by Maria Bonasia, 11th June 2001

Curious.

I never liked Kubrick's films. I could appreciate them - but their cold architecture and cautious pacing had me straining for my remote on the rare occasions that they were televised. Like Scorsese's Mean Streets, and dry red wine, I could recognize true accomplishment, but not enjoy the taste.

Curious.

It was 2001 that put me in a theater, I'm told. I don't remember; it was a showing, or a festival, and I slept in my mother's arms throughout the night - I could have been at home in bed. The wonder came later - with Disney, and Star Wars, and ET, and a horrible movie about a robot dog called CHOMPS, and another not-so-horrible movie called 2010 - which mesmerized me for two hours; and which I forgot as I walked into the sunlight. "It wasn't as good as the first," my father said quietly.

Some of us have asserted that this... event?... is marketing at its best and worst example. That the Game exists solely to sell AI, and some games, and game systems, licensed by uber-corporations: egos and board members and stockholders and suits and market researchers, for profit and for more profit and, failing that, money. That's true.

And it isn't - not entirely. Movies need to make money. Lots of it. Like any business, each success funds the next endeavor while putting food on the table and removing those aching fears about survival and animal comfort. Erase those, and we could be gods. So a movie must-make-money.

And some of us do become gods - who, finding no carnivorous fears to battle, strive, at last, to create. To make something that makes our mouths drop - for the slick thrill of seeing amazement on strangers' faces. I think that's why some people make movies and tell stories, instead of baking bread or planing wood or selling widgets. There's a reason one chooses to enrapture others instead of curing disease or shaping foreign policy.

Spielberg and Kubrick. A curious pair. They made very different movies - I suspect for similar reasons. Each excelled in areas in which the other did not. Everything that turned me away from Kubrick propelled me to Spielberg. I cried, I screamed, I gaped, I feared, I felt - and then I wanted to do it all again. To see, to ride, to feel the arcs and plunges of emotion that Spielberg could elicit. But when I left the theater, the agony and ecstasy was gone, and I slipped back into the warmth of summer, cozy as a worn shirt, feeling cleansed of vicarious grief and joy-released of the tension of unrealized adventure.

Kubrick I watched because I had to - because I should. For film classes, for a requisite "background" of film knowledge - because people had told me I needed to see and understand this director's intent. Mostly I fell asleep. But when I walked into the summer sun once more, there was always a cast to the light, a chill to the air, and images, words, ideas that stayed in my mind, rudely refused to leave, colored the next few days with trauma and challenge and redemption. Bastard. Because my memories were insistent and troubling. This was not entertainment. This was thought, and art, and no emotion - no ride with a safe ending - just a disconnected sense of self.

Kubrick reportedly was obsessed with the potential success of all his movies. He was an auteur, yes; but one who clearly understood the importance of a movie seen by as many paying viewers as possible. He knew that success would buy further independence. He agonized over the marketing of his films the same way he tortured himself over his camera shots. He expected much from the viewer-demanding an attention that the best of us are often unable to give. In return, he provided a tapestry of questions, challenges, mysteries, and answers-answers that often led to greater questions. This simultaneously enthralled and alienated his viewers. Including me.

It was the alienation-the sense of a detached view that blocked any great measure of empathy or feeling for Kubrick's characters. Viewers felt - but not as keenly as when watching a Spielberg movie. The passion and prose remained separate - and this could well be why the directors were fascinated with each other's work.

Or maybe I'm speaking through my ass. I'm just a game player, and I don't know either of them. I, like most of us, just know their films. And this Game.

Curious.

I was going to use this second piece to outline all the similarities the Game had with Kubrick's films, his philosophies, his personal life. It was supposed to confirm that he was, in fact, "the man behind the curtain," grinning wickedly at our quests and puzzles and arguments, working with a few select creators/programmers and Spielberg to create a kind of dual masterpiece, in a whole new medium. But those words won't come.

I want to believe Kubrick is alive. It would be the right kind of ending to all this - a triumphant, last-second, perfectly orchestrated, "Eureka!" kind of ending. A Spielberg ending. Heart of the maze. End of the rainbow. An "It all makes sense, now!" ending.

I wish it would happen. I wish it were true.

But that's where Kubrick has his final laugh - maybe where he finally connects. Because the ending is unknown, and imperfect, and leaves answers that spawn more questions. I wish it would happen - but things like that don't happen in this world.

Just like the possibility that in ten years, the world's knowledge would be in easy reach.

Just like the thought that a new, living movie could be created from all that raw knowledge and some incredibly gifted, talented individuals - more, most likely, than we suspect.

Just like the chance that a few thousand people could enter into and create and affect an experience that showed us what we could accomplish together. To inspire all of us to look deeper and search harder, and question, and feel - all the while connecting (and debating, and arguing, and cooperating) instantly, all of us - enthralled. Absorbed. Obsessed.

Curious.

I think - I think that's it. Whoever did this, however it was constructed - someone stood firm from the beginning. Someone kept the commercials out of it - kept the hype down - kept us curious by not shoving answers at us. The movie is a product - one that most likely deserves to be seen and to make a profit. The Game has been marketed to manipulate us toward that product. That's fine. But neither Kubrick nor Spielberg devoted their lives to film just to make money. No sane person does. You would stand a better return on your investment in Atlantic City. Nor do you create code, or design art, or craft puzzles just to be guaranteed a huge paycheck - because the guarantee isn't there. So the scores of brilliant puzzlemakers, and artists, and coders, and writers and researchers all had their own passions to include-because that's what they shine doing; and it shows. All their messages are there, in the Game - tiny points and sweeping gestures that say "I Am," from the two directors' visions down to every newbie's first post. That's the passion and prose. That's sentience. The evolved intelligence.

The connection.

I think that's it.

Mr Kubrick?

Maria Bonasia can be reached at blbxwtbw@mindspring.com