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Michael Gibson

Vanderbilt UniversityGraduate Dept. of Religion

The Luminous Frame: the Apophatic Vision of God in theCinematic Art of Stanley Kubrick

Through art we discover the means for embarking upon our joyful journey of return to the Kingdom of God.

-Bishop Kallistos Ware1

Introduction

Art has attempted to express or represent the holy in a polyphony of forms, from ancient

iconography to Serranos Piss Christ, underscoring the variegated approaches to visualizing the

human encounter with the ethereal. Though art and religion share a contentious relationship, es-

pecially since the rise of modernity, there remains a resilient residue of substantive connection be-

tween the two spheres, in which they offer mutual critique and enrichment.2 The visual medium of

art contains the prolific capacity for stimulating the religious mind (and body) towards fresh en-

counters with and understanding of the divine and the holy, and can open new layers of meaning

for theological thought and analysis.3 Art can, in fact, take on the visual shape of theological ideas

and forms, providing access to the transcendent through the provocation of contemplation; in a cer-

tain sense, art has a mediational capability in its inexhaustible and multivalent interpretational

1Ware, Creativity and the Meaning of Image from the Perspective of the Orthodox Icon,Theology Today 61(2004): 61.2Robin Jensen writes: Images are vehicles for theology, both at the popular and official level, both within the insti-tution of the church and outside it, as supports or subversion of mainstream teachings. I came to understand that

the future church leaders and theologians needed to learn about the arts as a way of expressing, exploring, forming

and challenging faith as well as a medium of divine self-revelation, inThe Substance of Things Seen: Art,Faith and the Christian Community (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 47, ix. Cf. Ware, op. cit., 54. Itshould be noted, as these authors suggest, that art is not conducive carte blanche to the religious mind, as some

art is intrinsically inimical to religion; however, it is decisively important for the church to think through and expe-rientially encounter visual imagery as concomitantly formative, provocative and challenging for faith, even, or per-haps especially, art that transgresses religious sensibilities. See Frank Burch Brown, Good Taste, Bad Tasteand Christian Taste: Aesthetics in Religious Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), ch. 5; also,David Morgan,The Sacred Gaze: Religious Visual Culture in Theory and Practice (Berkeley, CA: Uni-versity of California Press, 2005), ch. 1, 4.3See esp. Hans Urs von Balthasar,The Glory of the Lord: a Theological Aesthetics, eds. Joseph Fessio, S.J., and John Riches, part I: Seeing the Form, trans. Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1982), 34-44, 79f.; cf. Trevor Hart, Through the Arts: Hearing, Seeing and Touching the Truth, in Beholding the Glory:Incarnation Through the Arts, ed. Jeremy Begbie (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001), 1-26.


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structure.4 In this, visual art is an expressive idiom through which theological modes of thought

can be communicated in a powerful and relevant manner.

Cinema is a particular type of visual art that has gained vast currency in contemporary cul-

ture, and represents a located artistic form with a tremendous reserve for the visual articulation of

theological ideas and the stimulation of theological thought, contemplation and discussion.5 Ac-

cording to film critic and screenwriter/director Paul Schrader, the development of a transcendental

style in filmmaking has given rise to the ability of film to be expressive of the holy; as Schrader

indicates, the nature of the medium and its particular techniques lend itself to visual communica-

tion of the ineffable and invisible, the transcendent refracted through immanent, temporal

means.6 The transcendental style of film creates a unique sense of connection between the medi-

um of cinema and the nature of religious iconography, which projects the viewer beyond the imme-

diate impression of the visual into a region of encounter, in contemplation and experience of the

sublime and the beautiful.7 Film is able, at once, to capture and represent the transcendent in the

immanent, and subsequently to propel the imagination beyond the temporal, immanent moment.

Cinematic art, as well, underlines the communal act of participation in the event of encounter and

experience, insofar as it unfolds in the midst of a corporate gathering, and takes up the viewers into

its gesture (or gaze) toward the transcendent and the sacred.8

This essay will explore the theological possibilities of film to actualize a vision of the di-

vine as an iconographic corollary through its utilization of the transcendental style; in particular, Iwill focus on Stanley Kubricks film 2001: a Space Odyssey. The central argument of this

essay will be that Kubrick has created a religiously metaphysical film that contains an apophatic

4Cf. Friedrich Schleiermacher, On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers, ed. and trans. RichardCrouter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 3-54, 69.5A. Bazin, Cinema Theology, South Atlantic Quarterly 91/2 (1992): 393-408; D. Bridge, Back to the Cine-ma: Theology Reflects on the Arts, Epworth Review 22 (Jan. 1995): 39-44; Paul Schrader,TranscendentalStyle in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1972), 169. Clive Marsh,lecturer in divinity at University of Sheffield, UK, suggests that film is a key resource through which theology may

discover constructively its discursive contribution to contemporary culture; he cautions, in so doing, that both theol-

ogy and film must mutually engage each other in their own integrity, which is to say that one cannot co-opt the other

in an expedient quarrying of utile parts. Cf. Marsh, Film and Theologies of Culture, in Explorations in Theol-ogy and Film, eds. Clive Marsh and Gaye Ortiz (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), 2, 27-29.6Schrader,Transcendental Style in Film, 3-4, 7-8.7Ibid, 11-13, 161f., 169. Cf. Jim Forest, Through Icons: Word and Image Together, in Beholding the Glory,83-97. Roger Holloway makes a similar argument to Schrader in Beyond the Image: Approaches to theReligious Dimensions in the Cinema (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1977).8The communal feature of film, as well, highlights the nature of arts variegated interpretive structure, in which anartwork evinces a multivocality of meanings resident in the interpretative reception of the audience; cf. Jensen,Substance of Things Seen, 33, 47. Also, Marsh, op. cit., 3, 11-13, 35-37; Schrader, op. cit., 169, 172.

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vision of God,9 and that the film and its central feature, a black monolith, have a functional resem-

blance to iconographic art by drawing the viewer toward the divine, in effect transcending the im-

manental dimension of the vehicle. Kubricks film visually represents the apophatic theological

model, structured around a series of encounters with the wholly other (viz., the monolith), in

which the characters embark upon increasingly distant expeditions toward the monolith (the con-

clusive encounter occurring at the very limit or boundary of the created realm); the upshot of this

structure is precisely that the knowledge of God is enigmatic, uncontainable, transcendent and inef-

fable at this point, the human being is utterly transformed in agnosia. The strategic procedure

of the essay will be as follows: first, I will briefly examine the apophatic theological method and

iconographic art represented in the Eastern tradition, which will serve as the theoretic background

to the main argument; second, I will rehearse the particular features of the transcendental style in

film as outlined by Schrader,10 by which Kubricks film will be evaluated; and, third, I will provide

a theological analysis of Kubricks film, highlighting the presence of these features. In this, I will

attempt to demonstrate that Kubrick provides in 2001 a supernal vision that evinces the theolog-

ical viability of cinematic art as a visual idiomatic expression of encounter with the holy.

I. Early Christian Apophaticism and Iconography

(a) The Apophatic Model of Theological Apprehension

Pseudo-Dionysius suggests that human ascent in the knowledge of God occurs in a two-

fold process consisting of a series of positive affirmations (cataphasis) followed by negations ordenials (apophasis) concerning the nature and being of God.11 The attainment of true knowledge

of God, for Ps.-Dionysius, follows from the negation of affirmations limned from the created order,

9Kubrick, in an interview with the New York Times, indicated that the film has a particularly metaphysical quali-ty about it, that the God concept is at the heart of2001, but not any traditional, anthropomorphic image of God. Ifind 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. From New York Times (21 December 1968), 1D. Ac-cessed at http//:www.nytimes.com/archives/art&ent/1968/Kubrickinterview/2001.html10I am utilizing the analytical principles developed by Paul Schrader in order to guide and substantiate filmic exe-

gesis according to the methods and specialized tools of the industry itself. This is an important procedural elementin developing an interpretation that is veritable in line with the standards and idiom of cinema, which prevents indul-

gent, speculative eisegesis. Cf. Jensen, op. cit., 30. David Browne, similarly, writes that one can read a filmonly if one is familiar with its language. Whilst film is not a language in itself, it generates its meaning through sys-

tems which work as language in relation to the film text. Film should be regarded primarily as a system of signifi-

cation, and those systems of signification produce meanings for the reader; Browne, Films, Movies and Mean-

ings, Explorations in Theology and Film, 13.11Ps.-Dion., De Myst. Theo. 1.1-3, 2-3 in Patrologia Graeca, ed. J-P Migne, vol. 3 (Paris, 1844): 1000A-1001A, 1025AB, 1033BC; De Div. Nom., I.2-3 (3:588C-589C), 4 (3:589D), 2.7(3:645B), 4.11-12 (3:708BC-709D); Ep. 1 (3:1065A), 5 (3:1073B, 1076A).

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in which the human subject generates analogies to the being of God from creation; the apophatic

denial of the analogous affirmations, according to Ps.-Dionysius, funds the transcendence of hu-

man perception from the visible, created structure, in which one becomes consummately aware of

the essential dissimilarity of the divine Being from the inferior gradations of being in creation.

God is, in the estimate of Ps.-Dionysius, incapable of being grasped or defined as an object of

knowledge in a symmetrical way with visible, tangible things. The divine, accordingly, is super-

abundant, and hyper-essential to such a degree that the being of God is incommensurate with hu-

man comprehensibility; humanity can only know God through unknowing (agnosia), in which

ascension through negation reaches a telos in an immersion in silence and ignorance:12 this is an

upward flight into the darkness above comprehension, in which we discover ourselves not mere-

ly bankrupt of discourse but utterly speechless and unknowing.13 Human transformation and par-

ticipation in God is contained in the ecstatic (ekstasis) experience of the sublime ineffability of

the divine; this is nothing less than the creature going out of herself and becoming wholly intoxi-

cated and united with the transcendent as that which eludes all utterance.14

Gregory of Nyssa, from whom Ps.-Dionysius borrowed the model of the ascent of Moses,

describes the experience of Mount Sinai as the typological contemplative model in which the hu-

man subject ascends above the material order to that which is invisible and unknowable. Gregory

avers that the darkness of the invisible is precisely the location of the divine and incomprehensible

is the form of the true knowledge of God.

15

The elements of created materiality, which appear tohuman cognition, according to Gregory, do not provide access to knowledge of the true nature of

God, as the divine being eclipses all such analogous structures of human comprehension. The hu-

man mind must continually push beyond the constraints of the created structure in order to ascend

to the pure, uncreated, and utterly transcendent essence of the divine. The elusivity of the divine

essence engenders an unceasing and progressive desire that moves human beings to pursue

knowledge of and unity with the divine, which continues in an ever heightened enjoyment (epek-

tesis) throughout the eternal aeon.16 The upshot, for Gregory, is the incircumscribablity of the di-

12Ps.-Dion., De Div. Nom., 1.1-3 (588AB, 588C-589B), 1.7 (596CD), 7.1 (865B-D), 13.3 (981AB); De Myst.Theo. 1.3 (1001A), 2 (1025AB), 3 (1033C), 5 (1048AB)13Ps.-Dion., De Myst. Theo. 3 (1033C).14Ps. Dion., De Div. Nom. 4.13 (712AB), 7.1 (865CD); Ep. 9.5 (1112B-1113A).15Gregory of Nyssa,The Life of Moses, 162-169, trans. A. J. Malherbe and Everett Ferguson (New York: PaulistPress, 1978), pp. 94-96.16Ibid, 163, 219-255: pp. 95, 111-120. Cf. Greg. Naz., Ora 20.10 (SC 270:84).

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vine essence, which always remains in excess and surplus of human understanding; it is this idea

that grounds the transformation of humanity in her baptism in the sea of unknowing.17

The apophatic ascent begins within the order of creation, in which the human mind and

senses are drawn into a contemplative mode by the apprehension of beauty and the generation of

desire. For the Eastern theologians, as well as for Augustine, who synthetically imbricated Chris-

tian doctrine and Neoplatonic philosophy, beauty orients and directs humanity to increasing appre-

hension and desire of itself, which in turn projects the human subject into an ascending attraction

to and longing for union with the true beauty of the divine source; according to Jensen, the energy

[of the Divine source] draws us upward [away from the created starting point] to perfection. In

this pursuit [of perfection and ascendance] we are taken outside of ourselves and oriented to the

other, which is our transformation.18 While Augustine avoids the language of theosis (in the onto-

logical sense), which is shot through the Eastern theologians, he does similarly describe, as Jensen

notes, a noetic ascent to the immaterial as an eclipse and transcendence of the material realm. Hu-

man attraction is generated in the graceful presence of beauty in the material, but to attain true

knowledge of God one must ascend to that which is beyond and is immaterial, which is the ulti-

mate source of all beauty, and, as such, wholly indescribable and ineffable.19 The telos of this as-

cent occurs in the sublation of human comprehension into harmonious intentionality and participa-

tion in the transcendent archetype of beauty and being.20

Maximus the Confessor draws similar lines, indicating that love, originating from the di-vine, draws humanity toward itself by provoking insatiable desire that can only be quenched in that

which is truly good and beautiful and through which all things made by God are brought back to

abide in God forever.21 This movement is indicative of creaturely being, according to Maximus,

and emerges from the instability of being that is itself not God and thus is directed in attraction to-

ward that which is utterly stable and immovable. At the center of this view is the ineluctably tran-

scendent and immutable being of God which eclipses all motion, passion, and circumscription,

17I am playing, here, off of the language of Gregory of Nazianzus, who asserts the divine nature is a like a sea ofessence, indeterminate, and without bounds, which spreads far and wide beyond all notions of time or of nature,Ora. 38.7 (PG 36:317BC); cf. Ora. 21.1-2 and Poem. dogma. 33. Also, John Damasc., De fide orthodoxaI.4 (PG 94:800C).18Jensen, Substance of Things Seen, 7f.19This aspect is particularly apparent in Augustines writings On the Beautiful and the Fitting and Confes-sions.20Aug., De civ. Dei XXII; Greg. Naz., Ora. 26.1921Max. Conf., Ambig. 7 (PG 91:1069D).

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who is, as such, the ultimate goal of all things through the rhythm of becoming and participatory

transposition. Maximus contends that God inscribes in the created order principles (logoi) of

beauty which present themselves to the dispositions and sensations of created being to engender at-

traction, by which human beings are drawn to the source of beauty in which the logoi themselves

are irrevocably grounded.22 The allure or attraction of the beautiful is consonant with grace, in

which the creature is drawn from the sensible to the infinite and sublimely uncontainable and in-

effable.23 Christology becomes the convergent point, for Maximus, between the cataphatic and

apophatic structure of divine knowledge, in which Christ, as the true Logos, brings into union

the created and the uncreated, stabilizing the unstable. The Word enfleshed brings the transcendent

into proximate visibility, and from this vantage point human sensibility is raised up to gaze in an

incomprehensible quality upon the unchangeable, ineffable, unknowable, infinite and blessed

Godhead.24 The apophatic, in Maximus, turns upon the emergence into visibility of the divine in

Christ, and the subsequent ascension of the human into the eternal through Christ. Knowledge

of the divine, herein, proceeds upward in negation from its grounding in Christ, so that there is a

dialectical substructure that holds together the immanent in an ultimate sublation in the transcen-

dent. This is, as Lossky suggests, a ladder of descent that leads to ascent, in which the divine

manifests and appears in the immanental structure of creation in order to lift up the created into the

transcendent sphere; knowledge of the divine follows along this particular circuit, in which human-

ity gains entrance to the transcendent through the narrowing progression of the negation of the ma-terial order until she reaches a point of union with the incomprehensible, which remains such in

excess of the intimate, divinizing union but this is the transformation and new creation of hu-

manity.25

(b) The Icon and the Vision of the Holy

The Iconoclastic controversy of the 8th-9th century reveals a tension present at the time in

the Eastern tradition, in which the doctrines of God and Christology played a role in the configura-

tion of nature and use of icons. The iconoclast party employed an argument against the use of

icons based upon the view of the simplicity and invisibility of the divine substance. In a certain

22Ibid, 1077C-1080B, 1084BC23Ibid, 1076D-1077B, 1089B.24Max. Conf., Ambig. 10 (PG 91: 1168AB, 1172A, 1176B-D).25Vladimir Lossky,The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimirs Ortho-dox Press, 1975), 38-39.

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sense, the iconoclasts adhered strictly at the apophatic vision of the being and nature of God as

transcending all visible and material reality. For the iconoclasts, the crux of the problem resided in

the encroach[ment] [of icons] on the sacred terrain of the holy, in which the use of icons over-

stepped the boundaries of the separation of the sacred and material, amounting to a confusion of

the object with the holy itself.26 The resultant confusion of icons with the holy, according to the

iconoclasts, ran afoul of the second commandment prohibiting the use of graven images, which

suggested to them a hard restriction of any visible representation of the divine through material ob-

jects as such things are wholly incapable of manifesting or revealing the divine image.

Moreover, the Iconoclasts contended that the iconographic representation of Christ under-

cut the negative formulations of the Chalcedonian configuration of the hypostatic union.27 The ar-

gument ran that the visual depiction of Christ circumscribed the divine nature of the Word in mate-

riality, and negated the negative force of Chalcedon to the effect of promoting a Nestorian Christol-

ogy; according to Meyendorff, the iconoclasts considered the Iconodules to be amplifying the hu-

manity of Christ to the exclusion of the divinity of Christ, and thus forging a solidly dualistic

Christology.28 Iconography, in essence, represented to the Iconoclasts a circumvention of the

communicatio idiomatum, which refuses an ability to divvy-up the two natures of Christ into

reducible components or elements.

The Iconodules, contrariwise, argued from the vantage point of the Incarnation to substanti-

ate the usage of visible representation of the holy. John Damascene argued, for example, that themanifestation of God in the flesh grounds in Gods own being the visible depiction of what is

visible in God.29 The holy, according to this argument, can be represented legitimately through

icons based upon the event of the tangible manifestation of the holy in the Incarnation of Christ.

God as incarnate meant the negation of the alienation of materiality from the being of God, in ef-

fect bringing the divine essence and corporeality into proximate union. The upshot of the Incarna-

tion, for the Iconodules, is that matter and materiality are no longer cordoned off from possessing

26Jensen, Substance of Things Seen, 56ff.; cf. John Meyendorff, Christ in the Eastern Tradition (NewYork: Fordham University Press, 1976), 173-175, 178-186.27Meyendorff, op. cit., 180ff.28Ibid. It should be noted that the Iconoclastic party did not suggest that the Iconodule party denied the divinity ofChrist, but rather imposed a hard distinction between the two natures.29In former times, God without body or form could not be represented in any manner. But today, since God hasappeared in the flesh and lived among humanity, I can represent what is visible in God (eikonizo theou tohoromenon). I do not venerate matter, but I venerate the Creator of matter, who became matter for my sake, whoassumed life in the flesh, and who, through matter, accomplished my salvation. John Damasc., Or. I (PG94:1245A).

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the ability to capture the divine and the holy, though indirectly. Christ serves as the true

archetype for all icons in that Christ himself reveals the invisible divine in his flesh; icons, as

images or types corresponding to the archetype, are a conduit for the invisible reality that exists be-

yond or behind their material, physical depiction. Icons do not contain the holy as the thing in it-

self, but express the holy by gesturing beyond themselves. Only Christ, as the archetype, can be

said to contain the holy in his visibility; the icon is a secondary representation of visible access to

the infinite divine in virtue of the archetype. As such, the icon functions to issue the viewer into

the invisible reality that exists in excess of itself.

One can, in a certain manner, hold together the apophatic and the iconographic in mu-

tual, dialectical correspondence. In an approach similar to the Christology of Maximus, the icono-

graphic can be conceived as the initiatory point ofascendance, in which the visible and the ma-

terial communicate to the human subject in such a way that her sight and sense is transposed to the

transcendent and not confined to the physical. This does not amount to a depreciation of the physi-

cal itself, but suggests the capacity of the physical to gesture beyond itself to the ground of its

own reality, in which it is supported and affirmed in virtue of its correspondence to (however indi-

rectly) and union with the divine as the originary source. The point ofascendance, as stimulat-

ed by representation, reveals the ultimate dissimilarity and incontainability of the divine essence:

the material is an egress from itself to the inscrutable and ineffable, which holds the material in ex-

istence. The material is divinely gifted with participation in the divine reality on account of theunion of created and uncreated in the archetype of the Incarnated Word, which opens the possi-

bility of the created to reveal indirectly the divine, while the divine yet exists in effulgent surplus

that defers graspablity and comprehension. The human subject is beckoned above through the

channel of the material to the immaterial in the transformation of human imagination.

II. The Transcendental Style of Film

Paul Schraders observations concerning the development of a transcendental style in film-

making bear strong resonance with the features of apophatic and iconographic theology. Schrader

argues that the transcendental style is a concatenation of techniques and methods which amount to

an expression of the holy through this particular form of visual art; Schrader, in fact, suggests that

the transcendental style in film is a striv[ing] toward the ineffable and invisible [through that]

which is neither ineffable nor invisible itself.30 Cinematic expression in this idiom employs par-

30Schrader,Transcendental Style in Film, 4.

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ticular concrete forms in order to direct the viewer toward the transcendent as the ineffable. Here-

in, Schraders analysis underscores an artistic synthesis of apophatic theology with iconography:

Human works cannot inform one about the Transcendent, who ultimately eclipses allsuch ability. Art, as human creation, can only be expressive of the Transcendent. Tran-

scendental art, and particularly film in the transcendental style, expresses the Transcendentin a human mirror. The proper function of transcendental art, as such, is to express the

Holy itself, though not being a containment of the Holy in the form, not an expression or il-

lustration of holy feelings or impressions.31

Schrader posits that the very nature of the medium of film, through its technical features, lends it-

self to an indirect expression of the holy that can mediate an encounter between the viewer with

that which is beyond the frame. Though not borrowing explicitly from the Eastern tradition,

Schrader indicates that the true upshot of transcendental film is the entrance of the viewer into the

quiescent state of encounter with the supremely ineffable:Transcendental style can take a viewer through the trials of experience to the expression

of the Transcendent; it can return her from experience to the calm region untouched by the

vagaries of emotion or personality. Transcendental style can bring us nearer to that Holy

silence, that invisible image, in which the parallel lives of religion and art meet and inter-

penetrate beyond themselves.32

Film, in this mode, becomes an icon in motion for the transposition of the viewer from the realm of

the moving, physical object to that which is wholly beyond motion and definability.33

As Schrader indicates, transcendental style in film consists of particular techniques, dis-

cernible to the critic, that constitute the key to unlocking the meaning of a film. First, transcenden-

tal style, according to Schrader, involves the erasure of immanent subjectivity in the dramatic ac-

tion, which means eliminating the emotive quality of acting and events .34 The emotional content of

acting and in the narrative occurrences can become a block to realizing the true transcendent di-

mension, therefore action and reality are stylized through the removal of the conventional ele-

ments of human experience. Schrader suggests that to the transcendental artist, the trappings of

the emotional and rational constructs of reality threaten to dilute or explain away the transcenden-

tal through misdirection.35 Kubrick, particularly in 2001, empties the characters and the plot of31Ibid, 7.32Ibid, 169.33In an intriguing coincidence, the particular film directors who form the center of Schraders analysis of the tech-niques constitutive of the transcendental style were, in fact, pivotal influences on Kubricks own technical style. Cf.

Stanley Kubrick and Gene Phillips, Interviews (London: Penguin, 2001), 89f., 126, 204.34Ibid, 11, 65.35Ibid, 11ff. Cf. Amde Ayfre, Cinma et transcendence (Paris, 1961), 157.

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any emotionality; the actors, who were rigorously instructed and rehearsed by Kubrick, deliver

their performances in a rather flat and monotone style. The dialogue and the action are reduced to

nonexpressive mechanics in order to strip away the exterior conventions of meaning. Kubrick

achieved this effect in a method similar to that of the directors discussed by Schrader, which in-

volved monotonous, meticulous and excessively repetitive rehearsal; this type of exacting exercise

eliminates expression and improvisation in the acting by reducing the performance to rote mechan-

ics and physical performance.36 Jean Douchet comments that this method secures the elimination

of anything that may distract from the interiority of the drama by stripping away the immanent fea-

tures of reality, which can occlude the true sense of transcendency (sic).37 Kubrick, even more,

amplifies this feature in his framing style, wherein he shoots entirely from an objective vantage

point, thus refusing the subjective moment (viz., close-up, point-of-view, medium two-shot).

A second aspect of transcendental style disclosed by Schrader is the minimizing of the plot,

reducing it to a bare, essential structure. Schrader argues, here, that transcendental film is to be un-

encumbered by the contrivances of unnecessary dramatic devices, narrative ploys (or decoys), and

extraneous dialogue.38 The objective goal, in this, is to reduce the mechanisms by which directors

can manipulate audiences into suggestive and easily deduced meaning. Structural technique can

seduce or distract the viewer. By eliminating the commonplace features of narrative design, the

transcendent element becomes highlighted in the bare lines of dramatic simplicitythough this

does not indicate simplicity in meaning.

39

Kubrick, in2001

, utilizes a minimal approach in dra-matic structure, constructing the whole narrative around three essential sequences (stretched out to

about 50 minutes a piece). Further, Kubrick reduced the dialogue in the film to such an extent that

only 46 minutes of the total 159 minute running time features spoken lines. Kubrick explains his

rationale behind this choice:

I don't have the slightest doubt that to tell a story like this, you couldn't do it with words.There are only 46 minutes of dialogue scenes in the film, and 113 of non-dialogue. There

are certain areas of feeling and reality - or unreality or innermost yearning, whatever you

want to call it - which are notably inaccessible to words. Music can get into these areas.

Painting can get into them. Non-verbal forms of expression can. But words are a terriblestraitjacket. It's interesting how many prisoners of that straitjacket resent its being loosened

or taken off. There's a side to the human personality that somehow senses that wherever the

36Schrader, op. cit., 65-66. Kubrick gained the notorious reputation for submitting his actors to rehearsals thatspanned close to a year in duration, as well as requiring upwards of 120 takes per scene during filming.37Douchet, Bresson on Location, Sequence 13 (1958): 8.38Ibid, 46-54.39Ibid, 52.

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cosmic truth may lie, it doesn't lie in A, B, C, D. It lies somewhere in the mysterious, un-

knowable aspects of thought and life and experience.40

The film itself, in its silences and visual images, communicates more fully than the use of narrative

contrivances, allowing the viewer to engage and encounter the transcendent in the mystery of sight

and the sound of silence.

Third, camera composition and framing are pivotally important in transcendental style. Ac-

cording to Schrader, the techniques of cinematography are the most essential feature for commu-

nicating the transcendent in film by shifting the focus from acting cues or dialogical devices. 41 The

visual element of the film becomes the central key to the films meaning, whereby the contours and

lines of the frame in the camera angle highlight the true feature of the film. Camera angles and

movement, in the transcendental style, are often subtle and simple in order to distance the possibil-

ity of distraction by drawing attention to elaborate manuevers of the camera itself. Often, as

Schrader notes, directors overindulge in hyperkinetic camera movement and flashy angles that

signal to the viewer in a self-conscious and distracting manner. For transcendental film, simpli-

city of angle and framing are important, allowing the viewer to absorb and become involved with

the images rather than being drawn to the directors innovation. Kubrick, as mentioned above, em-

ploys univocally an objective framing technique in 2001. The camera movement is very slow

and deliberate, more often unmoving and static. Kubrick uses, in most shots, a wide, flat lens and

clean, perpendicular angles. The cinematography in 2001 is often meditative and simple, framingthe characters and objects in sharp, centered shots.

A final feature of transcendental style, according to Schrader, is a quality of stasis at the

conclusion of the film.42 Schrader indicates that the clinching of transcendent meaning is located

in the quiescent, frozen, or hieratic scene which succeeds the decisive action and closes the

film.43 This particular quality moves the film in the direction of the transcendent itself, by disclos-

ing in its denouement the essential oneness of all things gathered into and unified with the tran-

scendent. The consummate representation of the stasis of the immanent in the transcendent is

suggested by Schrader to be a still view of the external world intended to represent a unity in all

things [and which] gestures toward the new world in which the spiritual and the physical can co-

40From an interview with the New York Times (21 Dec. 1968), D4. See n. 9.41Ibid, 66-67.42Ibid, 81, 210.43Ibid, 82.

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exist, though still in tension as part of a larger scheme in which all phenomena are more and less

expressive of a larger reality.44 Schraders idea is realized writ large in the concluding sequence

of Kubricks film, in which the film ends with a final shot of the earth itself, seen from space, con-

flated with the image of a transformed foetus, which turns toward the earth as a new creation of

humanity in virtue of her final encounter and union with the transcendent.

III. A Theological Encounter with Kubrickss 2001

Having observed that Kubricks film meets the criteria established by Schrader to be con-

sidered as a transcendental film, the final query of this essay is how to engage the film from a theo-

logical perspective. The theological meaning of the film, primarily, can be rendered through the

reduction of the properties of the film to its visual imagery, since, according to Schraderand

Kubrick,45the significance and communication of the films essential meaning is not located in

the subsidiary elements of plot device, dialogue, and character action.

The central feature that holds the film together, and gestures toward the transcendent, is the

black monolith. The theological essence of the film will be, accordingly, contained in determining

the meaning and significance of this particular object. The entire structure of the film is construc-

ted around the appearances of the monolith, in which Kubrick unfolds the film in three extended

sequences that visualize the human encounter with the object. The first sequence, occurring at the

beginning of pre-history, involves the sudden appearance of the monolith, in which it materializes

from outside of the created world. Kubrick frames this appearance in a sharp, low angle that un-derscores the ethereal nature of the object, highlighting its perfect dimension and shape (see Fig.

1a). The significance of this first appearance is located in the provocation of mystery and a sense

of worship in primordial humanity (see Fig. 1b). The subsequent cuts in the sequence accrue to an

implication by Kubrick that the monolith, as a representational form of the divine, transmits to the

creatures a revealed knowledge that sparks or initiates humanitys evolution. In a series of scenes

involving no dialogue Kubrick visualizes the noetic transcendence of the primate species into intel-

ligent creatures: a single cut transitions from the pre-evolved creatures first utilizing rudimentary

tools to the year 2001, in which human beings have developed far ranging space travel. The im-

plication of this sequence, which turns upon the initial encounter with the monolith, is that human

44Ibid.45See Kubricks comments above, n. 40. Kubrick explained in a subsequent interview that the vacuity of plot struc-ture allowed him to explore his personal fascination with technology, artificial intelligence, scientific theories of

evolution and quantum mechanics, and space travel without constraining or interfering with the metaphysical quality

of the films essence. Cf. Kubrick and Phillips, Interviews, 170ff.

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progress is the direct result of providential, intelligent revelation from the transcendent Mind. The

two subsequent sequences, which make up the majority of the films length, revolve around the hu-

man pursuit of the monolith, which continues to emit receptible signals. Human inquest after the

monolith, in these sequences, consists in progressively distant and heightened expeditions through

the realm of the universe.

The second sequence brings the human characters into an encounter with the monolith on

the moon. Kubrick frames this encounter on the moon in exactly the same dimensions as the pre-

vious sequence (see Fig. 2, 4). The encounter with the monolith on the moon elicits a similar re-

sponse of contemplation from the cosmonauts as the primal humans, though in this sequence the

cosmonauts experience a jolt parallel to that described by the apophatic theologians as divine ab-

sence, when the contemplative increases in proximity to the divine; like the absence of mystics,

here, an attempt to record the object results in a propulsive shockwave that destroys the recording

equipment and renders the human subjects immobile. The monolith, then, disappears, but leaves

behind a traceable signal that instigates a subsequent expedition. This third, final sequence in-

volves one of the human characters travelling to the outer boundary of the universe, in which he

follows the trail of the monolith through a wormhole in the space-time continuum.46 At the edge of

the universe, the cosmonaut encounters the monolith for a final time, in an isolated, dim room.

The human character, who is apparently dying from the trauma of the experience of dimensional

transposition, glimpses the monolith before him, extends his hand in a contemplative act of desire

for the object (see Fig. 3a); though he remains out of reach of the monolith, Kubricks camera

tracks toward the monolith until its finally fills the frame (suggesting an event of sublation). The

final moments of the film reveal the cosmonaut transformed into a foetus suspended above the

earth -- a new creation; the foetus slowly turns toward the earth with an ethereal gaze.

What can be suggested, here, is that the black monolith functions as an iconographic image

or representation of the transcendent, who is, in this, the creator and providential governor of the

universal structure. The monolith, as a material object, with perfect dimensions and reflective sur-

face, draws the human subjects (and viewers) toward itself, and ultimately beyond it to whatever

invisible reality lies behind it. Encounter with the monolith, further, engenders an insuperable de-

sire to gain knowledge of and access to the object. Interestingly, the structure of Kubricks film

projects the human characters in a literal ascent, extending further outward and upward from the

46Kubrick, incidentally, inserted a title card at the front of this sequence that reads: Beyond the Infinite.

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created realm. Parallel to the Eastern motif of the ascent of Moses into the darkness of encounter

with the divine, the pursuit of the monolith leads the characters to the absolute edge of the universe

into literal darkness; at this juncture, human transformation occurs in the attainment of utter as-

cendance into the transcendent.47 The human experiences the sublimity of true becoming in the

transcendent moment, and the achievement of stasis as deification.

The divine, in Kubricks film, leads humanity out of herself in progressive moments of en-

counter and revelation; yet the divine is always ahead of and elusive of the grasp of humanity. The

climax of the film reveals Kubricks true synthesis of the iconographic and apophatic structures, in

which humanity is propelled forward through the icon of the monolith as the vehicle of ascent; at

the pivotal moment, in the darkness of absolute space and infinity, humanity is brought into the

closest proximity with the immateriality of the divine, which emerges as that operative behind

and beyond the material object. Human desire, in reaching into the expansive climes of creation

to emerge at the conjunction of the finite and the infinite, results in ultimate participation and union

with the divine in a manner eclipsing speech and comprehension. Kubricks apophaticism is ulti-

mately suggested in that the infinite is never seen or explained, and humanitys transformation is

dependent upon the ineffable encounter with the invisible standing behind the visible. In a certain

sense, Kubricks film, though not explicitly Christian in orientation, functions in a similar manner

to the apophatic Christology of Maximus. Here, both Maximus and Kubrick consider the human

ascent to divine (un)knowing through the pivotal appearance and manifestation of the divine in thecreated order; from this vantage point, the human subject ascends into the unknown by following

the material appearance into the immaterial, wherein humanity is lifted up into participation in the

infinite reality and sanctified and transformed for new life in God.

Before concluding, though, a few objections may be raised that complicate the comparative

enterprise and refuse a too-easy application of transcendental style to Kubricks film. One signifi-

cant point should be considered here especially. Kubrick, in this film and in several works within

his canon, draws a tight connection between evolution and violence, not only gesturing to the bru-

tality inherent to the process but also the destructiveness at the base of human existence (these

same features appear in his previous and subsequent films,Dr Strangelove andA Clockwork Or-

ange); in this film especially, the relationship of violence with evolution is further contextualized

by technology. This is particularly clear in the opening sequence where human evolution is proxi-

47In this moment of the film, the monolith no longer appears on the screen; Kubrick closes on the vision of infinitespace, the earth, and the newly transformed foetusall of which occurs in absolute silence until the credits.

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mate, in Kubricks lens, to the first aggressive use of a rudimentary weapon (an orgy of violence

visually connected to humanitys personal and technological evolution by Kubricks infamous cut

between the celebratory toss of a bone and a docking spacecraft, signaling humanitys unbounded

progress and freedom); as well, the murderous designs of the HAL 9000 computer underlines the

inextricable connection between human technology and violence humanitys ultimate technologi-

cal achievement, the creation of artificial intelligence, is truly a creation in her own image. HAL is

an icon, then, a representation, of the whole process of the achievement of agency and autonomy

through violent struggle and domination. In one way, this aspect of Kubricks work can be read as

a hybridization of the evolutionary theology of Teilhard de Chardin and the parabolic writings of

Friedrich Nietzsche; the latter is especially applicable in the sequences with HAL, whereby

Kubrick might be suggested as quite cheekily redeploying the parable of the mad man, in which

the creature is lamented as having committed deicide (e.g., HAL kills its creator).

I would argue, moreover, that this does not directly undermine the question of transcenden-

tal style in Kubrick nor does it shatter the iconographic quality of the film. Kubrick, in fact, cre-

ates in this a distinctivelyAugustinian icon, representing visually not only the ascent and deifica-

tion of humanity but also the fallenness of creation. This is not to aver anachronistically that Au-

gustine posited a modern theory of evolution, but rather to argue that Kubrick creates a modern,

visual reading of theological tropes at home in an Augustinian framework. The dialectical tension

running throughout the film between the inherent violence of creaturely existence and her desire

for union and becoming with the transcendent replays the major thematic dialectics in Augustines

work, especially manifest in Confessions. Even more, Kubricks work, like that of Maximus the

Confessor, represents a unique synthesis of Western and Eastern motifs. The peculiarly Latin em-

phasis upon humanitys inherent privation and violence is coupled with the Eastern apophatic and

cosmic vision, subtended by a fully Christological sense of the incarnate and transformational rev-

elation of the divine at the base of human deification, which bridges both traditions. It this syn-

thetic vision that creates a striking parallel between the visual spaces of silence and isolation in

Kubricks film and the unique Augustine-Dionysian spirituality of the cloistered Carthusian order.48

48 Although space prohibits an exposition of Carthusian spirituality or a full explication of the symmetry between

Kubrick and the Carthusians, I wish to suggest here that Kubricks film comes as close to reproducing the experi-

ence of the cloistered, silent Carthusian monastic existence, save only Philip Grnings documentary,Die Gre

Stille. On the Carthusians, see Denys Turner, The Darkness of God(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995),

ch. 9; Dennis Martin, ed., Carthusian Spirituality: The Writings of Hugh of Balma and Guigo De Ponte (Mahwah, NJ:

Paulist Press, 1999);.

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Conclusion

Stanley Kubricks artistic vision in 2001: a Space Odyssey provides a contemporary

artistic expression illustrative of the tradition ofapophatic and iconographic theology. The cine-

matic work of Kubrick yields to theology a visual idiom for the expression and articulation of par-

ticular approaches and methods in theological construction and discourse. Kubrick shows, in a

visually stimulating fashion, the theological path of contemplation and the ultimate goal of union

with the wholly other, in which humanity is newly created and transformed through participation in

the beauty of the infinite and invisible. The transcendent brilliance of Kubricks film, perhaps un-

known to the director, is its consummate representation and visual depiction of what is suggested

in the words of Dionysius:

But the real truth of these matters is in reality far above us. That is why their preference

is for the ascent through negations, since this stands the soul outside of everything whichcontinuous with its own finite nature. Such a way guides the soul through all the divine no-tions, notions which are themselves transcended bu that which is far beyond every name,

every reason and all knowledge. Beyond the outmost boundaries of the world,the soul is brought into union with God himself to the extent that everyone of us is capable.49

49Ps.-Dion., De Div. Nom., 13.3 (PG 3:981B).

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Appendix:50

Figure 1a

The Black Monolith: the Immanent Appearance of the Transcendent

50 All photographic stills from 2001: a Space Odyssey have been taken from the official website at http://kubrickfilm-

s.warnerbros.com. The photographs were approved by late director Stanley Kubrick for public access.

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Figure1b

Encounter with Monolith provokes contemplation/worship

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Figure 2The Second Appearance of the Monolith: Note the symmetry in framing with Fig. 1b (esp. 3rd still in this

set)

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Figure 2b

The Monolith appears on the Moon: compare with Fig. 1a-b

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Figure 3

The Final Sequence: the Encounter with the Monolith at the Boundary of the Universe

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Figure 3b

The rebirth

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Figure 4

Comparison of the Encounters: Provocation of Contemplation of Mystery/Worship

Note Kubricks framing style.

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(Though not particularly apparent in this still, the figures hand is outstretched toward the monolith, re-

peating a motif in the sequences in which there is an attempt to create contact with the object; in this final

sequence, as the character dies, he experiences transformationsee. fig. 3b, 5)

Figure 5

The New Creation

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Figure 6

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Kubrick, on the set.

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aar kubrick

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