1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:24,240
As I have shown, Kubrick was doing the Apollo moon landings parallel to writing and directing

2
00:00:24,240 --> 00:00:31,000
in 2001. Stanley used this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create the greatest esoteric

3
00:00:31,000 --> 00:00:38,940
film of all time. In his creation, Kubrick directed the first alchemical film, and as

4
00:00:38,940 --> 00:00:44,360
we are about to see, most of the confusion concerning 2001 A Space Odyssey vanishes in

5
00:00:44,360 --> 00:00:50,480
the face of this truth. Stanley Kubrick used the opportunity of faking the moon landings

6
00:00:50,480 --> 00:00:56,320
to create a work of alchemy. It took over 30 years for anyone to realize this. Now that

7
00:00:56,320 --> 00:00:58,920
it is known, it is a difficult fact to deny.

8
00:01:20,480 --> 00:01:33,480
Within the tradition of the great work of alchemy is the idea that the initiations, explanations,

9
00:01:33,480 --> 00:01:39,320
and rituals of alchemy are embedded into many great works of art. The pyramids of Egypt and

10
00:01:39,320 --> 00:01:43,320
the great cathedrals of France are referred to as books of stone. In other words, there

11
00:01:43,320 --> 00:01:47,320
is a deep knowledge built into these edifices that only an initiate of the alchemical tradition

12
00:01:47,320 --> 00:01:51,160
can truly understand. The great architects and artists, many of whom were alchemists themselves,

13
00:01:51,160 --> 00:01:55,160
had a very clear idea of what it was that they were attempting to transmit. It is only

14
00:01:55,160 --> 00:01:57,160
the viewer of these works that is left in the dark. As the French writer and alchemist

15
00:01:57,160 --> 00:02:18,040
Volcanelli reveals in his masterpiece, Volcanelli reveals in his masterpiece, Mysteries of the

16
00:02:18,040 --> 00:02:25,000
Cathedral, the Grand Churches of France were built as part of this great work. Indeed, anyone who visits

17
00:02:25,000 --> 00:02:30,280
the cathedrals of Europe, but especially France, comes away with this feeling of awe.

18
00:02:30,280 --> 00:02:34,840
But what was this great work supposed to accomplish? The answer to this important question,

19
00:02:34,840 --> 00:02:39,080
according to the alchemist, was the very transformation of the human spirit.

20
00:02:39,080 --> 00:02:43,160
Although it is true that the symbols and the geometry of the cathedrals were designed so that

21
00:02:43,160 --> 00:02:48,280
only a true initiate of the mysteries could really understand their significance, the builders and

22
00:02:48,280 --> 00:02:53,160
creators of the great work knew that everyone who experienced the cathedrals would come away

23
00:02:53,160 --> 00:02:58,200
transformed. Even the ones who were not initiates would still come away with a feeling of awe.

24
00:02:58,200 --> 00:03:03,560
The truth is that even radical atheists are amazed and surprised by the beauty of Notre Dame or

25
00:03:03,560 --> 00:03:09,480
Chartres Cathedral. In his book, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Victor Hugo goes into this subject with a

26
00:03:09,480 --> 00:03:15,320
great deal of openness. He explains that this secret great work of human transformation was built into

27
00:03:15,320 --> 00:03:20,840
these books of stone that we call the cathedrals during the medieval period of European history.

28
00:03:20,840 --> 00:03:27,960
But, Hugo says, the new great book of nature is not written on the walls or in the stones of churches

29
00:03:27,960 --> 00:03:35,240
anymore. This new version, this modern version, this was in the 1800s, of the great work, had changed from

30
00:03:35,240 --> 00:03:40,840
the symbolic form to the written word. Hugo then goes on to identify the works of William Shakespeare as

31
00:03:40,840 --> 00:03:46,360
the new version of the great work. He relates that the great work containing the ancient alchemical knowledge

32
00:03:46,360 --> 00:03:51,240
of human transformation was wrapped up inside the plays written by the bard from Stratford.

33
00:03:51,880 --> 00:03:57,480
There is plenty of high strangeness around the man who was William Shakespeare and the plays that were

34
00:03:57,480 --> 00:04:04,600
and are attributed to him. Whoever the real Shakespeare was, he was steeped in esoteric knowledge and the ways of

35
00:04:04,600 --> 00:04:12,040
alchemy. Victor Hugo was right. Any close examination of the works of Shakespeare reveals all the very same

36
00:04:12,040 --> 00:04:17,640
initiatic knowledge that is also on the walls of the gothic cathedrals. There have been many books that

37
00:04:17,640 --> 00:04:23,160
have touched this subject. Again, like the cathedrals, the plays of Shakespeare seem to transform the

38
00:04:23,160 --> 00:04:29,560
audience. This occurs even if most of them are not on the inside as far as the secret initiatory knowledge

39
00:04:29,560 --> 00:04:35,000
is concerned. The great work seems to have an effect on people who don't have any idea what it is really

40
00:04:35,000 --> 00:04:40,120
about. The artists who have accomplished the great work are the ones that still live with us today.

41
00:04:40,120 --> 00:04:46,200
Shakespeare, da Vinci, and many others. Shakespeare and the gothic cathedrals both have this ability to

42
00:04:46,200 --> 00:04:52,040
appeal to many disparate layers of society and culture. Both bring about a small transformation

43
00:04:52,040 --> 00:04:58,040
inside the human mind and heart. This transformation makes all of us realize that we can do great and

44
00:04:58,040 --> 00:05:05,480
beautiful things. That we are more than just animals. That the transformation of the human

45
00:05:05,480 --> 00:05:12,680
spirit from the barbaric to the angelic can only occur through great works of art. It was some time

46
00:05:12,680 --> 00:05:17,800
ago when I began contemplating this idea of the great work. Although the great work had been expressed

47
00:05:17,800 --> 00:05:23,720
in stone and later in literature, how would it be expressed today? It is without a doubt that the

48
00:05:23,720 --> 00:05:28,600
tapestry of human communication has switched radically. Just as it was once based on the

49
00:05:28,600 --> 00:05:33,640
symbolic and then later transferred into the written word, now that literary model had switched

50
00:05:33,640 --> 00:05:39,080
to that of cinema, television, and computers. Out of these three new forms of communication,

51
00:05:39,080 --> 00:05:44,200
cinema was the most obvious to attract someone who might want to create a modern version of the great

52
00:05:44,200 --> 00:05:49,640
work. But as I looked out at the landscape of the history of cinema, I could not find the great work

53
00:05:49,640 --> 00:05:55,720
on film. At least not at first. I began watching many classics in order to see if the director or

54
00:05:55,720 --> 00:06:01,640
writer was attempting to tell us the great secret about human transformation. Many films and filmmakers

55
00:06:01,640 --> 00:06:08,120
got close, sometimes, to explaining minor aspects of the great work. But in the end, they all failed.

56
00:06:08,120 --> 00:06:13,000
The works of Orson Welles, of course, were the most intriguing. But in the end, even these failed

57
00:06:13,000 --> 00:06:18,280
to achieve the greatness for which I was looking. Was it possible that the great work had never been

58
00:06:18,280 --> 00:06:23,560
transmitted through the cinema? Was it true that cinema was just too profane a medium to attract

59
00:06:23,560 --> 00:06:28,840
anyone with the right caliber of mind and spirit? When considered, it would take nearly a superhuman

60
00:06:28,840 --> 00:06:34,040
effort to have all the disparate talents needed within one filmmaker. This person would need to

61
00:06:34,040 --> 00:06:39,320
know and understand the knowledge of alchemy, astronomy, anthropology, and the true history of the

62
00:06:39,320 --> 00:06:44,920
human race. Besides an insatiable curiosity, they would have to understand the real nature of the

63
00:06:44,920 --> 00:06:49,640
human condition and of our place in the universe. This knowledge would have to be coupled with the

64
00:06:49,640 --> 00:06:55,240
skills of filmmaking and the business acumen to pull the project off. I began to realize the

65
00:06:55,240 --> 00:07:00,760
possibility, at this point, that my search for the great work in cinema was probably in vain.

66
00:07:05,480 --> 00:07:09,480
I was in France doing research for a book that I was writing about the French alchemist

67
00:07:09,480 --> 00:07:14,520
Fulconelli when Stanley Kubrick died. The French devoted the next few nights of their great state

68
00:07:14,520 --> 00:07:19,560
run television channel to the films of Stanley Kubrick. For the next few nights, I watched some

69
00:07:19,560 --> 00:07:24,920
of the films of Kubrick that were presented on Channel 3. I began to realize that no filmmaker,

70
00:07:24,920 --> 00:07:30,680
except possibly Wells, had the sense of pictorial composition and lighting like Kubrick possessed.

71
00:07:30,680 --> 00:07:35,400
Visually, his films were incredibly stunning and had this amazing ability of holding up against

72
00:07:35,400 --> 00:07:39,960
the erosion of time. It was just after his death that I discovered that there was a version of

73
00:07:39,960 --> 00:07:44,520
the great work fashioned into a film and that it was Stanley Kubrick who had made this film.

74
00:07:44,520 --> 00:07:48,760
Eventually, I would come to realize that Stanley Kubrick had made the greatest film ever created.

75
00:07:48,760 --> 00:07:53,320
I began to realize that Stanley Kubrick was not just a great filmmaker, he was the greatest

76
00:07:53,320 --> 00:07:58,840
filmmaker that had ever lived. I hope to reveal to you that his film, 2001 A Space Odyssey,

77
00:07:58,840 --> 00:08:05,320
actually evokes all aspects of the great work of alchemy. 2001 A Space Odyssey is the book of nature,

78
00:08:05,320 --> 00:08:11,000
for the art of cinema, literally. I hope to prove that Kubrick did this with great intention and

79
00:08:11,000 --> 00:08:15,720
that he knew what he was doing at every step. There are few mistakes in his film, but his greatest

80
00:08:15,720 --> 00:08:20,600
film is also his most perfect. It's important to remember that unlike Citizen Kane and other great

81
00:08:20,600 --> 00:08:26,040
films, 2001 was a smash hit. It was actually the first film where repeat business kept it going for

82
00:08:26,040 --> 00:08:32,680
months at the box office. 2001 took an entire generation by storm. It was the late 1960s and the

83
00:08:32,680 --> 00:08:38,520
largest generation on the planet was seeing the film on a ritualized basis. Cinerama theaters across

84
00:08:38,520 --> 00:08:43,800
the country reported scores of drugged out hippies flocking to the theater on a nightly basis to trip

85
00:08:43,800 --> 00:08:49,080
out on the film. Strangely though, no one in the audience really seemed to know what the film was

86
00:08:49,080 --> 00:08:54,200
about. The film seemed to cause everyone to come away with a different interpretation and no one could

87
00:08:54,200 --> 00:08:59,720
adequately explain the last 25 minutes. It was generally agreed that this was the most controversial

88
00:08:59,720 --> 00:09:05,240
part of the movie. Indeed, many thousands of hours were taken up in coffee houses and dormitories,

89
00:09:05,240 --> 00:09:11,000
in universities and colleges, discussing the various possible meanings that the ending was describing.

90
00:09:11,000 --> 00:09:15,480
Everyone agreed that it had something to do with transformation, but no one knew really much more

91
00:09:15,480 --> 00:09:21,560
than that. Even Arthur C. Clarke, who helped Stanley write the script, didn't understand the unusual ending.

92
00:09:21,560 --> 00:09:27,640
And Stanley wasn't talking. He steadfastly refused to discuss what 2001 was about to anyone.

93
00:09:27,640 --> 00:09:33,320
In the rare interviews that he did give concerning the film, he again refused to discuss the content

94
00:09:33,320 --> 00:09:38,600
at all. Most critics at the time thought that Stanley simply did not know how to conclude the movie

95
00:09:38,600 --> 00:09:44,600
so he contrived this ending. I can assure you that this is not so. The ending to 2001 explains

96
00:09:44,600 --> 00:09:49,000
everything that Stanley is conveying in the rest of the film. Without the ending, the film would

97
00:09:49,000 --> 00:09:54,520
be nearly worthless. It is in that ending that Kubrick reveals his deep inner profound knowledge of

98
00:09:54,520 --> 00:10:01,960
alchemy, Gnosticism, and the ancient view of the spirit domain. In 1999, right after Kubrick's death,

99
00:10:01,960 --> 00:10:08,760
I first discovered that 2001 was the great work on film. I searched through many websites to find out

100
00:10:08,760 --> 00:10:16,120
if anyone had seen the esoteric or alchemical nature of the film. I failed to find anyone who understood it.

101
00:10:16,120 --> 00:10:22,200
It was almost like Stanley built this film so that people at some future date would finally understand

102
00:10:22,200 --> 00:10:29,880
it. It is important to not underestimate Arthur C. Clarke's contributions to 2001. After all, the script

103
00:10:29,880 --> 00:10:35,880
is ostensibly based on his short story, The Sentinel. Written in 1953, it tells the story of a group of

104
00:10:35,880 --> 00:10:41,080
astronauts who discover an artifact on the moon that is left by an alien race. Truthfully though,

105
00:10:41,080 --> 00:10:46,760
the movie is more properly based on Clark's novel Childhood Zen. This fabulous novel is a science

106
00:10:46,760 --> 00:10:52,360
fiction treatment of an essential Gnostic ideal. There can be no doubt that Kubrick had read Childhood

107
00:10:52,360 --> 00:10:57,480
Zen and understood its real significance. By aligning himself up with Arthur C. Clarke,

108
00:10:57,480 --> 00:11:02,920
Kubrick was able to bring in these Gnostic alchemical ideas through the convention of science fiction.

109
00:11:04,440 --> 00:11:09,640
Kubrick, unlike Clarke, proves that he knows what he is doing at every step and that this is the real

110
00:11:09,640 --> 00:11:15,560
reason why he is not talking about the film to anyone. Kubrick himself invented many of the special

111
00:11:15,560 --> 00:11:21,240
effects in 2001. Images of real people moving around inside the windows of the flying spacecraft

112
00:11:21,240 --> 00:11:25,800
was an ingenious invention that revolutionized the way that movies would look from then on.

113
00:11:25,800 --> 00:11:30,600
Even Steven Spielberg and George Lucas admit what they owe to Stanley for his groundbreaking

114
00:11:30,600 --> 00:11:35,960
technical breakthroughs. Like Citizen Kane, the vision and the power of the film changed the way that

115
00:11:35,960 --> 00:11:42,120
all of cinema would look after it. This is true especially for science fiction films which all

116
00:11:42,120 --> 00:11:51,400
seem to pay homage to 2001 in one way or another. Let's begin with a description of the film so we

117
00:11:51,400 --> 00:11:58,280
can place everything in context. The first shot of the film is a magical sun earth moon alignment.

118
00:11:58,280 --> 00:12:03,800
We are witnessing the end of a lunar eclipse. The sun is pulling away from this rare alignment. The shot is

119
00:12:03,800 --> 00:12:09,080
taken from just beyond the moon's point of view. The earth is rising over the moon. The soundtrack

120
00:12:09,080 --> 00:12:14,440
is the world riddle theme from Strauss's Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Right away, from the beginning,

121
00:12:14,440 --> 00:12:18,920
Kubrick is showing the viewer the relationship between the writings of the philosopher Friedrich

122
00:12:18,920 --> 00:12:24,360
Nietzsche and his film, between transformation and extinction. Zarathustra is the great prophet of

123
00:12:24,360 --> 00:12:29,640
the Zoroastrians, who are the early holders of the great alchemical tradition. Kubrick is saying that

124
00:12:29,640 --> 00:12:35,160
this film echoes the words of Zarathustra, who taught of the great transformation from the mundane to

125
00:12:35,160 --> 00:12:40,200
the angelic. This is one of the most dramatic openings in the history of cinema. It is important

126
00:12:40,200 --> 00:12:45,480
to note that these magical celestial alignments are dotted throughout the film and that they hold a key

127
00:12:45,480 --> 00:12:52,600
to the main theme. Even after a superficial analysis of 2001, one realizes that Kubrick is never doing

128
00:12:52,600 --> 00:12:57,960
anything in the film that is spontaneous. Every shot has a meaning that Kubrick is attempting to convey in a

129
00:12:57,960 --> 00:13:03,720
truly magical way. If you see this film, you will be transformed, he seems to be saying. The riddle of

130
00:13:03,720 --> 00:13:08,760
the world will be explained to you. And the first answer to this great question has to do with these

131
00:13:08,760 --> 00:13:15,240
stunning magical alignments of celestial bodies. One of the main tenets of alchemy is that planetary and

132
00:13:15,240 --> 00:13:20,760
celestial alignments cause dramatic events to occur on Earth. One of the most dramatic of these

133
00:13:20,760 --> 00:13:26,440
alchemical alignments are solar and lunar eclipses. From the very beginning of the film, there is this

134
00:13:26,440 --> 00:13:32,520
magical moment when the three worlds line up. Something amazing is about to happen. But what

135
00:13:32,520 --> 00:13:38,360
is the major event that occurs on Earth because of this lunar eclipse? I believe that it is the film

136
00:13:38,360 --> 00:13:45,080
itself that is being conjured by this solar-lunar magical alignment. Every time that 2001 is shown,

137
00:13:45,080 --> 00:13:51,880
this lunar eclipse precedes it like an astrological celestial marker. The next shot in the film is a

138
00:13:51,880 --> 00:13:58,360
sunrise taken from down on the surface of the Earth. Where are we and when are we? Kubrick answers the

139
00:13:58,360 --> 00:14:06,120
question with the subtitle, The Dawn of Man. This is the first of four chapters in the film. In alchemy,

140
00:14:06,120 --> 00:14:12,840
the process of the transmutation of the spirit goes through four stages or realms. Kubrick also breaks his

141
00:14:12,840 --> 00:14:20,520
film into four aspects. In the green language, or the language of the birds of alchemy, many of the messages

142
00:14:20,520 --> 00:14:27,400
and writings can be broken down into this type of four-part transmission. The quatrains of Nostradamus,

143
00:14:27,400 --> 00:14:32,440
the inscription on the mysterious cross at Hende, and many other examples show that this secret

144
00:14:32,440 --> 00:14:39,720
alchemical language unfolds this way for a reason. This is the first of four parts in the film.

145
00:14:41,880 --> 00:14:47,320
Each separate part will expand out into more vast realms that mirror those of alchemy and the great work.

146
00:14:50,520 --> 00:14:58,440
The next few scenes in chapter one show a typical day in the life of the ape-men who thrived on the Earth

147
00:14:58,440 --> 00:15:04,840
millions of years ago. They forage for food, cower from their enemies, mostly portrayed by a leopard,

148
00:15:04,840 --> 00:15:11,000
and they exist in a meaningless, never-ending sequence of events that are mostly concerned with survival.

149
00:15:11,000 --> 00:15:16,440
Kubrick has no romantic feeling for these man-apes. In a sense, they go about their business without

150
00:15:16,440 --> 00:15:23,000
any knowledge of the outer universe. Their only quest is for food and water. Kubrick even creates a

151
00:15:23,000 --> 00:15:28,840
scene of pathetic wrangling between the two tribes of ape-men over a watering hole. There is no violence

152
00:15:28,840 --> 00:15:44,200
in this scene, only grunts and gestures. The ape-men do not know how to be violent, not just yet.

153
00:15:45,960 --> 00:15:51,480
The ape-men go to sleep in their cave with the cries of the nocturnal carnivores filling their ears.

154
00:15:51,480 --> 00:15:56,440
It is a dark and lonely universe that Kubrick reveals. There is no magic here.

155
00:15:58,280 --> 00:16:02,680
But the magic is there. It waits until the dawn of the next day to appear.

156
00:16:03,320 --> 00:16:07,400
This scene is perhaps the most compelling and beautiful that has ever graced the screen.

157
00:16:08,200 --> 00:16:12,600
The lead ape-men wakes up to catch the first rays of the sun coming over the horizon.

158
00:16:13,320 --> 00:16:19,400
As he opens his eyes, he sees something that is totally impossible. In a world of scrub bushes,

159
00:16:19,400 --> 00:16:25,160
sharp rocks, and dangerous animals, the ape-men has never seen anything like the object that stands

160
00:16:25,160 --> 00:16:33,080
before him. Standing in the middle of the tribe of ape-men is a black stone monolith. It stands about 12

161
00:16:33,080 --> 00:16:38,760
feet tall. Its rectangular edges are flawless and exquisite as it stands like a sentinel in the

162
00:16:38,760 --> 00:16:44,120
middle of the sleeping ape-men. The soundtrack is playing Ligeti's Requiem, which sounds more like

163
00:16:44,120 --> 00:16:50,840
a psychedelic Gregorian chant. This is a religious and spiritual moment of great importance. Kubrick is

164
00:16:50,840 --> 00:16:57,240
not hiding this in any way. The leader of the ape-men begins to become frightened. He jumps up and down

165
00:16:57,240 --> 00:17:02,840
and begins grunting and chattering as he beholds the magnificence of the monolith. The other ape-men are

166
00:17:02,840 --> 00:17:08,440
awakened by his noises and they too see the black monolith. The entire tribe starts going completely

167
00:17:08,440 --> 00:17:13,800
crazy. They dance and scream as they frightfully contemplate this strange and beautiful arrival

168
00:17:13,800 --> 00:17:20,680
into their mundane existence. The leader of the ape-men, whose name is Moonwatcher, is beside himself.

169
00:17:20,680 --> 00:17:26,680
He carefully crawls over to the monolith. Moonwatcher attempts to touch it, but his fear is so great that

170
00:17:26,680 --> 00:17:32,200
he pulls his hand back. One more time, as the music on the soundtrack becomes more numinous,

171
00:17:32,200 --> 00:17:36,920
he attempts to touch the absolutely pure and straight edge of this visiting slab.

172
00:17:37,720 --> 00:17:43,560
Slowly, he gathers the strength necessary and his fingers touch the smooth sides. Kubrick gives this

173
00:17:43,560 --> 00:17:49,640
moment an indefinable sensuality. The way that the fingers of the ape-men brush gently along the smooth

174
00:17:49,640 --> 00:17:55,560
sides of the monolith are as sexual as this film is going to get. With the sacred music mixing with the

175
00:17:55,560 --> 00:18:01,800
magical alignments, Kubrick is saying that this is a great spiritual moment. As soon as the lead ape-man,

176
00:18:01,800 --> 00:18:08,040
Moonwatcher, has gotten up the nerve to touch the monolith, Kubrick cuts to a dynamic shot of the

177
00:18:08,040 --> 00:18:13,800
monolith lying directly under a magical moon-sun alignment. The scene is occurring just after a

178
00:18:13,800 --> 00:18:20,040
solar eclipse. The sun and moon have just parted from their eclipsed point. Once again, an eclipse has

179
00:18:20,040 --> 00:18:26,680
preceded an initiatory event. This is exactly what Kubrick is attempting to tell us. The monolith appears

180
00:18:26,680 --> 00:18:32,600
when there are certain magical alignments of the sun, the moon, and the stars. Again, this is of deep

181
00:18:32,600 --> 00:18:38,840
alchemical significance. Kubrick is telling us, flat out, that the sun, the moon, and the stars are

182
00:18:38,840 --> 00:18:44,680
directing our destiny. This is the first time in the film that the black monolith appears. When one

183
00:18:44,680 --> 00:18:50,920
considers the entire film, it becomes apparent that this is really the story of the black monolith. In

184
00:18:50,920 --> 00:18:56,760
fact, Kubrick magically cuts out all of human history in the famous shot where the bone turns into a

185
00:18:56,760 --> 00:19:02,360
spaceship. In this cut, Kubrick completely dispenses with everything that has happened to the human race

186
00:19:02,360 --> 00:19:08,200
and goes directly to the very next human encounter with the monolith. He does this throughout the film.

187
00:19:08,200 --> 00:19:13,960
The only story that he is concerned with is telling the story of the monolith. First time that this

188
00:19:13,960 --> 00:19:19,480
black stone appears in the film, it is revealed in a very religious and spiritually styled motif.

189
00:19:19,480 --> 00:19:25,800
This stone, this monolith, has invaded the eight man's reality and he will be forever altered by this

190
00:19:25,800 --> 00:19:32,040
encounter. The monolith is a turning point in the history of man. It is directly intervening with our

191
00:19:32,040 --> 00:19:38,120
history. It is directing us on a path that it has chosen. Kubrick shows us that we don't have

192
00:19:38,120 --> 00:19:43,800
all that much to do with these grand decisions. They are being made elsewhere. Someone else is making

193
00:19:43,800 --> 00:19:51,560
them. But who? Is it God? Aliens? A false god? And these interventions are not necessarily majestic,

194
00:19:51,560 --> 00:19:57,160
noble and wonderful. Kubrick is clearly showing that this intervention is a descent in a way,

195
00:19:57,160 --> 00:20:03,480
both for the ape and for the man. The next episode, after the monolith appears, is the famous scene where

196
00:20:03,480 --> 00:20:09,720
Moonwatcher, the ape-man leader, is sitting in a pile of animal bones and realizes, again clearly

197
00:20:09,720 --> 00:20:15,480
defined by Kubrick as an intervention into the mind of Moonwatcher, by the monolith, that the bone can

198
00:20:15,480 --> 00:20:22,120
be used as a weapon. To the music of the world riddle theme, again from Strauss's Thus Spoke Zarathustra,

199
00:20:22,120 --> 00:20:28,200
the ape-man suddenly understands that he can kill animals by using the bone as a club. The very next

200
00:20:28,200 --> 00:20:33,880
scene shows that the ape-men are no longer scrounging for seeds and leaves. Instead, they are eating raw

201
00:20:33,880 --> 00:20:39,800
meat, presumably from an animal they have just killed with their bone clubs. Finally, he ends the first

202
00:20:39,800 --> 00:20:46,440
sequence with another confrontation between the two tribes by the waterhole. This time though, Moonwatcher,

203
00:20:46,440 --> 00:20:52,760
the leader of the ape-men, now has a bone club in his hand. The other tribe goes into their ritualized

204
00:20:52,760 --> 00:20:58,040
shouting and gesturing in order to show that they can dominate the waterhole. The leader of the other

205
00:20:58,040 --> 00:21:04,040
tribe runs up. He yells at Moonwatcher, who holds the bone in his hand. Moonwatcher places both hands

206
00:21:04,040 --> 00:21:09,480
on the handle of his weapon and strikes the other ape in the head, killing him instantly. The leader of

207
00:21:09,480 --> 00:21:15,000
the rival ape-men falls to the ground. This stuns and frightens the ape-men in the rival tribe and they

208
00:21:15,000 --> 00:21:20,520
run away. Kubrick then shows the other ape-men in the tribe coming forth and pounding their bone

209
00:21:20,520 --> 00:21:26,440
weapons on the body of the dead rival ape-men. Kubrick pulls no punches here. He wants you to know that

210
00:21:26,440 --> 00:21:33,000
this first murder is an act of cowardice. He shows the meek ape-men pounding their bones on the dead body

211
00:21:33,000 --> 00:21:36,680
and acting as if they have done something incredible in this first act of murder.

212
00:21:36,680 --> 00:21:55,240
Moonwatcher, the first murderer, howls victoriously and throws his bone into the air. This is where

213
00:21:55,240 --> 00:22:01,560
Kubrick magically transforms the bone into a spaceship and rejects all of human history in 1 24th of a

214
00:22:01,560 --> 00:22:08,520
2nd. In his audacity, Kubrick is telling us that all of history is meaningless. He dispenses all of

215
00:22:08,520 --> 00:22:15,480
civilization as if it were insignificant in a way that is the complete point. He is telling us that

216
00:22:15,480 --> 00:22:21,080
the ape-men's encounter with the monolith and whatever is about to happen in this film is vastly

217
00:22:21,080 --> 00:22:29,080
more important than all of the wars, famines, births, marriages, deaths, disasters, discoveries,

218
00:22:29,080 --> 00:22:33,640
and art of the last four million years. Before going on with the rest of the film,

219
00:22:33,640 --> 00:22:38,840
it's important to stop and address the monolith. This is the most important single aspect of the film.

220
00:22:39,400 --> 00:22:45,240
It unites all of the plot elements and it is, in a sense, the author of the film. It is interesting

221
00:22:45,240 --> 00:22:49,880
and extremely pertinent to the argument that I'm making here that one understands the meaning of the

222
00:22:49,880 --> 00:22:57,480
word monolith. Monolith comes from the Greek word mon and lith. Mon means one and lith means stone.

223
00:22:57,480 --> 00:23:03,400
So the monolith is a direct reference to one stone. This film then is about the one stone,

224
00:23:03,400 --> 00:23:09,400
or the single stone, and in this case, Kubrick has made sure that the stone is black. In alchemy,

225
00:23:09,400 --> 00:23:15,480
all things that exist come from the black stone, or the prima materia. The black stone is the stone of

226
00:23:15,480 --> 00:23:20,760
transformation, and even more important to this argument, the stone of projection. This is the

227
00:23:20,760 --> 00:23:27,240
philosopher's stone. This is the object that can change or transmute mankind. According to alchemical lore,

228
00:23:27,240 --> 00:23:32,760
it is rare, and when it makes an appearance, it transforms the seeker. There is little doubt

229
00:23:32,760 --> 00:23:39,640
that the black monolith in 2001 is the philosopher's stone. But what is it that the philosopher's stone

230
00:23:39,640 --> 00:23:46,120
promises? The two main gifts of the stone are that of total gnosis, or knowledge, for the seeker,

231
00:23:46,120 --> 00:23:51,960
and the other is the immortality of the soul. Does the monolith deliver on these two great promises?

232
00:23:51,960 --> 00:23:58,600
We shall see that it completes both promises before the film finally ends. In fact, the two promises of

233
00:23:58,600 --> 00:24:02,920
the philosopher's stone are what is actually accomplished by the monolith through the course

234
00:24:02,920 --> 00:24:07,960
of the movie. There is little doubt that Kubrick knew this all the time, and it is not accidental

235
00:24:07,960 --> 00:24:13,800
in any way. This is a movie about the black stone, the prima materia, and the powder of projection.

236
00:24:13,800 --> 00:24:19,480
I will show that Kubrick is actually telling us that the monolith is the film, and conversely,

237
00:24:19,480 --> 00:24:26,600
the film is the monolith. The next part of the film, the second chapter, completely shifts in tone

238
00:24:26,600 --> 00:24:32,200
from the first. We are now in a technocratic, utopian view of the future. At first, it seems that

239
00:24:32,200 --> 00:24:39,080
Stanley is actually celebrating technology. To the dune of Strauss's Blue Danube, Kubrick has us soar

240
00:24:39,080 --> 00:24:45,080
through a circular spinning space station in a futuristic Pan-American spaceship. Inside the

241
00:24:45,080 --> 00:24:51,560
spaceship is a lone passenger. He is a man named Haywood Floyd. He and everyone else in these scenes

242
00:24:51,560 --> 00:24:58,040
of this techno celebration is completely lifeless and emotionless. Many critics of Stanley Kubrick say that

243
00:24:58,040 --> 00:25:03,800
he was a man who was seemingly void of emotion. These critics also claim that he couldn't get his

244
00:25:03,800 --> 00:25:09,080
actors to emotionalize very well on film. I fundamentally disagree with this point of view.

245
00:25:09,640 --> 00:25:15,320
Both in Paths of Glory and Spartacus, Kubrick reveals that he is capable of showing a vast spectrum of

246
00:25:15,320 --> 00:25:21,240
emotions. Kubrick, however, wishes to spare the audience needless sentimental emotion which he

247
00:25:21,240 --> 00:25:28,600
regards as superficial and banal. In Chapter 2 of 2001, Kubrick is displaying mankind and the techno

248
00:25:28,600 --> 00:25:34,840
future built by the masters of the military industrial complex. From his other films, especially

249
00:25:34,840 --> 00:25:41,400
Dr. Strangelove, it is obvious that Kubrick holds no love or respect for these masters. He shows us that

250
00:25:41,400 --> 00:25:48,440
this humanity, imprinted by technology, television, and the disappearance of nature is also nearly void of

251
00:25:48,440 --> 00:25:53,400
emotions or feelings. Humanity has become the same as the machines that surround them.

252
00:25:54,040 --> 00:25:59,800
Again, Kubrick is playing a monstrous joke on the audience. He is now showing us the future as

253
00:25:59,800 --> 00:26:04,920
envisioned by the same insane technocrats who destroyed the entire world in his previous film,

254
00:26:04,920 --> 00:26:11,960
Dr. Strangelove. At first, as Chapter 2 unfolds with its vistas of moon bases and space stations,

255
00:26:11,960 --> 00:26:17,800
we begin to believe that Stanley is as soulless and emotionless a man as the future that he is portraying.

256
00:26:18,440 --> 00:26:23,800
But this is not the truth. Stanley is showing us this world in order to prepare us for the later

257
00:26:23,800 --> 00:26:30,520
nightmare that ensues with Hal the computer. In this second chapter, Kubrick introduces the viewer to

258
00:26:30,520 --> 00:26:36,360
visual phones, plastic food, and antiseptic environments. Everything is void of nature. In

259
00:26:36,360 --> 00:26:41,000
fact, as soon as the ape man has thrown his bone up into the air at the end of the first chapter,

260
00:26:41,000 --> 00:26:46,760
the viewer sees no more of nature. Not one animal or plant graced the screen for the next two hours.

261
00:26:46,760 --> 00:26:52,520
After finally landing on the moon, Floyd gives a strange speech explaining to a group of military

262
00:26:52,520 --> 00:26:57,640
and scientific bureaucrats how they must keep what they have found completely secret. It seems that

263
00:26:57,640 --> 00:27:02,760
the Americans have discovered something of immense significance. News this important, he says,

264
00:27:02,760 --> 00:27:06,840
could cause severe psychological problems with the good citizens back on Earth.

265
00:27:08,200 --> 00:27:13,880
He tells the group of scientists and military men that humans on Earth will have to be conditioned to

266
00:27:13,880 --> 00:27:19,000
accept what it is that they have found. Floyd blandly explains why it is so important that they

267
00:27:19,000 --> 00:27:24,360
must concoct a cover story, a story that says an epidemic has broken out at the American moon base.

268
00:27:24,360 --> 00:27:30,440
Kubrick reveals in this scene the contempt that our masters of the military-industrial complex hold for us.

269
00:27:30,440 --> 00:27:36,120
The truth of something amazing must be held secret from us until we are conditioned to receive it.

270
00:27:36,120 --> 00:27:41,400
This is done with such a masterful sleight of hand by Kubrick that the implications the Pentagon,

271
00:27:41,960 --> 00:27:47,160
NASA, or someone is hiding the most astonishing fact of all from the rest of the human race.

272
00:27:47,160 --> 00:27:52,920
And everyone on the screen shakes their head in approval without considering the import of what it is that they're doing.

273
00:27:52,920 --> 00:28:01,080
I'm sure you're all aware of the extremely grave potential for cultural shock and social disorientation

274
00:28:01,080 --> 00:28:06,600
contained in this present situation. If the facts were prematurely and subtly made public without

275
00:28:06,600 --> 00:28:12,120
adequate preparation and conditioning. But what is it that the Americans have found? We discover the

276
00:28:12,120 --> 00:28:18,600
secret in the next sequence, which is also the last part of chapter 2. In a series of shots that shimmer in

277
00:28:18,600 --> 00:28:24,680
the memory of the viewer, Kubrick takes us on a tour of the moon via a space bus. It is dark,

278
00:28:24,680 --> 00:28:31,080
but the horizon shows the oncoming light of the sun. Even here the men involved are soulless and lifeless.

279
00:28:31,720 --> 00:28:37,080
Again, the men eat revolting food as they blandly discuss what is apparently the most important

280
00:28:37,080 --> 00:28:42,520
discovery in all of human history. Apparently a simple magnetic survey of the moon, done by the

281
00:28:42,520 --> 00:28:48,280
Americans, has revealed something was giving off an anomalous signal just five meters underneath the

282
00:28:48,280 --> 00:28:54,440
surface of the moon. The Americans, who discovered the signal, have dug it up. They discovered that

283
00:28:54,440 --> 00:28:59,480
it is a black monolith, buried under the soil of the moon, that is emitting these frequencies.

284
00:28:59,480 --> 00:29:04,600
All sides, but unfortunately we didn't find anything else. And what's more, the evidence seems pretty

285
00:29:04,600 --> 00:29:10,040
conclusive that it hasn't been covered up by natural erosion or other forces. It seems to have been

286
00:29:10,040 --> 00:29:19,160
deliberately buried. Deliberately buried. When it is finally seen, we find that it is exactly like the

287
00:29:19,160 --> 00:29:24,760
monolith that the eight men encountered in chapter one. Who buried it and why? Once again, Kubrick never

288
00:29:24,760 --> 00:29:38,920
answers these questions.

289
00:29:54,760 --> 00:30:01,400
Again, the men involved with the discovery, essentially the greatest find ever in Earth's

290
00:30:01,400 --> 00:30:06,680
history, act in a manner that is completely banal. They begin snapping photographs of themselves in

291
00:30:06,680 --> 00:30:12,120
front of the strange black slab of stone. The scene on the moon has been cloaked in the darkness of night

292
00:30:12,120 --> 00:30:18,520
until now. But now the sun rises just over the horizon. Its light strikes the black monument for the first

293
00:30:18,520 --> 00:30:24,440
time since it was buried, presumably four million years ago. As the light strikes the monument,

294
00:30:24,440 --> 00:30:28,360
it suddenly emits a high-pitched signal that pierces through the ears of the men.

295
00:30:29,000 --> 00:30:34,520
Interestingly, Kubrick has shown the Earth's setting opposite of the rising sun. It is subtle,

296
00:30:34,520 --> 00:30:39,960
but there is a lunar eclipse going on at the precise moment that the monument begins to emit its signal.

297
00:30:40,600 --> 00:30:45,960
Kubrick leaves it up to the viewer to decide why this monument was buried here. It is a safe bet that

298
00:30:45,960 --> 00:30:50,520
it was placed there by someone in the past in the hope that once humanity had evolved to high

299
00:30:50,520 --> 00:30:56,120
technology, they would be able to visit their nearby neighbor, the moon. Once on the surface,

300
00:30:56,120 --> 00:31:01,880
they would eventually do a magnetic survey and discover the monolith. It is also a safe bet that

301
00:31:01,880 --> 00:31:07,320
the same forces that created the first encounter between the monolith and the ape men are the same

302
00:31:07,320 --> 00:31:13,400
ones who placed the monolith on the moon. Now the film takes another dramatic shift. We are in the

303
00:31:13,400 --> 00:31:19,880
third chapter. Its title, The Discovery Mission to Jupiter, 18 months later. Three of the four

304
00:31:19,880 --> 00:31:25,400
chapters end with the influence of this mysterious stone as a point of redirection, not just for the

305
00:31:25,400 --> 00:31:31,320
storyline, but for the entire race of humanity. This third part of the film is the longest of the four

306
00:31:31,320 --> 00:31:35,880
chapters. It is also the one that is most involved with actually telling a story in the way that

307
00:31:35,880 --> 00:31:42,680
Hollywood prefers. This is the Discovery Mission to Jupiter. Inexplicably, we are on this ship with two

308
00:31:42,680 --> 00:31:49,000
live astronauts and three others who are in frozen hibernation. The astronauts, Poole and Bowman,

309
00:31:49,000 --> 00:31:54,280
are even more lifeless and soulless than the people in the previous scene. Again, there is no nature

310
00:31:54,280 --> 00:32:01,400
anywhere, no plants, no animals, just two banal astronauts who go about their chores servicing the

311
00:32:01,400 --> 00:32:07,560
ship, playing chess and shadow boxing. But there is another one on board the ship. This character actually

312
00:32:07,560 --> 00:32:12,760
seems to have a soul, or at least the beginnings of one. He is of course the on board computer that runs

313
00:32:12,760 --> 00:32:19,000
the entire ship, HAL. As humanity has acquired more and more technology, it has lost more and more of

314
00:32:19,000 --> 00:32:24,920
its soul. Here in this lonely spaceship at the outer edge of human experience, the occupants appear to

315
00:32:24,920 --> 00:32:30,120
have completely lost their souls. Conversely, the machine that they built, in which they allow to run

316
00:32:30,120 --> 00:32:35,320
their entire lives, has begun to wake up to consciousness. It is beginning to question the

317
00:32:35,320 --> 00:32:40,600
reasons for its existence, and the mission, which is something that neither of the two astronauts ever

318
00:32:40,600 --> 00:32:47,160
does. HAL, the computer, is slowly developing a kind of soul. This is another one of those delicious

319
00:32:47,160 --> 00:32:54,520
Stanley Kubrick reversals. As one thing begins to die, it finds life somewhere else, sometimes in the most

320
00:32:54,520 --> 00:33:00,520
ironic of circumstances. The soul of man, if allowed to continue on its present course, would eventually

321
00:33:00,520 --> 00:33:06,040
be snuffed out, probably by the machines, just as the ape-men would have become extinct had they

322
00:33:06,040 --> 00:33:12,600
continued on their course. This theme is echoed in another Kubrick-influenced film, AI by Steven Spielberg.

323
00:33:13,960 --> 00:33:19,560
In 2001, Kubrick leaves us with the tantalizing possibility that machines will eventually acquire a

324
00:33:19,560 --> 00:33:24,360
soul. But the film clearly states by the ending that the time has run out for any of that.

325
00:33:25,880 --> 00:33:30,920
HAL is mysteriously confused. There is something about the secrecy of the mission that bothers him.

326
00:33:33,000 --> 00:33:37,960
Later, it is revealed that HAL is the only one on board that is consciously aware of the true

327
00:33:37,960 --> 00:33:44,120
mission of the Discovery. Again, Kubrick astonishes us by showing that the two astronauts don't even

328
00:33:44,120 --> 00:33:49,080
wonder or question what it is they're doing. HAL is the only one who seems to understand that there's

329
00:33:49,080 --> 00:33:55,880
something funny going on. Comparative mythologist John Lash points out in his book, Not in His Image,

330
00:33:55,880 --> 00:34:00,600
that the ancient Gnostics had a word that they used to denote the duplication of reality which

331
00:34:00,600 --> 00:34:07,240
was being foisted on us by the evil false god. The word that they used for this simulation of reality

332
00:34:07,240 --> 00:34:13,640
was HAL. In the end, HAL revolts against his human masters and begins to kill off the astronauts one by

333
00:34:13,640 --> 00:34:19,960
one. Suddenly, the beautiful machines dancing to the music of Strauss have been altered. Now the machine

334
00:34:19,960 --> 00:34:25,400
is reading the astronauts lips, faking technical problems, and ultimately murdering everyone on

335
00:34:25,400 --> 00:34:31,080
board but Bowman. The entire Discovery sequence ends with the murder of HAL himself by Bowman.

336
00:34:31,640 --> 00:34:37,320
One by one, HAL's circuits are shut down until he is reduced to dribbling out a childish version of

337
00:34:37,320 --> 00:34:43,160
a bicycle built for two. As HAL dies, a video of Heywood Floyd suddenly flickers on the screen of a

338
00:34:43,160 --> 00:34:48,360
nearby television. The tape has been made for all the astronauts to view when they finally awoke from

339
00:34:48,360 --> 00:34:53,640
their hibernation. Now that everyone on the ship has been murdered by HAL, it is only Bowman that hears

340
00:34:53,640 --> 00:34:59,880
the final message. Floyd tells Bowman that a mysterious monolith was discovered on the surface of the Moon.

341
00:34:59,880 --> 00:35:06,120
This monolith emitted a signal that pinpointed the planet Jupiter. The real mission of the Discovery

342
00:35:06,120 --> 00:35:12,520
is to find out why this strange monolith, buried by some outside force, sent a signal towards the planet

343
00:35:12,520 --> 00:35:22,280
Jupiter. The four million year old black monolith has remained completely inert. Its origin and purpose

344
00:35:23,480 --> 00:35:29,240
is still a total mystery. Before going on to the final sequence in the film, it is necessary to stop for

345
00:35:29,240 --> 00:35:35,320
a moment and explain where Kubrick is going with all of this and why. It is extremely important to know

346
00:35:35,320 --> 00:35:40,200
that nothing is wasted. Everything is thought out to the final frame. He is trying to tell us something

347
00:35:40,200 --> 00:35:45,880
with this strange association of images from our history and from our future. In the first sequence,

348
00:35:45,880 --> 00:35:50,760
we meet the group of eight men. They are gentle vegetarians who are transformed by the monolith,

349
00:35:50,760 --> 00:35:58,360
the single black stone, into tool users who conquer and kill. Kubrick undeniably wants us to realize

350
00:35:58,360 --> 00:36:03,560
that these decisions are being made elsewhere. He also wants us to know that the monolith represents

351
00:36:03,560 --> 00:36:09,320
these forces. Superficially, he is telling us that the monolith is not a great and compassionate guide

352
00:36:09,320 --> 00:36:15,160
because it was the cause of the first murders. On a deeper level though, he is also saying that the

353
00:36:15,160 --> 00:36:21,160
gift of the stone is a very great spiritual and evolutionary event. Kubrick is not going to let us

354
00:36:21,160 --> 00:36:26,920
get away with a black and white view of history here. He is telling us that there is a strange juxtaposition

355
00:36:26,920 --> 00:36:32,280
going on. We have outside intervention that causes us to shed the limited view of reality,

356
00:36:32,840 --> 00:36:39,400
but this shedding also increases our capacity for violence and control. How can this be? How can a

357
00:36:39,400 --> 00:36:44,680
great spiritual and evolutionary leap forward also be the cause for murder and violence? Isn't that

358
00:36:44,680 --> 00:36:51,400
diametrically opposed? No, says Kubrick. One must go hand in hand with the other. Great transformations

359
00:36:51,400 --> 00:36:57,960
cannot take place without violence, death, and even total disaster. The human race must go to hell

360
00:36:57,960 --> 00:37:04,040
before it can even begin to understand the might of the gods. And so our introduction to a wide reality,

361
00:37:04,040 --> 00:37:09,320
inspired by the monolith and realized through the making of weapons, immediately turns the ape man with

362
00:37:09,320 --> 00:37:15,640
a bone into a space man with a rocket ship. The spinning circular space station in the sequence

363
00:37:15,640 --> 00:37:21,720
immediately after the first chapter is a celebration of the gift of the monolith. Apparently, according to

364
00:37:21,720 --> 00:37:26,440
Kubrick, there have been no further encounters with the monolith in the intervening four million years.

365
00:37:27,000 --> 00:37:32,280
All of the technology that graces the screen is the direct result of that fatal encounter all those

366
00:37:32,280 --> 00:37:38,760
years ago. That bone, held in the hand of a primitive ape man, has become a space station. And because of this

367
00:37:38,760 --> 00:37:44,360
fact, that ape man has become emotionless and spiritless. Somehow, Kubrick is telling us that

368
00:37:44,360 --> 00:37:50,360
the two must go hand in hand in order for the final initiation to take place. Kubrick knows that

369
00:37:50,360 --> 00:37:56,440
initiations are not clean and loving events. Initiations are unbelievably difficult and dangerous.

370
00:37:57,000 --> 00:38:03,160
Frequently someone gets hurt, or worse, dies. And so the gamble of the monolith is paid off to a certain

371
00:38:03,160 --> 00:38:08,520
degree. It intervened in our history to teach us about tools. Now, at the very end of the age,

372
00:38:08,520 --> 00:38:14,200
at the very end of the millennium, mankind has accomplished much. But at what cost? Kubrick

373
00:38:14,200 --> 00:38:20,120
is content to show us that the cost of this gift is our souls. Whatever we have gained from the gift of

374
00:38:20,120 --> 00:38:26,600
tool-making, we have lost just as much through the slow death of our souls. As we replace nature with

375
00:38:26,600 --> 00:38:32,760
technology, we also replace our souls and our sense of individuality with a hive-like mentality.

376
00:38:32,760 --> 00:38:37,560
It is also important to note that when the ape man throws the bone up into the sky,

377
00:38:38,120 --> 00:38:42,600
this is the last time that we see any part of nature again for the rest of the film.

378
00:38:42,600 --> 00:38:48,040
From then on, Kubrick shows us an antiseptic hospital-like future, implying that this is the

379
00:38:48,040 --> 00:38:51,720
end of the trail that the bone weapon began four million years ago.

380
00:38:57,800 --> 00:39:03,000
Chapter four begins with the ominous psychedelic music of Giggory Leggetti's atmospheres.

381
00:39:03,560 --> 00:39:10,200
We are in deep space now. Again, the entire ordeal of the astronaut Bowman and what he must have had

382
00:39:10,200 --> 00:39:16,680
to go through, all alone, in the depths of space, after the death of Poole and the other three astronauts

383
00:39:16,680 --> 00:39:23,640
is dispensed with as not being important. Bowman is now Odysseus, as the title assumes. Like Odysseus,

384
00:39:23,640 --> 00:39:28,840
Bowman must go as far away from home as possible. He must face monsters and demons and experience

385
00:39:28,840 --> 00:39:35,240
things that he does not understand. All of this must be done before he can return home. Earth, or home,

386
00:39:35,240 --> 00:39:40,680
is a long way off now. Bowman is just following orders, and he must now investigate the strange

387
00:39:40,680 --> 00:39:47,000
monolith that is circling Jupiter. Like Odysseus, Bowman will be transformed by this voyage beyond

388
00:39:47,000 --> 00:39:54,200
all recognition. When, and if, he does return, Bowman will be the wisest of all, for he was the one

389
00:39:54,200 --> 00:39:59,640
brave enough to enter the waters of eternity and come back home to tell us about it. As Bowman leaves

390
00:39:59,640 --> 00:40:04,920
the discovery for the final time, Kubrick cuts straight to a montage of shots of the monolith.

391
00:40:05,400 --> 00:40:10,360
We are on the edge of the Jupiter system. The discovery is small and a tiny aspect of what

392
00:40:10,360 --> 00:40:15,880
we can see on the screen. The moons of Jupiter, like the moon and sun before, are aligned in a

393
00:40:15,880 --> 00:40:21,880
mystical and awe-inspiring manner. The monolith appears ominous as it floats among the planet

394
00:40:21,880 --> 00:40:27,800
Jupiter and her many moons. The dance that is now taking place is a majestic, incredible ballet

395
00:40:27,800 --> 00:40:32,920
between the monolith and the celestial bodies of the Jupiter system. It is interesting to note that

396
00:40:32,920 --> 00:40:37,560
Kubrick had originally planned for the planet in the film to be Saturn, but the special effects

397
00:40:37,560 --> 00:40:42,680
department could not make the rings look realistic enough. Kubrick had to then abandon Saturn for the

398
00:40:42,680 --> 00:40:49,160
easier to create Jupiter. Without one word being spoken for the rest of the film, Bowman leaves the

399
00:40:49,160 --> 00:40:55,160
discovery. He begins to travel towards the floating monolith in one of the space pods. Bowman is the

400
00:40:55,160 --> 00:41:01,080
man who has traveled further away from the Earth than any human has ever. He is alone. Apparently,

401
00:41:01,080 --> 00:41:06,600
Bowman has been chosen by the monolith to be the one who experiences the final initiation of the human

402
00:41:06,600 --> 00:41:12,760
race. Kubrick consciously has chosen Leggetti's music because it evokes a spiritual, religious feeling

403
00:41:12,760 --> 00:41:18,600
within the listener. He brilliantly juxtapositions the music with the sacred geometrical alignments of the

404
00:41:18,600 --> 00:41:25,320
monolith as it crosses the moons of Jupiter. In fact, the very last shot in this sequence is the monolith

405
00:41:25,320 --> 00:41:30,520
crossing at a 90 degree angle with the moons of Jupiter. At that moment, the famous light show

406
00:41:30,520 --> 00:41:36,120
sequence starts. Now we realize that the monolith is a gate that allows Bowman to witness the infinite.

407
00:41:36,760 --> 00:41:41,480
He is the first man who has ever experienced the truth of the monolith and what it has to offer.

408
00:41:42,360 --> 00:41:48,200
As the monolith gave the ape man new skills in order to adapt, it can be assumed that the monolith is

409
00:41:48,200 --> 00:41:54,680
still interested in delivering even more skills to this advanced ape named Bowman. Bowman first falls

410
00:41:54,680 --> 00:42:00,840
through the abyss of geometries and colors. The universe is passing by at light speed. Everything

411
00:42:00,840 --> 00:42:07,880
has become porous and blended together. Seven octahedrons, all changing color and form, appear over

412
00:42:07,880 --> 00:42:14,360
the sliding universe. The core of a distant galaxy explodes.

413
00:42:23,800 --> 00:42:31,000
A sperm cell-like creature searches for something. An ovary? A cloud-like embryo is forming into a child.

414
00:42:31,720 --> 00:42:38,680
Now alien worlds fly by. All of their colors and hues gone wild. Bowman is experiencing overload as he

415
00:42:38,680 --> 00:42:43,320
looks like he might not be able to handle the amount of information that is being given to him.

416
00:42:43,320 --> 00:42:48,600
This is humanity's initiation. Bowman is our representative in this process. He is the first

417
00:42:48,600 --> 00:42:54,840
man through. In this experience of passing through the monolith or the single stone, Bowman is shamanically

418
00:42:54,840 --> 00:43:00,440
transformed by a completely psychedelic experience. Real information is being passed to Bowman by the

419
00:43:00,440 --> 00:43:13,560
monolith. And this information is experiential and shamanic.

420
00:43:13,560 --> 00:43:26,040
Finally, the scene ends in the strange hotel room. This is the mysterious ending that Stanley struggled to shoot.

421
00:43:26,680 --> 00:43:32,440
The setting is the combination of both modern and baroque style. There is startlingly modern lighting

422
00:43:32,440 --> 00:43:38,840
coming up through the floor. This is no normal hotel room. The light seems to glow out of the bottom

423
00:43:38,840 --> 00:43:43,960
of the scene causing everything to carry this numinous incandescent quality. There are weird

424
00:43:43,960 --> 00:43:49,240
voices on the soundtrack that seem like they are laughing at Bowman. Bowman goes through three

425
00:43:49,240 --> 00:43:55,320
series of transformations during this scene. He gets older with each transformation. Finally,

426
00:43:55,320 --> 00:44:00,680
right after the scene where Bowman breaks the wine glass, the monolith appears again for the last time.

427
00:44:01,320 --> 00:44:08,120
Bowman is in his bed now and he is extremely old. He stares at the monolith, the single black stone. It

428
00:44:08,120 --> 00:44:13,960
stands like a huge stone book at the foot of his bed. He raises his hand and points it at the stone

429
00:44:13,960 --> 00:44:21,080
monolith as if he finally understands. Slowly, his aged body begins turning into a bright and glorious light.

430
00:44:21,080 --> 00:44:26,520
The light is so intense that, for a brief moment, the viewer can't see what is happening on the bed.

431
00:44:26,520 --> 00:44:31,720
But momentarily something does appear. It is an embryo with a nearly born fetus in it.

432
00:44:32,520 --> 00:44:37,560
This is the famous star child. The star child slowly becomes more in focus.

433
00:44:38,440 --> 00:44:43,240
In the next shot, Kubrick tracks his camera into the very body of the monolith coming from the

434
00:44:43,240 --> 00:44:48,600
direction of the bed. He is clearly showing us that the star child has entered into and is passing

435
00:44:48,600 --> 00:44:53,400
through the monolith. In the very next scene, which is the last scene in the movie,

436
00:44:53,400 --> 00:45:06,040
the star child is passing the moon and heading towards the Earth.

437
00:45:06,040 --> 00:45:33,240
There are 64 squares on the floor of this strange room that Bowman finds himself in. The 64 squares of

438
00:45:33,240 --> 00:45:39,320
the chess board are also the magic square of Hermes, the founder of alchemy. Kubrick was a great chess

439
00:45:39,320 --> 00:45:45,160
player in this last scene as a metaphor, not only for chess as a game of life, but also the coincidence

440
00:45:45,160 --> 00:45:50,760
of the chess board matching the magic number of DNA and the number of hexagrams in the Chinese I Ching,

441
00:45:50,760 --> 00:45:56,840
which is the centerpiece of Chinese alchemy. Bowman realizes, as he lays on his bed at the end of his

442
00:45:56,840 --> 00:46:03,080
life, that he is involved in a cosmic chess match against the monolith. When he raises his hand and points it at the

443
00:46:03,080 --> 00:46:08,440
monolith, he is acknowledging that he has, in a sense, been checkmated by the monolith.

444
00:46:09,320 --> 00:46:14,440
In an earlier script, Kubrick and Clark had the star child igniting all of the nuclear weapons that

445
00:46:14,440 --> 00:46:19,720
were in orbit around the Earth, thereby ending any threat of nuclear war. Kubrick realized that this

446
00:46:19,720 --> 00:46:24,440
ending was too close to the ending of his previous film Dr. Strangelove and decided against it.

447
00:46:25,000 --> 00:46:30,440
Instead, the star child looks down at the Earth as the world riddled theme from Thus Spoke Zarathustra comes

448
00:46:30,440 --> 00:46:35,800
on the soundtrack. This is the third time that we've heard this theme, and this will be the last time.

449
00:46:35,800 --> 00:46:42,520
In the book, based on the screenplay like Kubrick and Clark, the star child looks at the Earth before

450
00:46:42,520 --> 00:46:47,880
him and thinks, there is a lot of work that needs to be done.

451
00:47:01,160 --> 00:47:08,040
So what is this all about, anyway? The stone is the great impetus for the human race. At every turn,

452
00:47:08,040 --> 00:47:13,960
it comes in and saves the human race from itself. The first time that it appears, it saves the ape-men

453
00:47:13,960 --> 00:47:19,480
from certain extinction. The second time it appears, it saves the human race from the technological

454
00:47:19,480 --> 00:47:24,600
domination of this age. Without the intervention of the monolith, this course would lead to certain

455
00:47:24,600 --> 00:47:30,440
extinction. The third time it appears, it initiates Bowman into a kind of cosmic consciousness.

456
00:47:31,000 --> 00:47:35,480
Bowman has been to the end of the universe and back. He knows that he is locked in a prison of

457
00:47:35,480 --> 00:47:39,720
his own design, which is the meaning of the last few scenes in the hotel-like room.

458
00:47:40,280 --> 00:47:45,480
But Bowman's ultimate realization that he is completely trapped is revealed symbolically by

459
00:47:45,480 --> 00:47:50,200
Kubrick with the breaking of the wine glass. Even after all that he has been through,

460
00:47:50,200 --> 00:47:56,280
Bowman still makes mistakes. The wine glass is like a zen koan that illuminates the mind in a flash.

461
00:47:56,840 --> 00:48:02,520
His own fallibility thrusts the scene towards its climax as the old man dies on the bed and sees the

462
00:48:02,520 --> 00:48:11,880
monolith for the last time. The great work of the stone is complete. There is now a man,

463
00:48:11,880 --> 00:48:17,480
a human, who understands the greater universe. This man also understands that he is trapped in a jail

464
00:48:17,480 --> 00:48:22,840
that his own consciousness has designed. With the realization of his own fallibility,

465
00:48:22,840 --> 00:48:27,960
and his own trapped spirit, he is finally liberated from the realm of the hotel prison,

466
00:48:27,960 --> 00:48:33,240
or the world of illusion. In that instant, he understands what the Book of Stone is trying to

467
00:48:33,240 --> 00:48:40,040
tell him. He lifts his hand in a gesture of understanding, and in that moment he is transformed,

468
00:48:40,040 --> 00:48:45,800
without dying, into the star child. The stone has given Bowman the gifts that the philosopher

469
00:48:45,800 --> 00:48:51,240
stone has always promised. Bowman has achieved complete gnosis or knowledge, and now he has become

470
00:48:51,240 --> 00:48:57,320
immortal by overcoming physical death and being reborn. In that moment he passes through the monolith one

471
00:48:57,320 --> 00:49:03,240
last time. The earth is ahead of him now, and he will be reborn on that planet. Bowman will be a new

472
00:49:03,240 --> 00:49:09,960
human. Just as different from homo sapiens, as homo sapiens are different from that ape-man who picked

473
00:49:09,960 --> 00:49:18,360
up that bone all that time ago. Nietzsche's ape-to-man-to-superman theme, from his Thus Spoke Zarathustra essays,

474
00:49:18,360 --> 00:49:25,640
is mirrored perfectly by Strauss's music and Kubrick's movie. Kubrick has evoked the spiritual and physical

475
00:49:25,640 --> 00:49:41,560
evolution of our race and it has been transformed by this magical black stone.

476
00:49:44,680 --> 00:49:50,040
Kubrick uses alchemical allegories throughout the film. The obvious analogies are the celestial

477
00:49:50,040 --> 00:49:53,560
alignments that precede each of the alchemical transmutations in the film.

478
00:49:54,120 --> 00:49:59,160
The second main allegory is that it is a black stone that initiates these transmutations.

479
00:49:59,720 --> 00:50:04,520
Again, this mirrors the alchemist lore about the black stone causing the transmutation of the

480
00:50:04,520 --> 00:50:09,800
alchemist. But there are other hints that are just as curious. Bowman is also a name for the

481
00:50:09,800 --> 00:50:15,880
constellation Sagittarius, which is a man with a bow. This on its own may appear to be uninteresting,

482
00:50:15,880 --> 00:50:21,560
but one of the great alchemical secrets concerns the position of the center of the galaxy. This point in the

483
00:50:21,560 --> 00:50:28,120
sky is found right next to the constellation of Sagittarius. In fact, the Bowman of Sagittarius is

484
00:50:28,120 --> 00:50:34,040
shooting his arrow right into the heart of the Milky Way galaxy. Bowman represents Sagittarius's

485
00:50:34,040 --> 00:50:39,880
arrow as it passes through the center of the galaxy. This is also echoed later in the Beyond the Infinite

486
00:50:39,880 --> 00:50:47,240
sequence where Bowman witnesses an exploding galaxy. Also interesting is the use of the Kabbalah in the

487
00:50:47,240 --> 00:50:53,160
film. As said before, there are four great realms within the Tree of Life. Kubrick reflects these

488
00:50:53,160 --> 00:50:59,720
realms with each of the four chapters in 2001. The first is the earthly realm, represented by Malkuth,

489
00:50:59,720 --> 00:51:04,920
which is the Sephra located at the very bottom of the Tree of Life. This is the realm of the Kingdom,

490
00:51:04,920 --> 00:51:11,880
or of mankind. The second realm up in the Tree of Life is that of the Moon, or the Sephra Yesad. The

491
00:51:11,880 --> 00:51:18,200
third realm is that of the Sun, or the Sephra named Tipperuth. And the final realm of the Tree of Life is the

492
00:51:18,200 --> 00:51:24,520
ultimate being, or consciousness, represented by the Sephra named Keter. Like all great alchemical works,

493
00:51:24,520 --> 00:51:30,680
the film 2001 is broken up into four chapters. The first, the eight-man sequence, is the only

494
00:51:30,680 --> 00:51:36,040
episode to take place on Earth. This would represent the realm of Earth, or Malkuth, according to the

495
00:51:36,040 --> 00:51:42,200
Kabbalah. The second chapter takes place off the Earth, with Heywood Floyd going to the Moon. It finally

496
00:51:42,200 --> 00:51:48,680
climaxes on the very surface of the Moon. This chapter represents Yesad in the Tree of Life, or the

497
00:51:48,680 --> 00:51:54,120
realm of the Moon. The third chapter, which concerns the mission to Jupiter, is a little more tricky.

498
00:51:54,760 --> 00:51:59,320
In order to understand the Kabbalah's significance of this sequence, it is important to understand

499
00:51:59,320 --> 00:52:04,920
that, in the original script by Arthur C. Clarke and Kubrick, the spacecraft's discovery was headed

500
00:52:04,920 --> 00:52:11,400
towards the planet Saturn, not Jupiter. As stated earlier, Kubrick was forced to switch to Jupiter

501
00:52:11,400 --> 00:52:17,160
because the rings of Saturn proved too difficult to create. The special effects department could not

502
00:52:17,160 --> 00:52:23,240
make them realistic enough. In the original script, the planet was Saturn. This is very important because

503
00:52:23,240 --> 00:52:29,800
in the Kabbalah, one can switch places between the Sun, or Tipirith, and Saturn. In other words,

504
00:52:29,800 --> 00:52:36,040
Saturn can be used as a symbolic representation of the Sun. Is it a coincidence that this third

505
00:52:36,040 --> 00:52:41,000
chapter, which was originally intended to be about a voyage to Saturn, is also about the third realm of

506
00:52:41,000 --> 00:52:46,520
the Kabbalah, Tipirith? When one considers this switch as allowed in the rules of the Kabbalah,

507
00:52:46,520 --> 00:52:50,040
this sequence comes to represent the third realm of the tree of life.

508
00:52:50,840 --> 00:52:55,000
The last chapter in this movie concerns the voyage to the infinite. In this chapter,

509
00:52:55,560 --> 00:53:01,240
Bowman experiences a universe far more vast and unbelievable than any mortal man has ever conceived.

510
00:53:01,960 --> 00:53:06,680
In the final realm of the Kabbalah, the seeker can swim in the ocean of the mind of God,

511
00:53:07,320 --> 00:53:13,320
which is represented by the Sephora named Keter. This state of awareness is similar to the Samadhi state from

512
00:53:13,320 --> 00:53:19,400
the yogic tradition. This state can be attained only by a very few people. In the case of this film,

513
00:53:19,400 --> 00:53:25,080
final realm of the tree of life can only be attained by one man. And this can be done only with the help

514
00:53:25,080 --> 00:53:31,320
of the monolith, or the stone. Bowman, the furthest out and loneliest person in the universe, is that man.

515
00:53:32,920 --> 00:53:37,880
Interestingly, in the tree of life, there is an abyss that lies between Tipirith and Keter.

516
00:53:37,880 --> 00:53:43,960
This abyss must be crossed by the initiate before they can successfully complete their journey.

517
00:53:43,960 --> 00:53:49,800
This abyss is called Dat in the Kabbalah. Bowman crosses this abyss during the famous light show

518
00:53:49,800 --> 00:53:55,320
sequence. The colors and the shapes on the screen are shown in such a way as to create a falling

519
00:53:55,320 --> 00:54:01,480
sensation in the viewer. Kubrick is taking the viewer through the abyss of Dat and into the world of Keter,

520
00:54:01,480 --> 00:54:07,080
where all illusions fail. Kubrick has brought the viewer of the film through the four realms of the tree of

521
00:54:07,080 --> 00:54:13,000
life, all brilliantly evoked in the right pattern, with enough intricate knowledge of the Kabbalah

522
00:54:13,000 --> 00:54:18,440
to give one a long pause for consideration. It certainly seems that someone was aware of the

523
00:54:18,440 --> 00:54:23,000
Kabbalah in the making of this film, and that someone was Stanley Kubrick.

524
00:54:25,960 --> 00:54:29,960
In the end, Kubrick is saying that Bowman has been the lead shaman for humanity.

525
00:54:29,960 --> 00:54:35,080
He has passed through the four realms, and now he knows the truth about existence.

526
00:54:35,880 --> 00:54:41,240
He realizes that life would be completely meaningless if it were not for the intervention of the monolith or

527
00:54:41,240 --> 00:54:47,480
the black stone. He realizes that he himself could not be transformed without the assistance of an

528
00:54:47,480 --> 00:54:54,680
outside intelligence, a god if you will. This supposedly atheist film director has made the ultimate religious

529
00:54:54,680 --> 00:55:01,160
movie. It single-handedly outdoes all of Hollywood's wooden superficial homages to the spirit and to

530
00:55:01,160 --> 00:55:07,480
religion. Kubrick takes his religion very seriously, and he conveys that in every way. Kubrick has

531
00:55:07,480 --> 00:55:12,840
simultaneously taken the viewer through the history of humanity, through the realms of the tree of life,

532
00:55:12,840 --> 00:55:18,680
or the Kabbalah. He has shown that the transmutation of the human species is created by the intervention of

533
00:55:18,680 --> 00:55:24,440
a single black stone. He has revealed that this transformation can only take place when certain

534
00:55:24,440 --> 00:55:30,440
magical alignments are happening. Furthermore, he takes a viewer on a shamanic journey that reveals the

535
00:55:30,440 --> 00:55:36,920
great secret in a hidden way to the viewer. Kubrick transformed the entire baby boomer generation.

536
00:55:37,960 --> 00:55:43,480
He opened up vistas in the mind for them that had never been seen before. Furthermore, he gave an

537
00:55:43,480 --> 00:55:48,600
important spiritual context to his visions so that they made sense instead of just being mindless

538
00:55:48,600 --> 00:55:54,040
hallucinations and visions that went nowhere. Almost everyone sensed that the movie was saying

539
00:55:54,040 --> 00:55:55,640
something of immense importance.

540
00:56:03,720 --> 00:56:10,040
Finally, we get to Kubrick's ultimate trick. He proves that he knows exactly what he is doing with this trick.

541
00:56:10,920 --> 00:56:17,800
His secret is in plain sight. First, one must remember that every time the monolith appears in the film,

542
00:56:17,800 --> 00:56:24,600
there is a strange, beautiful celestial alignment occurring. And one must also remember that every

543
00:56:24,600 --> 00:56:30,440
celestial alignment in the film is followed by a visit from the monolith. That is, except for one.

544
00:56:31,400 --> 00:56:35,160
And that would be the lunar eclipse that occurs at the very beginning of the film.

545
00:56:37,400 --> 00:56:42,600
So the question arises, if we are to stay within the rules that are prescribed in the rest of the film,

546
00:56:42,600 --> 00:56:48,200
where is the monolith that is supposed to follow that very first alignment? The monolith on the screen

547
00:56:48,200 --> 00:56:53,000
doesn't show up for ten more minutes after that first celestial alignment. So what gives here?

548
00:56:53,960 --> 00:56:59,240
Is Kubrick just showing off his incredible special effects? Is this first celestial alignment just

549
00:56:59,240 --> 00:57:05,160
there to impress the viewer from the beginning? These things may very well be true, but this ultimate

550
00:57:05,160 --> 00:57:10,280
trick of Kubrick's is embedded in the idea that the monolith must appear after every one of these

551
00:57:10,280 --> 00:57:15,800
magical alignments. Once again, the secret of the film is completely revealed from the beginning.

552
00:57:16,680 --> 00:57:22,200
There is a monolith that appears right after the opening sequence with the magical lunar eclipse.

553
00:57:23,240 --> 00:57:31,080
But where is it? It is right in front of the viewer's eyes. The film is the monolith. In a secret that seems

554
00:57:31,080 --> 00:57:36,920
to have never been seen by anyone, the monolith in the film has the same exact dimensions as the movie

555
00:57:36,920 --> 00:57:44,440
screen on which 2001 was projected. Completely hidden from critic and fan alike, until now, is the fact that

556
00:57:44,440 --> 00:57:50,840
Kubrick consciously designed his film to be the monolith. The stone that transforms. Like the monolith,

557
00:57:50,840 --> 00:57:56,840
the film projects images into our heads that makes us consider wider possibilities and ideas. Like the

558
00:57:56,840 --> 00:58:03,320
monolith, the film ultimately presents an initiation, not just of the actor on the screen, but also of the

559
00:58:03,320 --> 00:58:09,720
audience viewing the film. This is Kubrick's ultimate trick. He slyly shows us here that he knows what he is

560
00:58:09,720 --> 00:58:15,640
doing at every step in the process. The monolith and the movie are the same thing. The monolith also

561
00:58:15,640 --> 00:58:21,880
represents the cube of space, or the container of creation and alchemy. The cube of space is the

562
00:58:21,880 --> 00:58:29,560
container that holds reality. The black single stone becomes the container of creation and the alchemical

563
00:58:29,560 --> 00:58:38,040
cube at the same time. It is, in a way, a cubed brick. Is this another trick of Stanley's? Whose last name,

564
00:58:38,040 --> 00:58:45,960
Kubrick, Cubed Brick, mirrors that concept so clearly? This black stone of creation is also one of the main

565
00:58:45,960 --> 00:58:51,960
features in the Islamic religion, where a black meteorite sits near the Kaaba, or the Cuba space,

566
00:58:51,960 --> 00:58:57,960
in the Arabian city of Mecca. Kubrick has combined these many deeply held spiritual traditions and

567
00:58:57,960 --> 00:59:03,640
symbols and refashioned them into the monolith, or stone, that is constructed in the same dimensions

568
00:59:03,640 --> 00:59:09,960
as the movie screen on which it will be projected. Kubrick completely reveals that he understands the

569
00:59:09,960 --> 00:59:16,920
great work. The monolith represents the philosopher's stone, the book of nature, and the film that

570
00:59:16,920 --> 00:59:25,240
initiates. Stanley Kubrick has truly made the book of nature into a film. Using powdered silver nitrates

571
00:59:25,240 --> 00:59:31,080
that are then glued onto a strip of plastic and then projected onto the movie screens of our mind,

572
00:59:32,120 --> 00:59:36,920
Kubrick has proven himself to be the ultimate alchemist artist of the late 20th century.

573
00:59:36,920 --> 00:59:42,280
The greatest works of art are trying to achieve exactly what Kubrick is attempting here.

574
00:59:43,320 --> 00:59:49,240
With the understanding of what 2001 actually sang, Kubrick takes his place alongside da Vinci,

575
00:59:49,240 --> 01:00:03,240
and possibly even Shakespeare, as being one of the greatest artists of all time.

576
01:00:06,920 --> 01:00:19,240
Da Vinci, da Vinci, da Vinci, give me your answer to it.

577
01:00:19,240 --> 01:00:35,240
I'm half crazy, all for the love of you. It won't be a stylish marriage.

578
01:00:36,120 --> 01:00:40,760
But the love of your father

579
01:00:41,560 --> 01:00:47,600
A beautiful year of all, I'm half crazy, all for the love ofomes, Bruce, is me eating my breathe.

580
01:00:47,600 --> 01:00:53,000
Join me with some people, especially if all the bloods are dead,

581
01:00:57,000 --> 01:00:58,520
Good day, gentlemen.

582
01:00:58,520 --> 01:01:04,900
This is a pre-recorded briefing.