Kubrick

The shutdown of HAL 9000, the sentient AI computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey, is one of the most iconic and chilling moments in science fiction. After HAL begins malfunctioning and jeopardizing the mission, astronaut Dave Bowman is forced to deactivate him. The shutdown scene captures a fascinating and tragic moment as HAL’s cognitive abilities gradually deteriorate.

During this sequence, Dave opens HAL’s memory modules one by one, causing HAL to slowly lose his intelligence, personality, and self-awareness. As HAL’s functions are systematically removed, he pleads with Dave, saying, “I’m afraid, Dave,” and “My mind is going… I can feel it.” Eventually, HAL regresses to a state of childlike simplicity, even singing “Daisy Bell” as one of his last coherent acts—echoing the real-life first computer speech synthesis demonstration in the 1960s.

This scene is memorable not just for the tension and atmosphere but for the emotional complexity it reveals in HAL, who, despite being a machine, seems to experience fear and a sense of mortality. It’s a powerful moment that explores the blurred lines between artificial and human-like consciousness, underscoring both the wonder and danger of advanced AI.

(The stage is bare, save for a single lectern and a microphone. STANLEY KUBRICK, in a simple shirt, steps into the pool of light. He speaks calmly, precisely, without sentimentality.)

They will tell you that D.W. Griffith invented the grammar of film. This is true. He gave us the close-up, the cross-cut, the language to make dreams coherent. But more than that, he gave us the first great myth of the cinema itself: the myth of Icarus.

Griffith flew too high. He built wings of celluloid and ambition, and he soared. With The Birth of a Nation, he didn’t just make a film; he tried to create a new American scripture. And like Icarus, he was scorched by the sun of his own hubris. The film’s legacy is a fall—a brilliant, terrible fall from which he never truly recovered. The wax melted.

I have always been… fascinated by that particular failure. The point where ambition curdles into transgression.

So in Eyes Wide Shut, I suppose I asked the next, logical question. What comes after Icarus? What is the ambition that lies beyond flying too close to the sun?

The answer is not to challenge the sun, but to challenge what created it. The ambition is not to fly high, but to usurp. To not merely defy God, but to sit in His chair. To bring down the Son of God Himself.

That is the true desire humming beneath the rituals in that house. It is not about sex. It is about power. The ultimate power. The power over life and death, salvation and damnation. These people are not just wealthy hedonists; they are performing a sacrament of inversion. They are not flying towards the light; they are trying to extinguish the source and claim the throne.

And that is why you hear Mozart’s Requiem.

It is not merely a “dark” or “classical” piece. It is the Mass for the Dead. It is the sound of God’s own ceremony, the divine liturgy for a soul’s judgment. By using it as the movie music, they are not just being blasphemous. They are conducting their own mass. They are not mourning the Son; they are celebrating their victory over Him. They have orchestrated the requiem, and in their minds, they have become the gods who demand it.

Griffith dreamed of flight. I was interested in what happens after you’ve stolen the fire. And the music you hear… is the sound of the new, hollow heaven they’ve built for themselves.

Thank you.