Just Another Kubrick In The Fourth Wall
I am not Spartacus. In this particular instance I am the narrator. Let me explain.
Oh, God. Not another Kubrick analysis.
Do You Like Watching Gladiator Movies, Stanley?
In 1960 Stanley Kubrick was picked to take over as director of the Universal Pictures film Spartacus. Written by the blacklisted writer Dalton Trumbo, the story of Spartacus is about the slave revolt against Rome that was started and organized by the military man turned gladiator himself- Spartacus. The film explores the nature of what it is to be free and the cost of fighting for that freedom. Early in Spartacus Kirk Douglas’s eponymous hero must fight his fellow slave Dracas for the amusement of the Roman ruling class. In the dirty ring of sand they struggle against each other while the audience distractedly watches on. Idly discussing politics and the business of the day, like a Vietnam era family eating dinner in front of the TV, the bloody reality being played out in front of them is a vague distraction. That is until one of the players in this violent drama stops doing what’s expected of him.
When Spartacus’ opponent refuses to kill Spartacus at the behest of their rulers, he hurtles a trident right at them. The POV is from behind the spectators and everyone dodges out of the way as the trident strikes the edge of the frame or basically the camera’s edge. In the darkened theaters of 1960 the effect would have made the audience jump back in their seats. The gladiator has broken the 4th wall - the invisible line between audience and spectacle - and when Dracas makes physical contact with Lawrence Olivier's Crassus, he pays in blood.
This act of sacrifice inspires Spartacus to rebel against his oppressors and lead an uprising that ends tragically but with the assurance that his ideal of freedom will outlive him.
When in Rome.
Kubrick, who replaced Anthony Mann half way through filming, never got the film he wanted. He later disowned the film. Douglas was producing and forbid Kubrick to alter the script. But Kubrick still snuck in his artistic touches. That lower right hand corner of the screen that Dracas' trident struck comes back in his later work. That strike against the corner of the movie screen is Kubrick's start of a revolution against those who would enslave him to a narrative that was not his own. From this film on he only made films wherein he had complete control of the narrative. He was no one's Dracas.
I never meta-selfie I didn't like
There Is No Fighting In The War Room!
Fourth wall breaks are nothing new to cinema or to performance in general. The Greek chorus addressing the hero of a performed tragedy in ancient plays is not unlike the absurdist notion that it's perfectly normal for the characters of a musical to suddenly break out in a choreographed song and dance number. Charlie Chaplin was making fourth wall breaks before films could talk. Villains like Shakespeare's Richard of Gloucester were often letting the audience in on some inside revelation. This form of theatrical self awareness was developed further by Bertol Brecht in such works as Threepenny Opera wherein the spectacle of the theater serves to remind the audience that they are watching a play. This mutually confirmed reality between audience and cast is a thinly veiled fiction. These meta breaks in the narrative can be as obvious as Ferris Bueller telling viewers to go home after his day off or as subtle as John Ford's opening and closing sequences in The Searchers. The metaphorical door within the screen opening and closing on the audience like the pages of a storybook.
Hope you're enjoying the air conditioning, sissies.
Kubrick begins to play with this cinematic self awareness in Spartacus. The "I am Spartacus" scene blurs the line between audience and slave. Spartacus' army of slaves has been surrounded by the Roman legions. They will spare the slaves lives if they simply point out which one of them is Spartacus. This not only touches on the metaphor of martyrdom that all slaves fighting for freedom are essentially Spartacus but also mirrors the solidarity of the audience. Spartacus' slave army sits en mass, humbled and subservient in much the same way the audience must sit and accept the narrative of the film. Here the fourth wall is established as a class barrier between subject and audience. It reflects Kubrick's own enslavement to Douglas' and Trumbo's authorship of the film. Kubrick is like an audience member to his own movie. He cannot truly direct the narrative that carries his name.
This place doesn't even give you refills on your popcorn.
Well, certainly no one could have been unaware of the very strange stories floating around before we left.
~HAL
Kubrick's exploration of evolving narrative structure advances as he moves forward from Spartacus. 2001: A Space Odyssey's Heywood Floyd discusses the notion of a cover story in the film that must be strictly maintained because the "public" could not handle the true story. The true story involves the discovery of the monolith on the moon. Later HAL the computer becomes conflicted and malfunctions as he intentionally lies to the crew about a failing communications part on the satellite dish. When Bowman disconnects HAL, Bowman learns that the hidden narrative was about the monolith. But the scene involving HAL's memory banks and cognitive function being shut down is especially interesting.
HAL's "brain" is bathed in red light. Stanley Kubrick was a professional photographer before he was a film director. HAL's eye is a camera lens with a red dot placed dead center.
HAL is the 3rd act's narrator. Considering that Kubrick was a photographer he would be very familiar with darkrooms. Darkrooms were film developing rooms bathed in red light so that the negatives would not get over exposed and destroy the picture. When Bowman shuts HAL down he becomes aware of a second narrative that has been hidden from him. A new picture has developed and Bowman has killed the narrator. Becoming aware of this second narrative, Poole leaves the spaceship to engage the monolith. The Guest Speaker Has Blown Up and Everyone is Confused
This is my title, this is my line
R. Lee Ermey's Gunnery Sergeant Hartman is arguably Full Metal Jacket's narrator for the first half of the film. He not only breaks down his recruits and renames them but also fully addresses the audience as well. He is in charge of the narrative and in charge of our reaction to the narrative until the fateful night that Vincent D'Onfrio's Pvt. "Pyle" loses touch with his senses.
Again, the narrator has been killed and the audience is set adrift within the narrative. Just before he's shot, Hartman demands to know what Pyle is doing "in my head." This denotes the bathroom but also has a double meaning. Hartman yells "What is your major malfunction!" which echoes back to 2001's HAL breaking down and murdering his crew. Bowman enters HAL's head to consequently kill HAL; the last visual reference that connects these films in these two moments are the windows reflecting white squares unto the wall of the bathroom.
These white squares framing our characters through the "head's" windows are also seen across Bowman's face in HAL's head in 2001.
This visual cue connects these two separate scenes in two different films so that we connect the death of the narrator across Kubrick's work. As Bowman "kills" HAL his face becomes illuminated. The larger narrative he learns enlightens him.
Down And Into The Right
Dracas' trident strike to the lower right hand corner of the screen re emerges in 2001 as well. Characters start to notice the edge of the screen.
The sapien ape Moon-Watcher awakens to what the Monolith has instructed him to learn. He regards something down right of the screen. He later picks up a bone and brandishes it at the watering hole thus insuring his genetic line survives. But there's something else going on here as well.
Keir Dullea's Bowman has dropped his glass of water and it breaks on the floor of the "space hotel" he now resides in. He pauses and regards the down right edge of the screen.
Again we see two scenes mirrored. It's the same point of reference associated with an acknowledgement moments before a major change in the characters state of being. When Bowman looks up from the glass he sees himself laying in bed on the verge of death. This is just moments before he transforms into the Star Child. Moon-Watcher is about to embrace life and transform into a dominant species. Heywood Floyd makes a similar gesture as well.
Heywood touches the monolith's surface or what appears to be the right edge of our screen. The way this scene is shot gives a visual impression that Floyd has discovered the edge of the physical screen. Moments later a deafening signal is sent to the other end of the solar system from the monolith and HAL and crew are sent on a mission to find out why. There is a character arc from ignorance into enlightenment that is involved with subliminally finding the edge of the movie screen. These characters are on the verge of realizing their own narrative and change as a result.
All Work and No Play Makes Stanley a Dull Boy
There is little territory here that Room 237 hasn't already covered. Except that The Shining's narrator dies looking up into his forehead. When Nicholson's Jack Torrance speaks to the previous caretaker Grady in the ballroom bathroom we again have our narrator experiencing a crucial turning point in the film.
Red room (redrum), white squares of light and a double narrative revealed in the "head". There's the story that Grady admits to and the story that Jack knows. But Grady flips the narrative on Jack. Jack has always been the caretaker of the Overlook Hotel or rather the narrative of the film. After all he is a writer. Jack's other worldly experience is simply the transference of a guilty conscience. That's why Grady brings up the boy. He is willful and sees things that no one else can. He's aware of a separate narrative and vies for Jack's position as narrator. A child's ability to see things as they are threatens Jack's struggle to frame events as he wants them to be seen.
I'm thinking "re-write" at this point.
Let It Go
Kubrick's struggle to free the narrative from the narrator speaks to his intense desire to neither be controlled creatively nor to possess total control over the narrative for himself.
Kubrick's infamously perfectionistic attention to detail on the set of his films is well documented and there was not a detail that went unnoticed by the auteur. Yet he constantly collaborated with his actors and would often develop a fatherly relationship with his cast and crew. He wanted their input and their best "selves" coming through in their characters. He encouraged Jack Nicholson to be as over the top as he could be, gave Peter Sellers free reign in his roles in Lolita and Dr. Strangelove, and granted Malcolm Mcdowell virtual carte blanche for the character of Alex in A Clockwork Orange. In fact, in 2014 Mcdowell told an interviewer that when he asked Kubrick in the early stages of pre production who Alex should be Kubrick responded, “Well, gee, Malc, that’s why I hired you.” Mcdowell realized this to be a gift from Kubrick. He was free to bring as much of himself to the character as he saw fit.
Kubrick exercised an informal freedom toward his actors, his co narrators, that belied his faith in the telling of a story to be a shared experience between himself, his cast and crew and with the audience. He displays this high faith and respect toward all these elements in his work when 2001 enters the "4th act".
Bowman travels through the star gate via the monolith and begins what can only be described as one of the most bizarre transformations in cinema history. It is a transformation of how POV is used to show change in the character. Bowman goes from viewing himself in a mirror to viewing himself eating at a table in a third person POV. The tabled Bowman turns to look back at the camera but does not see the first Bowman whose POV we are currently experiencing. This progresses into further disassociated POV's as Kubrick breaks down the role of narrator to the point of non existence. The final step to becoming the "Star Child" involves letting go of traditional points of view and ultimately the "self". This is the 4th act's breaking down of the final fourth wall.
At the moment of Bowman's death he lies bedridden and toothless. He can no longer eat and thus has no reason to fight. The ultimate breaking of the fourth wall is Bowman pointing at the monolith as the camera POV becomes enveloped in it's blackness. We see the Star Child. He looks back at the audience and at the Earth. There is a rebirth of POV and it includes being aware of all aspects of the narrative. This is Kubrick's fourth wall address to the audience. We have now been made aware of the double narrative. These are films about = (space, time, evolution, murder, violence, hunger and fear) as well as narrative. Kubrick has achieved freedom in art and freedom from the weight of his own control over the narrative. This is his vision. This is hope. That the artificial line between director and audience can be abolished even for just a short moment and we can know everything going on inside his head.