Back in December 2014, when we did our week-long technical rehearsal for Curious Incident, I got to see some of the play's special effects for the first time. Undoubtedly one of the most impressive was the scene where Christopher imagines he's flying through space, held aloft by a few of us, guided by Frantic Assembly: the sequence that is referred to in the company as 'Astroboy'. As I saw gigantic planets and galaxies projected on to the walls, the first thought I had was that it reminded me of Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Also, I happened to see the film again, in a new print, at the cinema just a day or so later. It had never occurred to me up until that point, but I started to see parallels between Christopher Boone and Stanley Kubrick. Initially, I thought this was because I was a little overloaded and saturated with the play that I was working on. You probably have to be that close to it to see an image like this and be reminded of your day job:
But then I started to give it a bit more thought. Kubrick, particularly in his later films, was nothing if not methodical. There's an almost mathematical precision - detractors would say a lack of emotion, a coldness - to his final six films, which span just over thirty years. Time and time again, his compositions show order, symmetry, balance: often perceived from a single, central perspective.
It reminds me of many of the stage compositions featured in this play: deliberately placed to reflect the order of Christopher's mind. Characters often enter the stage dead centre. As with many shots in Kubrick's films, you could draw a line through most scenes and see that the stage, and the characters on it, are almost perfectly symmetrical.
These are visual, stylistic elements; but, in both cases, it strikes me that that is how Christopher and Kubrick like it. Kubrick had a reputation for sometimes working better with machines than he did with actors. He doesn't strike me as a man who let emotion get in the way of his vision.
Earlier this year, I stumbled across the theory that Kubrick may have been on the autistic spectrum: perhaps even posthumously diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome. Observers pointed to his relatively poor social skills, inflexibility and alleged obsessive nature.
The most interesting thing for me about 2001: A Space Odyssey, particularly with regard to Christopher Boone, is its lack of emotion. In a world of space travel, unseen alien forces and effortless contact, not once do the characters express awe. They express acceptance, understanding; a kind of refusal to be impressed by what technology can offer (this is the biggest thing he got right, for my money - in a world of smartphones and where anything is possible, we don't spend our time marvelling at what we can do: we just accept it in a cold, unquestioning manner).
Obviously, Kubrick never got to read or see Curious Incident. But I'd love to know what he would have thought. I think there might have been some common ground.
Comment from Dr Neil Archer, lecturer in Film Studies at Keele University:
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that one of Curious Incident's key themes is the disappointment at, and unreliability of, grown-ups. My impression watching Kubrick's films is that, unless people are totally unhinged or (much the same thing) Peter Sellers, he's not terribly interested. 2001 explores the idea of technology and AI escaping our control or comprehension, which is one of the reasons it still feels very fresh. The more prosaic reality behind the film may simply be that humans are simply not interesting enough compared to the other toys at one's disposal.
Hence Kubrick's fondness for games and opposing forms, which we can also see as far back as the widescreen battles in Spartacus, and similarly in Barry Lyndon - where actors, to appropriate the phrase attributed to Hitchcock (who I'm not sure believed it), really do become cattle.
Interestingly, as I read this blog I’ve got Will Brooker's excellent 2009 book on Star Wars on my desk. George Lucas is another one whose reticence about humans and actors appeared to send him further and further into a technological den, culminating in the coolly rationalised CGI of the prequel trilogy, and its conflict between the Old Republic and the Empire: what Brooker aptly describes as 'a war of like versus like, order versus order...the triumph of Lucas's drive for total control over his production' (page 82). As it happens, Kubrick died just before the first prequel came out. My suspicion is that he might indeed have appreciated Curious Incident. But I also suspect - though it must remain the subject of fannish speculation - that he might also have made time for Attack of the Clones.