I think there is a common theme through most of Kubrick’s filmography about the primal vs. the civilized. It’s pretty clear how this theme relates to 2001. Kubrick seems to say with many of his films that humans are just fundamentally animals, acting according to their primitive instincts. Civilization is something we use to hide our own animality, but underneath we are still animals.

We saw in class how Kubrick compares humans with their ape ancestors in 2001. When the apes first learn to use tools, their first actions are to assert dominance over others animals, and Kubrick establishes that tribal warfare is fundamental to humans. When he jump cuts to the future, nothing has changed about humans, only that we are less blatant about it. There is still the tribal warfare of the United States vs. Soviet Union. Technology has been weaponized, and space exploration is not a quest for knowledge but an exercise in one-upmanship. In the grand scheme of things, Kubrick in some ways characterizes humans as clueless as they were thousands of years ago with the parallel shots of the ape and Dr. Floyd curiously touching the monolith.

I also find HAL very interesting with respect to the themes of human’s primal instincts. In2001 the AI we create is not proof that we are some more advanced civilization because the AI takes on all of the dysfunctionality and flaws inherent in humans; it acts somewhat irrationally and has a survival instinct that forces it to act competitively like a human. It almost goes to say that anything a human creates, or anything completely contained within the human system, will still be primarily human. We cannot advance beyond our own species without external influence first. This is my reading of 2001 anyway since in the movie, humans really don’t advance until the higher dimensional beings put our advance into motion. Even if HAL was a perfect AI, he would not be able to function perfectly within human civilization since it is irrational in many ways. One theory I heard for why HAL acts up is because he receives conflicting orders: protect the mission, stay alive, keep the message about the moon secret, protect your crewmates. This theory is in some ways in line with some of the ideas I brought up.

Many of Kubrick’s other films have similar themes about civilization. Barry Lyndon seems to be on some level about dispelling any misconception that 18th century European nobility were of high class and very “civilized.” Like many of Kubrick’s characters, the actors in Barry Lyndon are very concerned with their own power and ego, and their upper class speech and etiquette functions ironically as it is totally dissonant with their carnal behavior. Eyes Wide Shut too looks at how society implores fidelity and monogamy to create the image of familial harmony while many of society’s members are torn on the inside by their animal instincts to break this mold.