Stanley Kubrick
2001: Odissea Nello Spazio

THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

It was July 20, 1969, when the Eagle, the lunar module of the Apollo 11 spacecraft, slid onto the sandy and grayish surface of the Moon.

Neil Armstrong descended in small steps from an almost vertical ladder resting on a surface that seemed made of ashes. In the distance, the background was as black as tar, nothing but a coat of dark paint. After descending, the astronaut took the first soft and incredible steps. Buzz Aldrin followed shortly after.

One of the most mysterious and exciting moments humanity remembers. The culmination and beginning of an indescribable era, the foundation and elevation of a crazy and astonishing idea, at times innocent, soft as a fairy tale, a revolutionary and hyper-scientific conception of an ancestral thought. Religious. Blasphemous. Eternal. The beginning of a new era.

Instead of asking if we really were on the Moon (conspiracy theories may sow more than a few doubts about the actual number of lunar photos and footage and the sensationalist content of some of them, but they cannot use physics at their will, especially, they cannot avoid demonstrating scientifically, and thus empirically, the fact that those men were on the Moon, should they be enthusiastic about the intent and certain of the operation, beyond the indisputable sensationalism, the inevitable corrections, and numerous modifications meant to enhance the aesthetic of the package and amplify the scenic reach of the event), well, we should question ourselves on far more important queries. Dilemmas of unprecedented magnitude and supreme value, requiring stoic meditation and indomitable and stubborn persistence.

Who are we?

Albert Einstein: "Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them."

Being aware of one's limits is an essential condition for man. We are beings conscious of the same limits, and, undeniably, the inescapability of death reminds us of this painful and irremediable condition moment by moment, instant by instant, breath after breath.

The journey of human knowledge is based precisely on accepting this fatal and primitive insufficiency, and as much as man may fight to know and thus try to surpass his limits, he will never be able to fully satisfy that wonderful and terrible desire, not even through the boldest and most fascinating of enterprises.

A 'finite' being craving the infinite.

The magnificence and sadness of being human, chained to a sort of infinite and imperishable mystery, to a timeless, perpetual, and indestructible enigma.

The Moon landing is closely tied to Stanley Kubrick, one of the greatest directors of all time, perhaps the greatest, and his immortal work 2001: A Space Odyssey.

A significant part of the conspiracy theory about the fake Moon landing involves the extraordinary participation of the director of Spartacus and Lolita: he would have been, in reality, responsible for staging the astronauts on the lunar soil. An interesting piece of evidence would be found in the trails Stanley Kubrick allegedly left in the making of the controversial and terrifying The Shining, in 1980, including the clear and distressing depiction of his own 'Mea Culpa' through the drawing of the missile with the inscription Apollo 11 embroidered on the sweater of the protagonist, little Danny.

According to the writer, the most unsettling - if not chilling - moment of 2001... is to be found in the moments immediately following the destruction of HAL9000: after the death of the hibernated astronauts and the fall into the void of Frank, the only surviving pilot, David Bowman, in a daring and resolute rescue and retaliation action, advances toward the memory circuits compartment of the onboard supercomputer and deactivates them one by one, despite the pleas and supplications of a suddenly desperate and incurable HAL. In the starry drama of those frantic moments, the plot of Kubrick's immeasurable galactic narrative unfolds: a prerecorded message enlightens David on the real mission objective, which only HAL 9000 was aware of.

The onboard supercomputer of the spacecraft Discovery, called HAL9000 (acronym for Heuristic ALgorithmic), is an omnipresent figure watching over the entire crew through a reddish eye (like an advanced version of Orwellian Big Brother) and has a formidable artificial intelligence that allows it to recreate all the activities of the human mind and to feel emotions very similar to those of man. In appearance, it is devoid of feelings and only cares about the elaboration of details and parameters regarding the task assigned to it, yet it seems to harbor a forbidden and contradictory nature: if externally HAL conveys imperturbability, security, and effectiveness, internally it is beset by anxieties, uncertainties, and fears, typical characteristics of human nature. And the destructive instinct of men will also envelop his sad figure, which will be unable to try anything (unlike Bowman) to extricate himself from the dense web of conscience.

He too will become a destroyer. He will slaughter the entire team of cosmonauts before being killed by David's hand.

It was only 1968 (about a year before the events in question), but Stanley Kubrick amazed the entire world with the aforementioned 2001..., an absolute masterpiece of the science fiction genre and a milestone of contemporary art, so much so that many obeyed the extravagant theory that many of the staging techniques used in the historic film had converged into the making of the fraudulent Moon mission.

All this and much more, not even realizing that NASA's official documentation is far superior to any cinematic production before and after 1969. No science fiction movie, except for the latest blockbusters, is capable of recreating the atmosphere, setting, and movements of the lunar landing. At least, not that rudimentary spontaneity.

We will never know if something mysterious and indescribable really happened on that July 20th fifty years ago.

The certainty of the crime is in the hands of an invincible corporation.

Napoleon is one of the many films that Stanley Kubrick aspired to bring to life but ultimately never saw the light of day—in particular, consider a work focused on the Holocaust and a surprising trio of screenplays dealing with the theme of marriage that have just been discovered a few months ago.

Indeed, Napoleon was supposed to be Stanley Kubrick's absolute masterpiece, his magnum opus, a colossal feat constructed on the life of the famous over-the-Alps commander, Napoleon Bonaparte. A character of whom the director has never hidden being a great admirer.

As a vehement enthusiast of the naturalized English artist (and a brilliant mind behind other majestic works, including the most poignant and sorrowful war film in the history of Cinema, Paths of Glory, probably the most desperate and moving anti-war manifesto ever seen on a screen), I have always felt a strong sense of bewilderment and disappointment at Kubrick's decision not to proceed with the preparation of Napoleon, a film that would have engraved its title in large letters on the millennia-old stone of legend.

Surely, within a few years, we would be able to admire Barry Lyndon, but that is a whole other story...

"GOTT IST TOT!", the death of God, a significant and inseparable event for the fierce economy of the Nietzschean concept.

THE DARK SIDE OF MAN

2001: A Space Odyssey can be defined, in a sense, as the cinematic transposition of Thus Spoke Zarathustra by the furious and unreachable German philosopher, the cursed thinker, the spirit of fire, the irreducible and subversive Friedrich Nietzsche.

If his "superman" or "overman" was nothing more than a new human archetype positioned "beyond good and evil" and encapsulating the tumultuous incorporeal nature of Dionysus, we could identify in Kubrick's triumph the final search for the Übermensch, man as "something that must be overcome" to make room for a new level of human evolution.

2001: A Space Odyssey is perhaps, among my favorites, the film I've watched the least times. Less than Apocalypse Now, Casino, Unforgiven, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, The Wild Bunch, and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Less than The Hateful Eight and No Country for Old Men. Also less than The Irishman, because I don't have Netflix.

Less than Tarkovsky's films. Which possess a sense of poetry and a spiritual quest that this corrupt world does not accept. Cannot accept. Because it is unable to understand.

It is the film I watch the least because, like Tarkovsky's works, it is not easy to digest. I would need time, more time, before and after watching it; before, to prepare myself for the viewing, and after, to recover from the shake.

Stanley Kubrick has created the first of a continuous series of extraordinary masterpieces, starting from here, passing through A Clockwork Orange and Barry Lyndon, and reaching The Shining and Full Metal Jacket. Something that forces us to confront our hidden side, with the Unknown that lies at the center of ourselves. The stellar depth of the Ego. Apollo and Dionysus clashing to the death within a universal theater, culminating in the astral and primitive birth of the Star Child. The seminal thermodynamic drop impregnating the radioactive ovaries of Infinity. The sacrifice of Christ through the millennial scourge of the monolith coursing over the lizard-skin of galaxies. Icarus falling. Until the elegant and ultramodern room where Bowman observes himself touching the space-time inconsistency of his enlightened existence. Past, Present, and Future, in a flap of wings that opens and closes glacial and animal eternity.

This is a work that substitutes life, a sepulchral and galactic bible that curious men, who feel suspended between the beast and the superman, should read day after day, in reverence. It is not a film, a mere film. It is the reckoning between monkeys and astronauts, the darkness of the soul, and the light of reason. Instinct for self-preservation and disdain for danger. Kubrick's cinematic revolution in stretching times and scenes, meticulously preparing shots (as the superb photographer he was), and the surgical sequence of images, culminates in the monumental sublimation of his prophetic and supernatural message: with one of the intense and unstoppable cuts, the dawn of men merges with the dawn of space civilization. The bone transforms into a spacecraft. Knowledge is the end, violence is the means. The weapon of the past becomes that of the future. The struggle for survival continues.

Let each be the Archer of their own Odyssey.