KUBRICK & THE ILLUMINATI

In my inaugural post for Kubrick U, I snidely made tart reference to the "soft-headed Moon Hoaxers and would-be Illuminati exposers" who have posthumously attempted to hijack Kubrick's legacy in an attempt to impart some sense of borrowed gravitas to their half-baked pet theories about this, that, and the other. I hope readers don't assume this means that I'm against esoteric readings of Stanley Kubrick's films in toto.

On the contrary. Placing Kubrick as I do squarely in the tradition of World Historic Artists such as Mozart, Da Vinci, Beethoven, Shakespeare and James Joyce, I think that deep, paracultural readings are essential to a greater understanding of both his oeuvre and the world in which we live. And although it's true that many of the conspiracy-weavers out there are clearly spinning their wheels, it's also true that Kubrick's films are brimming with mystery.

Which brings us to the above video, created by French vlogger GasFace, which uneasily straddles the line between "conspiritainment" and serious paracultural analysis. I'm going to leave it up to you to decide which parts of his video are worth paying attention to, and which parts aren't. Suffice it to say that the terms "Rothschilds" and "Monarch" throw up red flags for a reason.

On the other hand, Kubrick did shoot the ritual and "orgy" scenes from Eyes Wide Shut at Mentmore Towers, a 19th century Rothschild family redoubt. And on yet another hand, it's also served as "stately Wayne Manor" in Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins, and as a French psychiatric hospital in the highly fictionalized Marquis de Sade biopic, Quills. So make of that what you will.