April 2, 2018 was the fiftieth anniversary of the release of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. A half century later, it still feels modern. In one bold jump, this film exposed the world to a new way not only of depicting science fiction, but of making films: minimalist dialogue, stark, naturalistic lighting, brooding editorial pace, inventive use of music and sound design, and visual effects achieved with unprecedented realism. This was-and still is-cinematic poetry.
It’s mystery on film.
Few films, if any, have subsequently conveyed cosmological wonder with such staying power as 2001. It continues to be an influential, contemplative work, embracing the great themes and concerns of humanity: evolution, free will, the relationship of humans to technology, the grandiosity of the universe, and God.
There’s no mention of God in 2001. And yet, the mystery of some formidable, extra-human intelligence is a driving force throughout the film’s 142 minutes. Stanley Kubrick admitted no adherence to any religious or spiritual thinking. He was raised by Jewish parents in a secular Brooklyn household. When French film critic Michel Ciment asked Kubrick if he had a religious upbringing, Kubrick replied without further comment, “No, not at all.”
But the idea of God was something Kubrick approached seriously and thoughtfully, whether he ultimately believed in God or not.
When asked by Eric Norden in Kubrick’s 1968 interview with Playboy if 2001: A Space Odyssey was a religious film, Kubrick elaborated:
I will say that the God concept is at the heart of 2001 but not any traditional, anthropomorphic image of God. I don’t believe in any of Earth’s monotheistic religions, but I do believe that one can construct an intriguing scientific definition of God, once you accept the fact that there are approximately 100 billion stars in our galaxy alone, that each star is a life-giving sun and that there are approximately 100 billion galaxies in just the visible universe.
Kubrick goes on to describe a possibility of highly advanced intelligence occurring through an evolutionary process:
It’s reasonable to assume that there must be, in fact, countless billions of such planets where biological life has arisen, and the odds of some proportion of such life developing intelligence are high.… They may have progressed from biological species, which are fragile shells for the mind at best, into immortal machine entities—and then, over innumerable eons, they could emerge from the chrysalis of matter transformed into beings of pure energy and spirit. Their potentialities would be limitless and their intelligence ungraspable by humans.
In the same interview, Kubrick also blamed the poor critical reaction among certain East Coast critics to 2001 as follows:
Perhaps there is a certain element of the lumpen literati that is so dogmatically atheist and materialist and Earth-bound that it finds the grandeur of space and the myriad mysteries of cosmic intelligence anathema.
This disdain for “dogmatic atheism” is reflected in this 1968 New York Times interview with William Kloman, where Kubrick embraced cosmic mystery, something beyond scientific explanation:
There’s a side to the human personality that somehow senses that wherever the cosmic truth may lie, it doesn’t lie in A, B, C, D. It lies somewhere in the mysterious, unknowable aspects of thought and life and experience. Man has always responded to it. Religion, mythology, allegories—it’s always been one of the most responsive chords in man. With rationalism, modern man has tried to eliminate it, and successfully dealt some pretty jarring blows to religion. In a sense, what’s happening now in films and in popular music is a reaction to the stifling limitations of rationalism.
I find it very exciting to have a semi-logical belief that there’s a great deal to the universe we don’t understand, and that there is an intelligence of an incredible magnitude outside the earth.
In his 1972 New York Times interview with Craig McGregor, Kubrick indicated a desire for some greater purpose than just life on this world:
Kubrick: ‘2001’ would give a little insight into my metaphysical interests…. I’d be very surprised if the universe wasn’t full of an intelligence of an order that to us would seem God-like. I find it very exciting to have a semi-logical belief that there’s a great deal to the universe we don’t understand, and that there is an intelligence of an incredible magnitude outside the earth. It’s something I’ve become more and more interested in. I find it a very exciting and satisfying hope.”
McGregor: Why?
Kubrick: Well, I mean, one would hate to think that this was it.
There are quotes attributed to Kubrick indicating a more atheistic perspective that frequently show up. I’m including them here but I have been unable to verify their sources. Warren Allen Smith’s book Celebrities in Hell, which celebrates the atheism of multiple well-known individuals both current and historical, cites a 1969 interview with American Cinematographer magazine after the release of 2001, in which Kubrick expressed:
The whole idea of god is absurd. If anything, 2001 shows that what some people call “god” is simply an acceptable term for their ignorance. What they don’t understand, they call “god”… Everything we know about the universe reveals that there is no god. I chose to do Dr. [Arthur C.] Clarke’s story as a film because it highlights a critical factor necessary for human evolution; that is, beyond our present condition. This film is a rejection of the notion that there is a god; isn’t that obvious?
Curiously, I have not found this quote anywhere prior to the publication of Celebrities in Hell, nor a 1969 American Cinematographer issue with this interview. Kubrick granted an extensive interview with American Cinematographer magazine in June 1968, but this quote is nowhere in that article.
Another quote that has made the rounds is a supposed phone call Kubrick made to Stephen King:
Kubrick asked, “Do you believe in God?” King said that he had answered in the affirmative, but has had three different versions of what happened next. One time, he said that Kubrick simply hung up on him. On other occasions, he claimed Kubrick said, “I knew it”, and then hung up on him. On yet another occasion, King claimed that Kubrick said, before hanging up, “No, I don’t think there is a God.”
The conversation may or may not have occurred; I have located no citation or documentation on it. However, in documentaries and Terry Gross’s Fresh Air, King has recalled this conversation with Kubrick:
“Stephen, Stanley Kubrick here, don’t you believe that all stories about ghosts are fundamentally optimistic? If there are ghosts it means we survive death, and that’s a fundamentally optimistic view, isn’t it?” Stephen then asked, “Well, Mr. Kubrick, what about hell?” And there was a long pause on the telephone line and then he said in a very stiff and different voice, “I don’t believe in hell.”
Finally, Katharina Kubrick Hobbs, Kubrick’s stepdaughter, was asked by a member at alt.movies.kubrick if Stanley Kubrick believed in God. She responded:
Hmm, tricky. I think he believed in something, if you understand my meaning. He was a bit of a fatalist actually, but he was also very superstitious. Truly a mixture of nature and nurture. I don’t know exactly what he believed, he probably would have said that no-one can really ever know for sure, and that it would be rather arrogant to assume that one could know. I asked him once after The Shining, if he believed in ghosts. He said that it would be nice if there “were” ghosts, as that would imply that there is something after death. In fact, I think he said, “Gee I hope so.”…He did not have a religious funeral service. He’s not buried in consecrated ground. We always celebrated Christmas and had huge Christmas trees.
Katharina Kubrick Hobbs talks about how Kubrick did all his pre-production and editing at home, wherever that may be. Family was always close. His second marriage, to Katharina’s mother, Christiane Harlan Kubrick (she is the woman singing at the end of Paths of Glory), lasted from 1958 to his death in 1999. Katharina relates that her first memory of Kubrick was as a four-year-old when he married her mother in California. She recalls, “him sitting me on his knee and saying, ‘Call me daddy.'”
Family man, artist and genius.
Gustav Hasford, whose novel The Short-Timers formed the basis of Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket, once referred to Kubrick as an “earwig,” he was so exhaustively curious he would “go in one ear and not come out the other until he’d eaten clean through your head.” When Kubrick set out to make 2001: A Space Odyssey in the 1960’s he was so obsessed with facts, knowledge, and yes, truth, that he parlayed all that into 142 minutes of cinematic experience for our cosmic intrigue. It still intrigues fifty years later. I think it will for ages.
“Creative growth is unending but ever satisfying, endless in extent but always punctuated by those personality-satisfying moments of transient goal attainment which serve so effectively as the mobilization preludes to new adventures in cosmic growth, universe exploration, and Deity attainment.” The Urantia Book 118:0.10
Keep creating, Stanley.
God, Stanley Kubrick, and 2001: A Space Odyssey
References
Much of this information was original found at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_and_religious_beliefs_of_Stanley_Kubrick
Retrieved May 3, 2018Ciment, Michel, 1982. “Kubrick on The Shining: An interview with Michel Ciment”. http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/interview.ts.html, retrieved May 3, 2018.
Kloman, William. April 14, 1968 In 2001, “Will Love Be a Seven-Letter Word?” NY Times, https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/film/041468kubrick-2001.html
McGregor, Craig, January 30, 1972. “Nice Boy from the Bronx?”. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/1972/01/30/archives/article-1-no-title-kubrick-a-nice-boy-from-the-bronx.html
Bloom, Harold. Bloom’s Bio-Critiques Stephen King. Chelsea House Publishers, Philadelphia, 2002. P.21
Smith, Warren Allen, Celebrities in Hell, chelCpress, New York, NY, 2010.
Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures, 2001. Director Jan Harlan, Warner Bros., 142 minutes
Stephen King Interview with Terry Gross, Fresh Air, National Public Radio, October 31, 2014. https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=360137099
Stephen King on Stanley Kubrick. Video clip published October 6, 2016.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U77Fn0OxAR4
The Life and Legend of Stanley Kubrick. YouTube interview with Katharina Kubrick published July 16, 2016.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAeZhRwZwRMKatharina Kubrick Hobbs response to user question about her step-father at alt.movies.kubrick: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/alt.movies.kubrick/DB_pGpThDEA/DZ0b4NcS1JMJ
Herr, Michael. “Kubrick,” Vanity Fair, April 21, 2010. https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2010/04/kubrick-199908