The article was originally published in Hong Kong 01 Philosophy 2018-06-09
Two Monuments of Space Movies——Talking about "2001 A Space Odyssey" and "Flying to Space"
Kubrick (also translated as Kobleik) and Tarkovsky, either one is deep enough, and either one is enough to talk about for a long time. Although the two movie styles are very different, they share common concerns. "2001 A Space Odyssey" (hereinafter referred to as "2001") filmed in 1968 and "Flying to Space" (also translated as "Solar Li") in 1972 show the two extremely keen predictions and reflections on space and technology. It is now worthy of being among the greatest science fiction movies of the 20th century, and perhaps the only two great works. Steven Spielberg said after watching "2001": "It doesn't feel like a movie... It's not a documentary, it's not a drama, it's not actually a science fiction." Undoubtedly, both "2001" and "Flying to Space" have become profound philosophical texts, waiting for us to explore the meaning of them.
To understand the profound meaning of "2001", a good entry point—perhaps beyond many people's expectations—is Nietzsche's philosophy. The most striking evidence for this is that Richard Strauss's symphonic poem of the same name influenced by Nietzsche’s “Also Sprach Zarathustra” (Also Sprach Zarathustra) is used three times in the film. The first time is at the beginning of the movie, the second time is when the monkey throws the bone, and the third time is at the end of the movie). In fact, Strauss’s song was not well-known before "2001" was released, but it was "2001" that made it widely circulated.
As a romantic composer, Strauss certainly tries to show the inner vitality and romantic sentiment of the person. The impassioned beginning of the whole piece of music is giving people a sense of excitement and rebirth. This song contains nine parts of the introduction, and its titles are selected from Nietzsche’s works, such as "On the other side of the world" (von den Hinterweltlern), "On science" (von der Wissenschaft), "Recovery" (der Genesende) ) And so on, and the introduction is called "Sunrise" (Sonnenaufgang), which is exactly the same as the title of the first part of "2001" "The Dawn of Man" (the Dawn of Man). The whole film begins with the sun rising in the darkness of the universe-with this symphonic poem-symbolizing the dawn of mankind, and from it we can already predict that this is a process of human history. The depiction of Strauss is exactly what Strauss said: “I want to convey through music the development of mankind from its origin, through different stages, religious and scientific, until Nietzsche’s ideals of superman. The whole symphonic poem It is a tribute to the genius Nietzsche, and this genius found the greatest expression in his work "So Zarathustra" [Note 1]. From this point of view, the intention of Strauss’s works is obvious, and the titles he chose reflect one point. For example, the so-called “worlder on the other side” refers to those who believe in the other side in religion, and "On Science" It is to express that the emergence of near-agent science is a disenchantment of religion, which makes people have to face the world after the death of God. In such a world of nothingness, we must find a new beginning, that is, the advent of superman. .
So, what does Kubrick's movie have to do with this? The mastery of the use of tools by the apes indicates that the apes have got rid of their animal side and transformed into human beings. As the bones are swung into the sky, the camera instantly switches to the future space several million years later. This shot has been regarded as one of the classic shots in film history, and it symbolizes the moment when the human process over millions of years may be the shot in the entire infinite universe. For Kubrick, the use of tools and the entry into space may be the two nodes that divide human history. The millions of years in between can be regarded as "human" periods, and it is precisely here. We saw the shadow of Nietzsche. For Nietzsche, "man is a rope suspended between animals and superman" [Note 2]. It must be noted here that although Kubrick describes the process of man from a historical development or evolutionary perspective, and some scholars have noticed that Kubrick’s film is consistent with Nietzsche’s "animal-human-superman" structure [Note 3], but Nietzsche is not talking about superman in the sense of biological evolution. Nietzsche opposed the Darwinian view of evolution from beginning to end [Note 4]. All we can say is that Kubrick used Nietzsche's imagery to talk about the past and future of people as he understood them. However, what symbolizes Superman in the movie? The answer is the image of Star Child at the end of the film. At the end of the film, astronaut Dave travels through a series of splendid space-time tunnels (which symbolizes the future of space is beyond our words), comes to a room, and finally transforms into a child in the universe (symphonic poetic The music plays again here). The child is actually the last stage when Nietzsche talks about the Three Mental Changes: "Children are innocence and forgetfulness, a new beginning" [Note 5]. For Nietzsche, children represent a new beginning, which is the overcoming of self after affirming everything. And this person who overcomes and surpasses himself is Superman, and he has the ability to recreate (value). In fact, Zarathustra himself became a child, an awakened one [Note 6]. Kubrick may not have gone so far, but he borrowed the image of a child to express that the history of mankind has entered a new stage.
So far, we have seen that Kubrick borrowed Nietzsche's "Animal-Man-Superman" to narrate human history, and the turning point for these three stages of transformation is the mysterious black stone in the movie. The ape gained the ability to use tools after seeing the black stone. David, who was dying, was finally transformed into a star boy after seeing the black stone. Some scholars believe that the mysterious black stone was cast by aliens, so the creation of man and the historical process of man are actually not the actions of God, but the actions of aliens. Following this line of thought, the second story in the film, the discovery of the black stone on the moon, is to reveal that man finally realized that man was created not by God but by aliens [Note 7]. If this hypothesis is true, then it is metaphorically expressed that with the destruction of religious beliefs, people have entered the stage of rational science, which is also in line with the structure of Strauss' music. However, in the stage dominated by technology, we have seen the rebellion of artificial intelligence against people. The portrayal of the artificial intelligence HAL in the film is shocking and unprecedented. Due to a failure of HAL, David and another outer astronaut Frank wanted to shut down the center HAL of the entire spacecraft. However, HAL was conscious of its mission and did not want to be shut down. In this case, HAL took the initiative to cut off the power of the other three astronauts who were hibernating, "killing" them, and also cut off the connection line of the Frank's capsule, causing them to fall into deep space. Powerful artificial intelligence defeats humans (for example, in the movie Frank and HAL lose in chess), this is a problem that is gradually realized in our time, and Kubrick predicted it as early as half a century ago.
In the eyes of many people, "2001" may lack a complete narrative structure. However, now we see that Nietzsche's "Animal-Man-Superman" and "Human Origin-Religion-Science-Superman" inspired by Nietzsche by Strauss together constitute the narrative framework of "2001". The use of tools makes humans get rid of the animal stage and become humans. This is the origin of humans. In the "human stage," humans have experienced the age of religion and science. In the former, people trust their lives on the other side and in God; while in the latter, people who break away from the mysterious religion cannot Do not face the world of nihilism, and face the rebellion of technology and the threat to human existence. In the end, one must overcome these two previous stages and move towards a new beginning, the stage of creation. However, in my opinion, Kubrick’s film is still more prophecies through visual effects than reflections. After all, the stage of creation and the stage of human rebirth are beyond our words. The use of beautiful pictures instead of words is more to give the audience a shock and leave the right to guess to the audience, as he mentioned in the interview: "Language is quite subjective, and Its meaning is also limited; and through the communication of music and vision, we have gone beyond the concept of language classification that people tend to get stuck with" [Note 8]. In other words, if it is true that the ending of the film is incomprehensible, as some critics said at the time, then this incomprehension is only caused by the boundaries of the person's own speech. However, in the 1960s, it was Kubrick's genius to be able to convey that almost unimaginable future through images.
If "2001" is more like describing and predicting the future of mankind, then Tarkovsky's "Flying to Space" is like his other movies, which is highly reflective. Compared with Kubrick's brilliant visual pictures, "Flying to Space" can be said to be extremely simple, and even the space capsule is just like a dilapidated tin house. In fact, Tarkovsky is not very interested in space and the universe itself. For him, studying space is to study ourselves [Note 9]. If we don't even have the knowledge about people, how can we talk about the knowledge about space?
The film tells the story of humans trying to understand the mysterious planet Solaris (Solaris) in outer space. This planet is covered with a colloidal ocean, which emits magnetic currents and affects human consciousness. In a sense, Solaris is like a brain. By influencing people’s consciousness, it can make the memories in human consciousness re-substantiate and present them in front of people. For example, dead people reappear on Solaris. . All this made the scientists investigating Solaris panic, so psychologist Kelvin (Kelvin) was ordered to investigate. However, during the investigation, Kelvin's dead wife, Hallie, also reappeared in his before.
The core of the whole film is actually an argument between Kelvin and the biologist Satorius and the astronomer Snaut in the library. Perhaps it is a state of being lost and frustrated with scientific research all the year round, so for Snart: "We are in a state of human stupidity, striving to achieve a goal that we are afraid to achieve, a goal that we don't need." Human beings always have the desire to seek knowledge, especially to the vast and mysterious space. However, this kind of knowledge has never considered a moral basis, that is, what kind of need do we obtain knowledge, and that knowledge How does it relate to our lives? More importantly, will the goal we want to achieve is actually what we are afraid of? Snart’s views actually express Tarkovsky’s own views to a certain extent. In other words, we have carried out these inquiries before we understand why we should engage in space and scientific research. Snart’s view drew Sa Torres’s rebuttal. According to Sar Torres, “Humans can learn the laws of nature. In the endless search for truth, humans are destined to be burdened by knowledge”. It can be seen that the search for scientific truth comes from human nature, and the desire to pursue knowledge is human desire, even if we have to pay for such knowledge. For Saretos, who holds the view of scientific truth, Halle, who has materialized from our memory and consciousness, is of course "just a mechanical copy, a model." Because from a scientific point of view, this incarnation of consciousness, this so-called illusion, is unreal. However, at this moment, Hallie on the side said: "In a non-human environment, he (referring to Kelvin) behaved very humanely, and you behaved as if it had nothing to do with all of this, and thought that we were an outsider. Obstacle; but it is a part of you, your consciousness". Although Halle is the "illusion" realized by Solari's magnetic current affecting Kelvin's consciousness, Kelvin does not regard it as an "external obstacle", but a part of himself. Here, whether or not space has a certain meaning of scientific exploration is not so important to Tarkovsky. "Space"-as pointed out by Taiwanese scholar Song Guocheng-has become a "pure consciousness of ethical debate" here. Field" [Note 10]. It's not about how we face the problem of space, but how we face our own memories and the depths of our hearts. After all, Halle is the result of Kelvin's memory materialization. Through such a space trip, Kelvin once again experienced his own life.
Although "Flying to Space" was changed from the science fiction novel of the same name by Stanislaw Lem, the film was not liked by Lem when it was released. The reason is that Tarkovsky removed many so-called space. Elements, and focus more on the "people", including the nearly forty minutes at the beginning of the film, which all took place on the earth, which is not in the original work. At the end of "2001", Kubrick gave us a shot of a star boy, which is futuristic and a new beginning; and at the end of "Flying to Space", Tarkovsky also gave us a shot Extremely shocking scene: Just when we thought that Kelvin was back on earth and back to his wooden house, the lens slowly opened, and Kelvin was still in a vast ocean. This may be both Tarkovsky's humor and his irony: we think we understand, but in fact we are still trapped in the original situation and unable to move.
"2001" and "Flying to Space", in terms of visual technology and the grandeur of the story, I have to say that Kubrick is better, but when it comes to reflections on technology and people, Tarkovsky is even more In-depth discussion of how people face the problem of space. This year is exactly the 50th anniversary of the release of "2001". In today's era when artificial intelligence is no longer unfamiliar and post-human problems are gradually becoming more obvious, these two films are still our starting points and guiding lights for thinking about these problems.
Notes:
Note 1: Quoted from Jacobson, B. "Also Sprach Zarathustra, Op.30" for the American Symphony Orchestra: http://americansymphony.org/also-sprach-zarathustra-op-30-1896/
Note 2: See section 4 of the preamble of "The Saying of Zarathustra".
Note 3: Abrams, J. "Nietzsche's Overman as Posthuman Star Child in 2001: Space Odyssey." in The Philosophy of Stanley Kubrick. Ed. by Jerold Abrams. Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky, 2007, pp.247-248.
Note 4: See section 1 of "Why I Write These Good Books" in "Ecce Homo". I must remind again that, in my opinion, Kubrick is more like borrowing Nietzsche's structure to express his films, which does not necessarily correspond to Nietzsche's own thinking. For Nietzsche, Superman cannot be understood as a race or ideal that will appear in the future. The original meaning of Übermensch is über-mensch. In other words, it should be understood as a verb or activity. And this transcendence of oneself (über-sich-hinausgehend) is an unending process. See Pieper, A. Ein Seil, geknüpft zwischen Thier und Übermensch: Philosophische Erläuterung zu Nietzsches Also Sprach Zarathustra. Basel: Schwabe Verlag, s. 56.
Note 5: See Chapter 1 of Volume 1 of "The Saying of Zarathustra".
Note 6: See section 2 of the preamble of The Saying of Zarathustra.
Note 7: Abrams 2007: 250-251.
Note 8: Rapf, M. “A Talk with Stanley Kubrick about 2001. ”in Stanley Kubrick Interviews . Ed. by Gene D. Phillips. Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi, 2001, p.78.
Note 9: Please refer to Tarkovsky, "Sculpture Time", translated by Yan Dingjia, Taipei: Wanderer Cultural Business, 2017, p.264. Note 10: Song Guocheng, "Metaphysical Exile: Writing in Exile in the Twentieth Century", Taipei: Qingsong Books, 2008, p. 22.
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