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| Moon-Watcher's war to reclaim the water hole. |
Part 1 : The Water Hole 2.0
Armed with a newly inspired technology - also known as a
bone (!!) - Moon Watcher and his friends set out to reclaim the water hole that
has been robbed from the rival tribe. The ape men in the rival tribe, adopting
exactly the same tactic they have used in the first encounter, attempted to
scare off Moon Watcher and his companions using some loud noise. Wielding a
bone, Moon Watcher led his friends closer and closer towards the water hole,
challenging their rivals the right to the ownership of this resource. The
strongest ape man from the rival tribe again leapt into the middle of the water
hole and threatened Moon Watcher with his aggression, having absolutely no idea
what the bone had to do with the whole situation. Cleverly ducking an attack
from the ape man, Moon Watcher stroke and bashed him with the bone, knocking
him down immediately. With the rival on the floor (on the sand more
appropriately), a few other of Moon Watcher’s friends joined in and gave the
rival ape man a few dozens of bashing, evident that they have already practiced
a lot using their new tools. In staging this very first violent episode of
humanity, Kubrick has adopted his signature unsentimental style to portray the
brutal bashing of the fallen ape man. He was portraying violence unto others in
the purest form possible, and he had no intention to glorify the action. In a
medium shot, rather than a close-up like when Moon Watcher was first inspired
to use the bone as a tool, Kubrick wanted to show this in a clinical way. He
wanted to keep the audience at a distance from this situation, and he required
the audience to observe with thrill an episode that would have much meaning
humanity’s elevation from the evolution battlefield. The other ape men from the
rival tribe, who could not even comprehend what was going on, was so scared
that they simply retreated away from the water hole. Now Moon Watcher and his
friends were all gratified, as the audience could feel it the first time,
because not only they have got back the water hole, it was the first time they
knew they were in control.
While at first sight, the second confrontation did not look much
different from the first encounter, Kubrick has used a number of techniques to
illustrate some fundamental changes between the two conflicts. First, the audience’s
perspective was clearly defined in the second confrontation. While the first
time the two parties of ape men met, it was quite disorienting for the audience
because we had no idea which party was the first taking the water hole. I
believe this is deliberate by Kubrick. As
all the ape men looked the same, and Kubrick has not yet established any
identities to the ape men. This was to signify a time when the ape men have not
yet had unique selves or identities, and all the audience could see was 2
conflicting parties fighting for their desires.
Upon touching the monolith, Moon-Watcher and his friends
have evolved, and new concepts have been developed in their cognitive
functions. In the second encounter, Moon Watcher and his friends were clearly
fighting as a group. They moved in a more calculated, organized way, much like
a primitive battle formation, in contrast to the more dispersed and instinctual
pattern illustrated by the rival tribe. The group formation would also lead to
the establishment of culture, where after fighting for the water hole as a
group, the ape men would have something common - a founding incident - to
establish themselves as a culture.
Why was this hairy violent episode important for humanity? Well,
because it has illustrated a number of timeless truths about humanity. Though
the successful mission to reclaim something that has been taken from his tribe,
Moon-Watcher has invented the idea of war, and has committed the first act of
institutionalized violence in the history of humanity. From the way Kubrick
showed the second encounter, it was evident that Moon-Watcher was the leader of
his tribe. Wielding his bone, he looked back at his friends and led them to
wage wars against the rival tribe. The gestures, before any language or more
sophisticated signals offered by technology, already suggested the
transformation of some instinctual violence to a more organized violence like
war. With the successful outcome, Moon-Watcher would be remembered and celebrated
as a war hero by his later generations, as a savior of his clan. After the war,
the packing order of the tribe will be firmly established - with Moon-Watcher
as the leader and the other bone wielding ape-men as his generals. Moon-Watcher’s
rampage might just be a very primitive war, yet it was the first time to show
the political and war mechanism, which would be repeated only with an
advancement of weapons and technology.
From Kubick’s anti-humanist perspective, it was ironic that
it was violence and instinctual urge that inspired intelligence, rather than
the other way round. Humanist thinkers tended to view violence and animalistic
instincts as flaws of the ‘human goodness’, yet often it was not the case. Ironically, even when some people may believe
the human legacy is about advanced intelligence, it may seem even more
appropriate to state the timeless truth of humanity is our violent nature. Violence
and institution are two ideas that are more related than we imagine, and, as I
will discuss in the next article, it is the very ability for humanity to
synthesize these two ideas that lead us to be far superior to the other
organisms in the game of evolution. That will be the focus of my next article.
Part 2 : The Standing Ape
Some critics have often questioned why, of all the possible
episodes of the primitive age, Kubrick had to pick this violent episode as a
representative moment of humanity’s development. Why not pick a more positive
and feel-good moment? The reason is because Kubrick intended to show us
humanity’s story through an anti-humanist perspective. Indeed, one can easily
find out that Kubrick’s film since the 1960s are consistently anti-humanist in
tone, and I have already discussed this once in my article on ‘A Clockwork
Orange’. Kubrick’s ideas were based on Robert Ardrey’s significant work, which
has also influenced Sam Peckinpah’s films.
Ardrey’s most important idea was that of the territorial
imperative. In a sense, what he was driving at was to understand what humans,
or our precursors known as pre-humans, have done to come to the top of the food
chain and won the evolution game with flying colors. First, it is obvious that
we are lucky because our species had advancement in the development of our
cognitive abilities which completely out-matched the other organisms or even
related primates. It was our cognitive abilities that have led us to devise approaches
to survive wisely and win out eventually. Pre-humans were able to devise the
concepts of organization, and then adopted hunting techniques and tool-making
skills that would make them more effective hunters. In the second encounter
between Moon Watcher’s tribe and the rival tribe, it was clear that Moon
Watcher’s tribe was more organized. Through their interactions with the
monolith, they were inspired enough to devise the idea of a social or cultural
organization, that branded them all together and worked in a more effective
manner than many other species.
Yet, that was something even bleaker (especially for the
humanists) that made us stand out from our primate counterparts. Ardrey has
proposed a controversial idea known as the ‘killer ape theory’, which, to put
it provocatively, reduced humans from compassionate beings to some violent,
standing apes. Ardrey believed that violence is part of our nature, and
ironically, one of the key contributing factors to humanity’s victory in the
evolutionary war. He believed that aggression of all forms, especially
territorial aggression, was part of our instincts, and it was something
pre-humans possessed and primates did not fully have. To channel these
aggressions, pre-humans also acquired the skills to develop weapons, and
incepted the first stage of the mechanization of war and violence. In an
evolutionary point of view, aggression was innate and inherited through all the
generations of humanity. It is a shadow we can never step out, a badge we can
never take off. Moon-Watcher has used his courage to defend his territory, yet
in the process, he had to resort to murderous violence to achieve this aim. He
was a war hero, a leader; yet he was also ironically a killer. Ardrey also
stated that our instinctual need for territory would also lead us to acquire
further land, and, throughout the development of technology in history, created
instruments – transportations, communications, networks and so on – to explore
and conquer new frontiers. After Moon-Watcher and company has defeated and
chased away the rival tribe, they regained the water hole, and with an obvious
gesture, they continued to walk forward, passing the water hole. This served as
an implication that they now had the confidence to conquer more land and
resources with their new-found instruments, and be certain that they were
likely to succeed. They have made a step forward literally – to explore the
unknown frontiers beyond them.
Sometimes, I feel it is great to step back and contemplate
on why Homo sapiens will stand out among the other species as the dominant
species of our planet. We seem to have a lot of limitations – our bodies are
mechanistic in nature, and there are involuntary mechanisms in some parts of
our organs, suggesting that we cannot fully control our bodies with our will.
We are not as fierce as the beasts in the jungle, not as flexible or
‘shape-shifting’ as some other species, cannot stay forever in the water for
long, and have to write a song known as ‘I believe I can fly’ to console
ourselves. The only thing that makes us special - is our intelligence. It is
this very cognitive ability that leads us to devise innovative ideas to
overcome most of the limitations we have, and to acquire much more than we
deserve. Our advanced cognitive abilities also give us emotion, and a will and
desire which is epic for many other organisms. The reason why we win in the
brutal game of evolution is not only because of our intelligence, but also for
our strong will. We have the instinct to conquer, control, penetrate space, and
are willing to fight in a meaner and more aggressive way. While one may picture
two battling beasts, we battle in a more aggressive way through more
intelligent and darker means. We are able to develop more powerful instruments
and weapons, and use immoral means such as deceptions, back-stabbings,
black-mailings, extortions and so on to get what we want. Ironically, the
advancement of human’s intelligence also brings out humanity’s darkest shadows.
Kubrick was aware of the fact that this was absurd and indeed tragic, yet he
honestly expressed these contradictions in his many impressive films. Because,
if we are willing to face humanity’s dark sides, rather than turning away from
them, then maybe we have a chance to change.
Final Remarks
After contributing so much for his friends and those who
felt compassion for, Moon-Watcher was finally alone. Kubrick did not show the
audience what would happen to Moon-Watcher through the rest of his existence,
yet the audience knew that Moon-Watcher has found his identity and the meaning
of his existence, and has achieved a self-actualization. With a gratifying
roar, Moon-Watcher threw his bone up to the sky. What would then happen for the
many years to come would be far beyond Moon-Watcher’s widest imaginations...
(To be continued.)
by Ed Law
26/3/2017
Film Analysis
