Monday, July 23, 2012

Kubrick and Freud

The id, Freud’s name for subconscious desires, and the superego, which is the subconscious limiting of those desires to conform to society, are weighed by the conscious ego. This balancing act of fantasy and repression is what Freud considered the baseline of someone’s personality. With a career spanning fifty years and a filmography that crosses all genre boundaries, Stanley Kubrick achieved status as a master filmmaker with particular skill in bringing to the screen stories and personalities that defy single interpretations. Through open narratives and careful use of the alienation effect Kubrick’s films remain compelling reasons to apply psychoanalytical theory to modern ideas of fantasy, personality, and desire in both films and real life.

Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) was the critical and commercial success that allowed Kubrick to make his ambitious science fiction masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Eyes Wide Shut (1999), based on Arthur Schnitzler’s Dream Story, was originally intended by Kubrick to be his follow up to 2001, but he pursued other projects until thirty years later when it became his final film. Eyes Wide Shut is an overtly sexual drama while Dr. Strangelove is, on its surface, a cold war satire. Both films use sexual fantasy and repression - a pendulum swing of inner desire and social conformity - to expand on their abstract themes; Eyes Wide Shut explores modern theories of love and sexuality while Dr. Strangelove explores the madness of the cold war.

The “odyssey” that Dr. Harford (Tom Cruise) goes on in Eyes Wide Shut is triggered by his wife Alice’s (Nicole Kidman) confession to fantasizing about an extra-marital affair. This is a blow to his self-esteem and his monogamous security. In response, Dr. Harford explores his own desires and fantasies as he agonizes over the imaginary infidelity. Eventually he finds his way back to his wife and to the discovery of a new interpretation of their sexual relationship. The trigger of the female fantasy leads to a series of confrontations that interchange sex with death, commerce, and love (Deleyto 31).


A similar, but inverted, connection of fantasy and nightmare occurs in Dr. Strangelove. In a film where the only female character is a secretary and sexual partner named Miss Scott (but only addressed by Gen. Turgidson as “Baby”), the male characters are given free rein to plan their fantasies. When the doomsday device has been triggered and the nuclear apocalypse is upon them, the men in the war room listen to the Nazi Dr. Strangelove and his plan for them to survive in mine shafts with a ratio of ten women for each man:

I hasten to add that since each man will be required to do prodigious service along these lines, the women will have to be selected for their sexual characteristics, which will have to be of a highly stimulating nature.
- Dr. Strangelove (Peter Sellers)

This new world imagined by the doctor is a genetically pure culture, a Nazi fantasy, and it is such an exciting idea that the wheelchair-bound Dr. Strangelove stands up (becomes erect) and declares, “Mein Fuhrer! I can walk!” But the male fantasy of this future would be less-than-ideal for its female population. As much as Eyes Wide Shut reveals a man’s sexual nightmare resulting from a woman’s fantasy, Dr. Strangelove shows a woman’s nightmare resulting from male fantasies.

A pivotal film in Kubrick’s career was his follow-up to 2001: A Space Odyssey, which was an adaptation of Anthony Burgess’s novel about anarchy and social conditioning through science, A Clockwork Orange (1971). The main character, Alex (Malcolm McDowell), is the psychotic leader of a gang of violent teenagers. His life is completely unrestricted, and he satisfies every urge he has through violence, sex, murder, and music. When he is betrayed by his gang, Alex is sent to prison and then into a rehabilitation program. Through chemical psychotherapy, Alex develops a false superego, a debilitating nausea that appears when he comes into contact with his socially unacceptable desires. It is this treatment that has turned him into “a clockwork orange,” which leaves him with a natural exterior but with nothing underneath except the psycho-chemical constraints. When Alex is returned to his violent self at the end it is presented as a positive event because it means that - although he is violent and destructive - he is back to being human.


Freudian characters like Alex populate many of Kubrick’s films. In Eyes Wide Shut, Dr. Bill Harford is a man who, unlike Alex, appears to be in complete control of his emotions and desires. When his wife accuses him of lusting after his female patients, Bill reacts calmly and clinically. He explains that there is a female nurse present, that the situation is completely free of any romantic elements, and then he tries to calm her down by diagnosing the source of her anger: “Let’s just relax, Alice. This pot is making you aggressive.” The doctor’s veneer of honest professionalism is undermined in a number of scenes. For example, he reassures his wife that he would never lie to her in one scene, but in the next he lies about his reasons for staying out late. Bill is driven by his subconscious desires or a sense of guilt for much of the film, and it is only in short moments, such as when he leaves the prostitute’s apartment before having an affair, that his conscious sense of responsibility drives him away from making mistakes.

Another important character representing unleashed subconscious desires is Jack Torrence (Jack Nicholson), the familicidal caretaker in The Shining (1980). At the start of the film, Jack has restrained himself by repressing his destructive urges, such as drinking, and is introduced as a happy father, husband, and writer. His dark, unrestrained side is hinted at when his wife tells a doctor of the time when Jack dislocated his son’s shoulder in a moment of rage. When the family moves into the Overlook Hotel, Jack’s unrestrained self begins to take over. As with all of Kubrick’s films there are various ways to interpret Jack’s slow decline into madness. The “evil” hotel, disturbed ghosts, schizophrenia, or cabin fever are all defendable explanations for Jack’s psychosis; however, the evidence for his decline is rooted in the Freudian tug-of-war that Kubrick shows Jack going through. His hallucinations (or visits from ghosts) are slowly developed until the final chase when all the horrors of the hotel are revealed. Jack does not step away from reality in a single moment, and his growing frustration with his wife and distance from his son are mixed with moments of tenderness or protective behaviour. The character arcs in The Shining were so central to Kubrick’s story that he insisted on filming in sequence so the actors would not be forced to revert to an earlier, more restrained point of view (Duncan 166).

Although the central character representing the audience’s point of view in The Shining is Danny, the film’s main character is the killer, Jack. In A Clockwork Orange the main character is the psychotic Alex. These extreme personalities are not alone in Kubrick’s filmography. Many of his films include central characters with extreme personalities like the murderous computer HAL 9000 in 2001, the pedophiliac Professor Humbert Humbert (James Mason) in Lolita (1962), the amoral social-climber Redmond Barry (Ryan O’Neal) in Barry Lyndon (1975), or the ensemble of broken eccentrics in Full Metal Jacket (1987). These characters illustrate Freud’s theory of personalities resulting from the id/ego/superego balance as much as they show Kubrick’s careful attention to character development.

The scene at the center of both Eyes Wide Shut and Schnitzler’s Dream Story is a masked “orgy” in a country mansion infiltrated by the main character. In the film version, Dr. Harford’s curiosity is peaked by an old friend who claims to play piano blindfolded for a secret group. Using what little his friend tells him, the doctor gets an appropriate costume and hires a taxi to get to the mansion. The masked characters move slowly, never speak, and remain anonymous throughout the strange sequence. When Dr. Harford is discovered he is made to remove his mask and expose his identity, which in the book the character thinks would be far worse than to be naked when everyone else is clothed. This humiliation is interrupted by a masked woman who “saves” him by volunteering to take his place, and this comes at the end of an evening that included several insults to Dr. Harford’s perception of his own masculinity. While walking the streets the doctor is physically assaulted by a group of frat boys who throw homophobic insults as they walk away, which bothers the doctor and leads directly to his nervous acceptance of a prostitute’s invitation to her home. Dr. Harford’s sexual desire or curiosity leads him through the first half of the film until his discovery at the party. In the second half it is his curiosity about the night before that continues to drive him to seek out answers. What he finds is that the prostitute he nearly slept with is HIV positive, that the woman who “saved” him has died mysteriously, and that his friend, the piano player, has disappeared from his hotel. Each of these incidents are taken by Dr. Harford to be his fault, and his building guilt drives him on to seek more answers. Despite warnings from the secret society behind the masked party, Dr. Harford continues his quest until he is confronted by an old friend who is revealed to have witnessed his unmasking. The masked party is the turning point where Dr. Harford’s character shifts from following his desires (his id) to following his guilt (his superego). Only when both have been taken to the extremes does Bill finally break down, weep, and confess everything to his wife.



In confessing to his wife, just as she had confessed to him at the start, Dr. Harford comes to a place of balance. The final scene shows the couple in a toy store with their daughter, shopping for Christmas, and their final discussion opens with Bill asking his wife, “What do you think we should do?” She slowly answers, “Maybe I think we should be grateful. Grateful that we’ve managed to survive through all of our adventures. Whether they were real or only in a dream.” Neither of them has a complete answer. They cannot confirm what the purpose of their story has been, how they will handle the future, or if they will remain together. But the fact that they are together, shopping with their daughter, talking to each other, and confessing their desires and concerns show the psychological balance they have come to.

Bill tries to affirm his commitment, “Forever,” he says, but she replies, “Let’s not use that word. It frightens me.” At this point the film, like the novel, comes to Freud’s conclusion that a balance of desire and guilt is necessary for a healthy personality, but that nothing can be predicted to last “Forever.” Kubrick, however, goes one step further. In the final seconds of the film the exchange between Bill and Alice expands the argument to include a balance of psychological desire with physical expression, which is Kubrick’s truly modern addition to Schnitzler’s story and Freud’s theory:

Alice: “But I do love you, and you know there is something very important that we need to do as soon as possible.”
Bill: “What’s that?”
Alice: “Fuck.”
- Final lines of Eyes Wide Shut

Despite working as a director for over fifty years, Stanley Kubrick only wrote and directed twelve feature films. The extent to which his films can be reinterpreted and analyzed is a testament to Kubrick’s skill, ambition, and understanding of the psychological effects of film. It is fitting that Kubrick’s final film was based on a novel by the Viennese writer Arthur Schnitzler, whose work was highly respected by Sigmund Freud for its psychological insight (Cocks 36). Many have argued that Kubrick’s slow working method deprived the world of further Kubrick films, and even Stanley Kubrick himself expressed dismay at failing to create more. But, in Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures (2001), Martin Scorsese responded by saying, “I wish he’d made more, but these are enough. Because there is so much in each one… It’s like watching a different movie every time you see it.”





Works Cited

2001: A Space Odyssey. Dir. Stanley Kubrick. Perf. Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester, and Douglas Rain (voice). MGM, 1968. Blu-ray.


A Clockwork Orange. Dir. Stanley Kubrick. Perf. Malcolm McDowell, Patrick Magee, and Michael Bates. Warner Brothers, 1971. DVD.



Barry Lyndon. Dir. Stanley Kubrick. Perf. Ryan O’Neal, Marisa Berenson, and Patrick Magee. Warner Brothers, 1975. DVD.



Cocks, Geoffrey. "Stanley Kubrick's Dream Machine: Psychoanalysis, Film, and History." The Annual of Psychoanalysis 31 (2003): 35. Print.



Danckwardt, Joachim F. "From Dream Story (Schnitzler) to Eyes Wide Shut (Kubrick) from Identity through Meaning Formation to Identity through Excitation." The International Journal of Psychoanalysis 88.3 (2007): 735-51. Print.



Deleyto Alcalá, Celestino. “1999, a Closet Odyssey: Sexual Discourses in Eyes Wide Shut." Atlantis: Revista de la Asociación Española de Estudios Anglo-Norteamericanos 28.1 (2006): 29-43. Print.



Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Dir. Stanley Kubrick. Perf. Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Slim Pickens, and James Earl Jones. Columbia, 1964. DVD.



Duncan, Paul. Stanley Kubrick: The Complete Films. Koln: Taschen, 2011. Print.



Eyes Wide Shut. Dir. Stanley Kubrick. Perf. Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, and Sydney Pollack. Warner Brothers, 1999. DVD.



Falsetto, Mario. Stanley Kubrick: A Narrative and Stylistic Analysis. Westport, Conn: Praeger, 2001. Print.



Full Metal Jacket. Dir. Stanley Kubrick. Perf. Matthew Modine, Adam Baldwin, Vincent D’Onofrio, and R. Lee Ermy. Warner Brothers, 1987. DVD.



Lolita. Dir. Stanley Kubrick. Perf. James Mason, Shelley Winters, Sue Lyon, and Peter Sellers. MGM, 1962. DVD.



Shining, The. Dir. Stanley Kubrick. Perf. Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd, and Scatman Crothers. Warner Brothers, 1980. DVD.



Spartacus. Dir. Stanley Kubrick. Perf. Kirk Douglas, Laurence Olivier, Charles Laughton, Peter Ustinov, Jean Simmons, and Tony Curtis. Universal, 1960. DVD.



Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures. Dir. Jan Harlan. Perf. Tom Cruise, Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, Malcolm McDowell, and Sydney Pollack. Warner Brothers, 2001. DVD.



Helmetag, Charles H. "Dream Odysseys: Schnitzler's Traumnovelle and Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut." Literature/Film Quarterly 31.4 (2003): 276. Print.



Schnitzler, Arthur. Dream Story (Traumnovelle). London: Penguin, 1999. Print.

Sunday, July 22, 2012

Heroes, Trilogies and THE DARK KNIGHT RISES


WARNING: this contains spoilers for the end of all of Christopher Nolan’s films including The Dark Knight Rises. DO NOT READ if you have not seen The Dark Knight Rises. I cannot stress enough how much better it is to experience the film spoiler-free.


In a film like Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon the question, “Who is the main character?” is easily answered. He’s the one in the title. Stanley Kubrick used a character name for the title of four of his films. Two of them (Spartacus and Barry Lyndon) are clearly of the main character. Lolita is a slight variation since the main character is clearly Professor Humbert, but the driving force of the film is his focus on the girl, Lolita. The fourth is Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Ignoring the satirical subtitle, Dr. Strangelove, is a film about an ensemble of political and military characters facing nuclear armageddon. The title character in this case has no impact on the driving forces of the plot since he neither launches the attack nor makes the final decisions on how to remedy the situation. Dr. Strangelove is as much a concept as he is a character, which for a political satire makes sense; there is very little “character development” in Dr. Strangelove, and many of the parts are characatures or impersonations. Kubrick’s relationship through his films to the idea of a “main character” evolved as much as the subject matter of his films. He focused on a charismatic leading man (A Clockwork Orange), on the inner turmoil of a single person (Eyes Wide Shut), he told the story of an ensemble (Full Metal Jacket), a couple (Killer’s Kiss), and of the entirety of human existence (2001: A Space Odyssey). In the films that do feature an easily recognizable “main character” he is usually the one shown with the most to gain, to lose, to witness, or to grapple with emotionally.

Stanley Kubrick is not alone in this form. Most mainstream filmmakers choose a main character to follow and allow the story to revolve around that person. In cases where a main character is overshadowed it is usually a more talented actor stealing the spotlight, or a case of the writer making a mistake about who the main character is. There are also cases of main characters only appearing for a short time. Anthony Hopkins appears in The Silence of the Lambs for only 16 minutes, but he won an Oscar in the Best Actor in a Leading Role category because he is both integral to the plot and rediculously memorable.

Arguably the best contendor for the title of “this generation’s Stanley Kubrick” is Christopher Nolan. At this stage of his career he has directed 8 feature films, and, like Stanley Kubrick, he has exercised a high level of control over each. Among those 8 films is The Dark Knight, which holds a 94% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and (as of July 21, 2012) is the fourth-highest all time US box office. Nolan has achieved a level of financial success that Kubrick never dreamed of. To be fair he has done it by creating wide-appeal blockbusters instead of the more “adult” films of Kubrick. Even still, the quality of Nolan’s filmmaking has easily placed him on the level of the greatest film directors.

There have been many great sequels, but very few great trilogies. This is because there is a transformation that occurs when the “trilogy” is defined, and often there is a weakest link that harms the other two entries. In the case of The Lord of the Rings, it was defined as a trilogy from the very beginning because of the source novels of J.R.R. Tolkien. The original Star Wars trilogy was defined in the scene of The Empire Strikes Back when Darth Vader tells Luke that he is his father; as the movie concludes it is clearly building to a conclusive third part. Other trilogies are only defined in the aftermath of the third film’s release; Toy Story 3, The Godfather Part III, and Back to the Future Part III were all sequels that ended in a more conclusive way than their predecessors. In cutting off clear sequel options these films defined themselves as being the end to their trilogies.


Newly released is Nolan’s 8th feature, The Dark Knight Rises, which concludes the newly-minted Dark Knight Trilogy. These three films are some of the best-reviewed films of the last decade and can be held up together as one of the greatest trilogies ever created. It is also a unique trilogy because the defining moment occurred outside of the films’ storylines, but after the second film. Christopher Nolan was the one who called The Dark Knight Rises the conclusion to his trilogy, and when he did there began a shift in how the films must be viewed.

Most trilogies, such as the original Star Wars films, are crafted with a clear main character. When George Lucas wrote Star Wars he was working from the Joseph Campbell theory of “The Hero’s Journey”, which has become the dominant storytelling structure in Hollywood. Campbell’s structure favours a single main character and a single villain. There are supporting parts, of course, but the focus of the story is on these two parts: Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, and the journey that one takes to confront the other.

Despite being the title character in all three films (although I will discuss the third film’s title in more detail), Batman/Bruce Wayne is not, by the end of the trilogy, the only main character. This is the trick that Nolan has pulled off so well in his trilogy's conclusion. Much like how The Empire Strikes Back line, “Luke, I’m your father,” causes the audience to re-evaluate the character motivations in Star Wars, The Dark Knight Rises makes the audience re-evaluate who the main character really is.

Batman Begins is a very character-driven story that follows Bruce Wayne’s journey from child of fortune to Batman. He has important supporting players like Alfred and Lt. Gordon, but the events of the film are portrayed for how they impact Bruce’s journey. In the end, however, he has achieved his status as the Batman we already knew - albiet in a darker, more realistic way.

The Dark Knight is the Batman film that no one could have expected. Christopher Nolan took the character, pitted him against his greatest enemy, and then revealed an element of the character that was entirely new. At the end of the film the Joker has achieved his goal of driving Harvey Dent mad, which will break the spirit of the people of Gotham and undoe all the anti-crime work that Dent, Gordon and Batman had done. To save Gotham, Batman takes the blame for Dent’s crimes and allows himself to become an outcast, a villain, that the city can rally against. This concept of uniting in peace against a common foe is at the center of Watchmen, Alan Moore’s influential comic. To end the cold war the main characters agree to stay quiet about Ozymandias’ guilt and allow the world to believe that their common foe is really to blame. In this way the choice Batman makes at the end of the Dark Knight is similar to the one made by Dr. Manhattan at the end of the film version of Watchmen.

Batman, Bruce Wayne, is still the main character of The Dark Knight, and Comissioner Gordon’s final speech makes clear how he has become the title character. The Dark Knight, however, has more than one main character. James Gordon and Harvey Dent are given equal footing, and both are made to be characters (almost) as important to defeating the villain as Batman. By expanding the role of supporting characters Nolan began down a path that no film series had done before, but which is common storytelling practice in comic books. Batman: Year One is a comic by Frank Miller detailing the first year that Batman and James Gordon are in Gotham City. Although it was a source for Batman Begins, in the comic both men are main characters. Year One, like many comics, allows multiple character to share the spotlight. In larger stories, such as War Games or the stories of the Justice League, comics tell epic narratives with multiple main characters. This form of narrative goes slightly away from the structure established by Joseph Campbell and popularized by George Lucas. Wether intentionally or not, Christopher Nolan hinted at what was coming when he made The Dark Knight, and his statement that The Dark Knight Rises is “the biggest one anyone’s done since the silent era,” is true. (Empire Magazine #277)


The concept of an “epic” makes most people think of the massive sets and budgets of films like The Lord of the Rings, Ben-Hur, or Titanic; the films are longer, the explosions are bigger, and the awards are won in greater numbers. However, the Hollywood epic is more complex than that. Films like Spartacus, Lawrence of Arabia, Gone With The Wind, and 2001: A Space Odyssey are epics, and they hold this title because - beyond their big budgets, sets, and runtimes - they tell the stories of many people. Epics do not tell the story of a single Joseph Campbell hero, they tell the story of multiple Campbell heroes. The Dark Knight Rises is a Hollywood epic. It is also a Hollywood epic that is almost entirely unique because although it is based on established characters and parts of its story are lifted from specific comics, it is not based on an historical event or on a previously-published book.

The Dark Knight Rises delivers what Christopher Nolan promised it would: a conclusion to Bruce Wayne’s story that was started in Batman Begins. However, it is also the story of Commissioner Gordon, Selina Kyle, Alfred Pennyworth, Miranda Tate, John Blake, Lucius Fox, Bane, and Deputy Commissioner Foley. Each character is given a part of the story that involves personal stakes as high as those faced by Harvey Dent or James Gordon in The Dark Knight, and each character is important to the larger story of the city of Gotham.

It is possible to counter by arguing that these characters are all still supporting players to the story of Bruce Wayne. To a certain extent that is true. But the proof that Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy is about more than just Bruce Wayne lies in the film’s title and in its final shot.

Nolan has a terrific history of leaving his films with a very important final shot, and sometimes a very important final line. Inception ends with Cobb’s top spinning and then cuts to black before the mystery can be conclusively solved. Memento ends at the beginning of the story as Leonard Shelby pulls up in front of the tattoo parlour, which starts everything in motion. The Prestige ends with the haunting image of dozens of dead Robert Angier clones floating in water traps. Batman Begins ends with the teasing image of a joker card and then Batman flying over the city. The Dark Knight ends with Gordon’s powerful monologue and the final explanation of the title, and how it relates to Batman and Bruce Wayne as the main character. The Dark Knight Rises ends with John Blake stepping into the Batcave and being raised on a hidden platform. The Dark Knight of the title is not Bruce Wayne, it is this former detective who’s birth name is Robin Blake.

In the end it is Gotham City and its citizens, the world in which this Batman exists, that is the main character. That might seem like a cop out answer, but the concept of Gotham City as a character has a deep tradition in the comic books. City of Crime, Year One, and the Knightfall series (which is a major influence on The Dark Knight Rises) all involve major characters considering the city itself and how it is like a living organism.

Christopher Nolan’s creative control over his films is nearly unprecedented for filmmakers dealing with such massive budgets. He exerts more power over the multi-million dollar films he makes than most indie directors have over the lowest budget films in production. Any writer-director who has Nolan’s level of creative control will be very careful to select the title of his film. The Dark Knight seemed to be an unusual choice because it was the first Batman film that did not say “Batman” in the title, but the end of the film made it clear why it was the perfect choise. The Dark Knight Rises, on the other hand, seemed like a very predictable title given the success of its predecessor. No one doubted that the “Dark Knight” of the title was Bruce Wayne, and everyone has been proven wrong.

Audiences are notoriously picky. They want to experience something new, but refuse to pay for anything other than a re-hash of the same material. Of the top 20 highest-grossing films worldwide (as of July 21, 2012), only 5 are not sequels: Avatar, Titanic, Alice in Wonderland, The Lion King, and Jurassic Park (Alice in Wonderland’s story is essentially a sequel, but it was not marketed as one). Only Avatar and The Lion King were written as original screenplays, and both owe large parts of their stories to the legend of Pocahontas and Shakespeare’s Hamlet, respectively.

The audience, therefore, will not willingly trade in Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey that has been so satisfying on film since 1977. But by building to The Dark Knight Rises in a trilogy, by sneaking the traditional Hollywood epic back into the mainstream, and by making three of the greatest superhero films of all time, Christopher Nolan has achieved a new form of classic filmmaking. At a time when the biggest blockbusters are based on comic book heroes, and when the best of those films are escapist entertainment, he has created a trilogy of comic book films that are intellectual, emotional, philisophical, and challenging on levels that even the best non-superhero films fail to reach. His films, and The Dark Knight Trilogy in particular, will be worthy of study for centuries to come. Like the films of Stanley Kubrick, the films of Christopher Nolan are in a game of their own.