on her, or that he was, at least, losing interest in her. Susan's fear that her own husband was considering being unfaithful to her, is also what is indicated by the fact that in her dream, Jack does not wear a wedding band, whereas Wendy does wear one (see screencaps below).

Above left: Wendy wears a wedding band throughout the movie, for example, when she goes to the Gold Room bar to get Jack's help (click image to enlarge). Above right: Note the absence of a wedding band on Jack's hand, in this shot from the scene in which Wendy serves him breakfast in their bedroom at the Overlook.


a. Wikipedia, 'Analytical psychology'. Web, n.d. URL = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytical_psychology.
b. Jung, C.G. "The Psychological Aspects of the Kore" in The Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Vol. 9, part 1. Princeton University Press, 1969. pp. 182, 183, 184.
c. Jacobi, Jolande. "Symbols in an Individual Analysis" in Carl Jung ed., Man and His Symbols. London: Aldus Books, 1964. p. 266.


   

2001: A Space Odyssey analysis - part 1: Introduction and plot synopsis

WARNING: THIS ANALYSIS CONTAINS SPOILERS!!

[Image at left from the Wikipedia '2001: A Space Odyssey (film)' page; "2001 A Space Odyssey (1968) theatrical poster variant",[a] licensed under fair use via Wikipedia.]











Welcome to the analysis of Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film, 2001: A Space Odyssey. Buttons at the bottom of each post enable navigation through the parts of the analysis. You may want to view the table of contents. Regarding the appearance of possible anti-Semitism on this blog, please see the 'Disclaimers' section near the bottom of this page. The contents of the analysis of 2001 on this blog are identical, to those of the analysis of the movie on the Can Analyze blog, except that there are a few additional posts in the other analysis not contained in this one, most of which have to do with hints for interpreting A Space Odyssey, from some of the films of Quentin Tarantino.



An introduction and plot synopsis for the movie appear below.[b]

2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 epic science fiction film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick, and co-written by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke. The story deals with a series of encounters between humans and mysterious black monoliths that are apparently affecting human destiny, and a space voyage to Jupiter tracing a signal emitted by one such monolith found on the moon. Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood star as the two astronauts on this voyage, with Douglas Rain as the voice of the sentient computer HAL, who seems human and has almost full control over their spaceship.

The film consists of four major sections, all of which, except the second, are introduced by superimposed titles.


The Dawn of Man
A tribe of herbivorous early humans is foraging for food in the desert. A big cat kills one member, and another tribe of man-apes drives them from their water hole. Defeated, they sleep overnight in a small exposed rock crater, and awake to find that a black monolith has appeared in front of them. They approach it shrieking and jumping, and eventually touch it cautiously. Soon after, one of the man-apes (played by Daniel Richter) realizes how to use a bone as a weapon; the members of the tribe later use bones to kill prey for food. Still later, they reclaim control of the water hole from the other tribe by killing its leader. Triumphant, the tribe's leader throws his bone into the air as the scene shifts (via match cut) from the falling bone to an orbital weapons satellite millions of years in the future.[c]

Above left: A tribe of our ape-like early ancestors, encounters the monolith for the first time. Top right: The leader of the tribe of ape-men discovers how to use a bone as a weapon. Above left and right: The match cut from bone to orbiting weapons satellite.


TMA-1
A Pan Am space plane carries Dr. Heywood R. Floyd (played by William Sylvester) to a space station orbiting Earth for a layover on his trip to Clavius Base, a U.S. outpost on the moon.

The Pan Am space plane carrying Heywood Floyd.


After making a videophone call from the station to his daughter (Vivian Kubrick), Floyd encounters his friend Elena (Margaret Tyzack), a Russian scientist, and her colleague Dr. Smyslov (Leonard Rossiter), who asks Floyd about odd things occurring at Clavius, and the rumor of a mysterious epidemic at the base. The American firmly declines to answer any questions about the supposed epidemic.

Dr. Smyslov (seated at left) questions Heywood Floyd (center) about the supposed epidemic at Clavius base. Elena is seated at right.



Floyd then travels from the space station, to Clavius base on the moon.

At Clavius, Floyd heads a meeting of base personnel, apologizing for the epidemic cover story but stressing the need for secrecy. His mission is to investigate a recently found artifact — "Tycho Magnetic Anomaly One" (TMA-1) — according to Floyd, deliberately buried four million years ago. Floyd and some other men ride in a moonbus to the artifact, a black monolith identical to the one encountered by the apes. The men (six total individuals, including Floyd) examine the monolith, and pose for a photo in front of it. While doing so, they hear a very loud high-pitched noise, presumably coming from the monolith.

The six astronauts descend into the excavation at TMA-1, where a monolith has been sighted.


Jupiter Mission
Eighteen months later, the American spaceship Discovery One is bound for Jupiter. On board are mission pilots and scientists Dr. David Bowman (Keir Dullea) and Dr. Frank Poole (Gary Lockwood), and three other scientists who are in cryogenic hibernation. "HAL" (voiced by Douglas Rain) is the ship's HAL 9000 computer, which runs most of Discovery One's operations. While Bowman and Poole watch HAL and themselves being interviewed in a BBC show about the mission, the computer states that he is "foolproof and incapable of error." HAL also speaks of his enthusiasm for the mission, and how he enjoys working with humans. When asked by the host if HAL has genuine emotions, Bowman replies that he appears to, but that the truth is unknown.

Above left: The Discovery One spaceship as viewed from the front right side. Above right: Discovery One from the rear right.

Top left: Discovery One astronaut David Bowman converses with mission computer HAL. Top right: HAL's camera 'eye'. Above left: Bowman's fellow astronaut, Frank Poole, watches a BBC broadcast about his and Bowman's mission to Jupiter. Above right: Two of the three astronauts who are in hibernation.


HAL asks Bowman about the unusual mystery and secrecy surrounding the mission, but interrupts himself to report the imminent failure of a device which controls the ship's communications antenna. After retrieving the component with an EVA pod, the astronauts cannot find anything wrong with it. HAL suggests reinstalling the (supposedly) defective unit and letting it fail so the problem can be found.

Above left: Bowman (wearing a red spacesuit) has exited his EVA pod, and is here shown approaching Discovery One's communications antenna. Above right: Bowman removes the (supposedly) defective device from the antenna assembly. As will be described later in the analysis, it is evident that this device, known as an AE-35 unit, controls the positioning of the communications antenna. Note the replacement unit sitting to Bowman's right - we are never shown the replacement unit being installed; this fact will come into play later in the analysis.

Mission control concurs with HAL's suggestion (to reinstall the (supposedly) defective unit), but advises the astronauts that results from their twin HAL 9000 indicate the ship's HAL is in error predicting the fault. When queried, HAL insists that the problem, like all previous issues with the HAL series, is due to "human error." Concerned about HAL's behavior, Bowman and Poole enter one of the EVA pods to talk without the computer overhearing them. They both have a bad feeling about HAL, despite the HAL series' perfect reliability, but decide to follow his suggestion to replace the unit. As the astronauts agree to deactivate the computer if it is proven to be wrong, they are unaware that HAL is reading their lips through the pod's window.

Top left: Poole and Bowman converse inside an EVA pod (which is located in the pod bay aboard Discovery One), about their doubts regarding HAL. Note the window in the pod. Top right: HAL, whose camera eye is visible in the distance, can see through the pod window. HAL cannot hear the two men talking, since the pod door is shut and the pod itself is sealed, and the men have deactivated all the electronic devices which might enable HAL to hear them. Above left and right: A view from HAL's perspective, of Poole's and Bowman's lips moving, as visible through the window just mentioned. As becomes evident later in the movie, HAL knows the contents of the two men's conversation from reading their lips.


After Poole exits Discovery One to reinstall the (supposedly) defective AE-35, Poole's EVA pod (below left screencap), controlled by HAL, moves toward Poole and then hits him, severing his oxygen hose and setting him adrift in space (below right).

Bowman, not realizing the computer is responsible for Poole's being set adrift, takes another pod to attempt a rescue, leaving his helmet behind. While he is gone, HAL terminates the life functions of the three crew members in suspended animation (below left). When Bowman returns to the ship with Poole's body, HAL refuses to let him in, stating that he cannot allow the mission to be jeopardized. Bowman manually opens the ship's emergency airlock and bodily enters the ship (below right), risking death from lack of oxygen.

After donning a helmet, Bowman proceeds to HAL 9000's memory core intent on disconnecting the computer. HAL first tries to reassure Dave, then pleads with him to stop, and finally begins to express fear. Dave ignores him and disconnects each of the computer's memory modules. HAL eventually regresses to his earliest programmed memory, the song "Daisy Bell", which he sings for Bowman.

When the computer is finally disconnected, a pre-recorded video message from Floyd plays. In it, he reveals the existence of the four million-year-old black monolith on the moon. Floyd says that it has remained completely inert, except for a single, very powerful radio emission aimed at Jupiter, and then adds that the monolith's origin and purpose is "still a total mystery."

Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite

Near Jupiter, Bowman leaves Discovery One in an EVA pod and finds another monolith in orbit around the planet (as shown at left). Approaching this monolith, Bowman's pod is suddenly pulled into a tunnel of colored light, and a disoriented and terrified Bowman finds himself racing at great speed across vast distances of space, viewing bizarre cosmological phenomena and strange landscapes of unusual colors. He finds himself, older and still in his spacesuit, standing in a room appointed in the Louis XVI-style. Bowman sees progressively older versions of himself, his point of view switching each time, alternately appearing sitting at a table eating, and finally as a very elderly man lying in a bed. A black monolith appears at the foot of the bed, and as Bowman gestures toward it with his right arm and hand, he is transformed into a fetus-like being enclosed in a transparent orb of light. The new being floats in space beside the Earth, gazing at it.

Top left: Bowman sees this image while moving through space (i.e., through the 'stargate') at a high rate of speed. Top right: An aged Bowman sitting at a dining table, in a Louis XVI-style room. Above left: Bowman gestures toward the monolith from his bed. Above right: The fetus in an orb of light, floating near Earth.


We will begin to analyze 2001 commencing with the next post. One thing we will be doing is looking at hints given to us to help unlock the meaning of Kubrick's movie, in the films of other movie-makers, such as those of Quentin Tarantino, Michael Mann, David Lynch, and the creators of the Hannibal Lecter films.


a. Poster for 2001: A Space Odyssey: The poster art copyright is believed to belong to the distributor of the film, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (Turner Entertainment), the publisher of the film or the graphic artist. Further details: 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY © 1968 Turner Entertainment Co. An epic drama of adventure and exploration (film poster).
b. Wikipedia, '2001: A Space Odyssey (film)'. Web, n.d. URL = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001:_A_Space_Odyssey_(film).
c. The orbiting object is a nuclear weapons satellite: The Making of Kubrick's 2001. Ed. Jerome Agel. Signet, 1970. p. 196 and caption in photographs section.