2001 Sparks in the Dark: the Playboy interview with Stanley Kubrick (1968)

Let the legendary director of "2001: A Space Odyssey" expand your mind.

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Image by HBO.

HBO is streaming “2001 Sparks in the Dark,” a recreation through different animation techniques of selected passages of the in-depth interview with Stanley Kubrick published in 1968 by Playboy magazine using the voice of Keir Dullea (the actor who played David Bowman in “2001: A Space Odyssey”) for Kubrick.

A Kindle version of the full interview, published by Playboy, is available via Amazon.

Stanley Kubrick and Arthur Clarke on the set of “2001: a Space Odyssey.” Picture from Shutterstock.

I describe the interview in my book “Futurist spaceflight meditations” (2021):

Kubrick… elaborates on his conviction “that one can construct an intriguing scientific definition of God.” Kubrick evokes God-like beings that emerge from matter “transformed into beings of pure energy and spirit.”

“These entities might be in telepathic communication throughout the cosmos and thus be aware of everything that occurs, tapping every intelligent mind as effortlessly as we switch on the radio; they might not be limited by the speed of light and their presence could penetrate to the farthest corners of the universe; they might possess complete mastery over matter and energy; and in their final evolutionary stage, they might develop into an integrated collective immortal consciousness. They would be incomprehensible to us except as gods; and if the tendrils of their consciousness ever brushed men’s minds, it is only the hand of God we could grasp as an explanation.”

Unfortunately, “there is a certain element of the lumpen literati that is so dogmatically atheist and materialist and earth-bound that it finds the grandeur of space and the myriad mysteries of cosmic intelligence anathema.”

It goes without saying that I prefer Stanley Kubrick to the lumpen literati. Here’s to the grandeur of space and the myriad mysteries of cosmic intelligence!