1 It’s useless discussing, yet again, whether Stanley Kubrick was murdered because he revealed too much (this is obviously true so it warrants no further analysis). What is more important is the meaning such a dedicated craftsman meant to convey in the richly-layered symbolic strata of his masterpiece. A very simple cue. In the final shots, the protagonist couple’s young daughter trails after— or is lured by?— two older men in a department store. These men appear once previously, at the Ziegler ball from the story’s beginning. On the surface level, this implies the couple is indeed being surveilled (a point of ambiguity in the sequences filmed from Bill’s perspective, or at least as close as Kubrick ever comes to adopting a character’s vision (I don’t offhand recall any explicit perspective shots in his movies)). In the immediate symbolic layer, Ziegler’s party is an obvious symbolic double of Somerton— everything about the party is imbued with sexual innuendos, but in the everyday once-removed, plausible-deniability sense that allows everyone to retain their social masks (to ‘save face’). This world in inverted at the Somerton orgy, where the barbarism can proceed because everyone wears actual masks. In fact, these are not two separate events— you can mentally superimpose Ziegler’s party over Somerton to obtain the totality, the Symbolic world of language and social-games that constitutes the self above the primordial ‘reality’ (in actuality part of the totality that collectively describes reality) that lies beneath. Kubrick shows this singular event in two separate scenes because this is the only way to depict the layered structure of reality in linear time (unless you were to— as a very tacky cinematic device— do it with superimposition or split screens). Everyone at the Ziegler party has a double at Somerton, because they are precisely the same event, an equivalence which is heavily implied throughout the story (e.g., when Ziegler reveals to Bill that “I was there [at Somerton]”). Everyone at both parties is an uber-elite— again, Ziegler says so explicitly when he confronts Bill— with Bill as an outsider (Bill: “why does he even invite me to these things?”) and possible inductee as an accomplished New York City doctor. The two men in the screenshots, as older and presumably more established members of this elite, are insiders and hence sexual deviants, shown here whisking a young girl away from her parents. This is more than slightly intimated with the subplot of Rainbow Fashions, whose owner appears to sell his daughter to a couple Japanese businessmen. Bill is appalled, but he succumbs the same: either child sacrifice is the cost of his entrance into the elite, or it happens through mere inattention. I mean, you didn’t notice this either, did you? Relax, it’s not your kid. Step aside, The Shining; the ending here terrifies more than any conventional horror story ever could.
A short note to say how much I appreciated the reference to Diary of A Man in Despair. A great, great book and every time I see it mentioned, such as just now, I'm surprised it isn't mentioned much, much more often
It's a terrific book. It doesn't surprise me much that it receives hardly any attention-- it doesn't fit well with the liberal worldview that many of the fiercest critics of Nazism were reactionaries (and people tend to ignore what doesn't fit neatly into their mental maps). It has been several years since I've read it now. One of these days I should do a longer post on it with some key excerpts.
What are the two books you cite under 7? thanks!
The Intelligent Investor and The Austrian Theory of the Trade Cycle
A short note to say how much I appreciated the reference to Diary of A Man in Despair. A great, great book and every time I see it mentioned, such as just now, I'm surprised it isn't mentioned much, much more often
It's a terrific book. It doesn't surprise me much that it receives hardly any attention-- it doesn't fit well with the liberal worldview that many of the fiercest critics of Nazism were reactionaries (and people tend to ignore what doesn't fit neatly into their mental maps). It has been several years since I've read it now. One of these days I should do a longer post on it with some key excerpts.