Order versus Chaos in Stanley Kubrick's <i>Spartacus</i> (1960)

stanley kubrick is an established name in auteur criticism. Books on his person and his oeuvre have proliferated for a long time and continue to do so, encompassing biographies, production histories, and critical studies. The multiplicity of genres and modes in which Kubrick worked while following an identifiable yet complex predilection for certain themes, conflicts, and styles, as well as maintaining a large amount of control over every aspect of production, has ensured his attractiveness for auteurist approaches. His work also invites exploration of how individual films create meaning, as this contribution sets out to demonstrate.Several scholars have shown that the conflict between order and chaos occupies a central role in Kubrick's work. James Naremore writes that his films show “an interest in the relationship between instrumental rationality and its ever-present shadow, the irrational unconscious. . . . His pictures often tell the story of how a carefully constructed plan fails because of what the surrealists called ‘objective chance,’ or the conflict between reason and the masculine libido” (4). Mario Falsetto writes, “The potential conflict between humanity's irrational, chaotic urges and the rational control evident in many areas of human endeavor (art, science, ideas) is a persistent and central concern in the director's work” (174). Robert Kolker finds that Kubrick's characters are “determined . . . by the rituals and structures they set up for themselves” (Cinema of Loneliness 106) but that this “rage for order” expressed in symmetrical compositions signifies a “stasis in which the uncanny perfection of the image promises its ultimate undoing, along with the characters caught within it” (“Rage for Order” 65). Thomas Allen Nelson emphasizes how “his films repeatedly dramatize the psychological, moral, and aesthetic consequences of contingency” (17). Thomas Elsaesser suggests that Kubrick's films are about “the demise of the symbolic order, represented by classical bourgeois individualism and its patriarchal identity formation, in regulating the male's entry into society” (38; see also Cocks et al. 6; Conard 33). In his video essay “Stanley Kubrick: Order vs Chaos,” Bradley J. Dixon uses Kubrick's obsession with the game of chess, with its infinite possibilities (hence chaos) yet clear rules (order), as a jumping-off point to observe that in these films, “Kubrick was somehow searching for order in the chaos of human existence.” Dixon proposes that in “Kubrick's career, order would occasionally win a hard-fought temporary victory, but it was chaos that ultimately won the day.” Jeremy Carr similarly argues that as Kubrick was an “exemplary controlling filmmaker” (1), so his films depict “individuals seeking to . . . attain and maintain unqualified control” but who “are nevertheless manipulated by an array of outside influences, some generated by their own making, others far from their grasp” (4). Elaborating on these observations, one can make some more nuanced observations in the individual films.First, order is often portrayed negatively in the form of an encaging, oppressive social structure that, though human-constructed in an effort to achieve control and power, emerges as hostile to human agency and emotion: the military organization and the entrenched battlefield in Paths of Glory (1957), the military-political complex in Dr. Strangelove (1964), the technology-dominated future in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), the police state in A Clockwork Orange (1971), feudal society in Barry Lyndon (1975), the Overlook Hotel in The Shining (1980), the military in Full Metal Jacket (1987) (Conard 34), the high-society orgy in Eyes Wide Shut (1999).Second, order often bears the seeds of its own demise in two ways. Kubrick's films examine order's development toward its logical conclusion of complete stasis or annihilation: the nuclear holocaust in Dr. Strangelove, the freezing in The Shining, the apocalyptic march through a burned city in Full Metal Jacket, the freeze frame in Barry Lyndon, the ritual execution in Paths of Glory. Alternatively, order generates its own subversive counterpart via repression or ignorance in the contingent, the irrational, and the chaotic: the unraveling heist plot in The Killing (1956), Quilty's (Peter Sellers) postmortal triumph in Lolita (1962), the next evolutionary step at the end of 2001, Alex's (Malcom McDowell) “cure” in A Clockwork Orange, the moments of explosive violence in Fear and Desire (1953) and Killer's Kiss (1955).Third, in Kubrick's films, disorder and chaos often are portrayed as potentially vital and fecund counterparts as expressions of a natural, animal/human, creative force, though often warped by the repressive efforts of order into a perverted manifestation: probably most explicitly in A Clockwork Orange, where Alex's love for Beethoven's music is aligned with his outbursts of violence and where both are repressed by governmental efforts to impose order (Dixon) but also in the violence or sexuality or any natural desire in films from Fear and Desire to Eyes Wide Shut.Fourth, most scholars see in Kubrick's films a dynamic in which chaos bests order. The opening quotes from Nelson, Kolker, Elsaesser, and Dixon suggest as much. Mark T. Conard writes, in reference to Full Metal Jacket, that in Kubrick's films “the chaotic nature of the world . . . resists the imposition of order” (34). Following Elisa Pezzotta's insight that the Kubrick films reveal that “chaos . . . derives from too much order” (80), I would slightly modify the prevailing observations and argue that just as order causes disorder, so disorder can cause order. Their relationship is one of fluid rivalry and mutual causality, not a matter of chaos ultimately triumphing over human efforts to impose order, but rather a demonstration of how efforts to impose order provoke a backlash of disruption and how efforts to dismantle order provoke a backlash of repression. This intertwining dynamic is often expressed in the doubling of characters that represent the oppositional but interlocked concepts in almost every Kubrick film. Notable examples include Dax/Broulard (Kirk Douglas/Adolphe Menjou) in Paths of Glory, Humbert (James Mason)/Quilty in Lolita, Alex/Alexander (Patrick Magee) in A Clockwork Orange, and Lawrence/Hartman (Vincent D'Onofrio/R. Lee Ermey) in Full Metal Jacket.Given the patterns in Kubrick's films, it is lamentable that most of the scholars referenced do not include Spartacus (1960) in their discussions of Kubrick's oeuvre, on the grounds of its doubtful status as a Kubrick film (Naremore 16–17), or they relegate it to some perfunctory remarks on why it fails as a Kubrickian film (Nelson 57–60; Kolker, Cinema 116–17; see also Rambuss 111). Spartacus had an infamously fraught production history: Kubrick replaced director Anthony Mann at the behest of producer and star Kirk Douglas, juggled various creative egos during production, and ultimately disowned the finished product, a move that has influenced Kubrick auteur studies. Since those groundbreaking studies, texts have discussed Spartacus in the context of Kubrick's other films, yet most of these focus on Jewishness (Abrams), masculinity (Rambuss), or aspects (Kuberski) other than the order-versus-chaos antinomy present in the classical auteur studies. Carr is an exception, as he argues that Kubrick's control of the film is visible in the characters’ efforts to establish control and that order and chaos are presented as oppositional forces (183, 190). I want to show how this framework can be applied to Spartacus and, in the process, draw parallels to other Kubrick films to shed light on how the film creates meaning and fits into the Kubrick canon. Going beyond Carr's insights, I want to show that the relationship between chaos and order in the film illustrates the mutual causality that exists between chaos and order in Kubrick's oeuvre. Spartacus conveys each force's inability to subdue the other and, on a political level, shows subversive forces failing to dismantle a repressive regime and dominant society failing to quash rebellion. The implication is that the social world exists in a continuous state of flux and that the greater the efforts of chaos (in the form of subversion) or order (in the form of repressive control) to establish dominance, the more powerful the counterreaction will be.In my analysis, I follow, in a slightly modified way, the suggestions of auteur structuralism as outlined by Peter Wollen, who writes: “Auteur analysis does not consist of retracing a film to its creative source. It consists of tracing a structure (not a message) within the work, which can then post factum be assigned to an individual, the director on empirical grounds” (168). What I am interested in, then, is not so much tracing Kubrick's presence in Spartacus as integrating Spartacus into the artistic structures that can be called “Kubrick” by virtue of his involvement in the film (see also Munday 27). I am less concerned with individual artistic integrity, whether conscious or not, than Wollen. My claim is that the contextualization of Spartacus within the structures that emerge from other Kubrick films highlights mutually enriching parallels and oppositions, regardless of the degree of responsibility that the actual Kubrick may have had in creating any given element of the film—a responsibility that is, despite recent archival scholarship asserting Kubrick's creative control (Carr 183), contested and complicated by the involvement of various creative voices (most notably, director Anthony Mann, producer and star Kirk Douglas, source-novel writer Howard Fast, screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, and “design consultant” Saul Bass) and by Kubrick's subsequent disavowal of the film (Naremore 17; Abrams and Hunter 4; Rambuss 113). Kubrick's involvement is the catalyst for “Kubrick's” structural presence in the film's creation of meaning. Hence, if I intermittently refer to a multiplicity of creative responsibility for individual scenes (without laying claim to their conclusive disentanglement), I do so only to reiterate the point that despite this multiplicity, the Kubrickian structure is productively applicable and present. My approach seeks to utilize auteur structuralism as a means to gain insight into the meanings of an individual film by way of contextualizing it with an artistic structure rather than using an individual film as a to and a the story of the most and in the the focus of the from the and to the and it its central conflict in the the work of Saul The of order expressed in the of are large and powerful but also and and they and an by which the film's dynamic of disorder as an element of an oppressive structure is of as an of order is up by the of the though not by Kubrick but by Anthony Mann fits in well with the as a in a is portrayed in the of a The the to the in by the that their as does the of the The of the is of the in Paths of Glory, of which Kolker writes, characters are not in control of their the they are by and by the of their (Cinema The the oppressive of the social a human the order. Spartacus (Kirk a from by his own and the A backlash of as the to Their an of but vital a on the This the dynamic in which the more order over human the more and human nature to have its way, and This chaotic disruption of order is by the of Spartacus on the of the Order is by the of the and the of chaotic This not only the film's but also the execution in Paths of Glory, in which of the on their It also the of the to this in the of (Peter a he is of the social and an of its for his own because what is what his chaotic His subversive for an order that on that repression. In a order not only causes chaos it This desire for what is and by for what is of the order Spartacus a of an counterpart to a of the and an the film how order to what it can be as an for the and of and as it as a of that both and This it to the in Full Metal Jacket films the of creating and the in Full Metal Jacket, the in and the of and (Conard Carr The are to what they films also point out the of on a of sexuality and In Full Metal Jacket, the are with to make a masculine identity in which is expressed in in of from their their to urges by rational the from their In both films, the control of via of sexuality the dominant social order's efforts to and chaotic for its own are in the in which Spartacus for and their the of their own the as the the be it or a for in for what is a of (see also is in to and the The the to their and attractiveness during a of the that a of their This on and is in of for the emphasizes the of in the control over the The of the to to be at the order The of the to the orgy in Eyes Wide Shut in which in for the of a where their status is expressed in the to a and Carr the orgy is in an of social order In but the as a of the of the and the of the in their own and which the in Full Metal Jacket in a of and in Eyes Wide is a of where the for the of disorder is and chaos into the of order the and a at the the of his In Eyes Wide the of order by the to the and in in the is by an of that has far more in Full Metal Jacket and of the is to the with a and is with the The the with their own as it in the form of a on the of order. The between order and chaos as the means to its are the that its Eyes Wide where order is Full Metal where chaos order, are as in the of chaos and has the of the to their the rather than each In this way, it an element of order into the subversive The that the is of Spartacus with the of his a to desire and the violence is with in the in of the in Fear and Desire of violence Carr out how and can Kubrick's in The of and violence emphasizes how much this of chaos emerges from perverted by persistent repression. A of the shows the the that has This how of order can be by the forces of order generates its own these has It be to repressed chaos the order of political on a of chaos and order. is represented by the its and who to the despite its name that to humanity's political with an and in the human of and his and reason in and he out the of and he a more and the of are a political and he the of order and repression too between and the for and in a of which has to two of the world from its on the of and he of the of he as a and a of as long as it is shown to be not just in his but also by his of to political and of to Spartacus while also the and he but it is toward the of chaos and order to a insight into the nature of which is to the of Kubrick's is an between the chaos of a of in which an and the order of a of individual by Hence, social the Kubrick oeuvre suggests with it also an its Spartacus shows the of which the and will to it is a has to to his of the of and rather than a in regime the he in he to what he the in the order, with as the of the chaotic end of the is, for his and subversive probably the most repressed in the film. he not an to in for the time he is with for he the from the in the or for and its with the this is to from the is and where the are his also an element of order to his as much as to the he The film's of is in this the one is an to the that show the following a certain in the of that is often at with the more order of the This aesthetic and its are most present in the where order is by the and of the which the of Carr is the of and are the of the film to in to the of in the military the other some and plot suggest that toward the of order that within a the of which has to a by of about their assigned work or some the as the and Spartacus through it on the of a suggest the of a of a of and relationship with to with bourgeois that social order. as in the to of in his he in on a . . . or from a forces to the sets for others to . . . His with In Spartacus has from his status as a to I see also of Spartacus has about the film's yet the that Spartacus the of illustrates a structural in Kubrick's work. In the development of and Hence, the film the between order and chaos as fluid within one in his greater social This to the of many other Kubrick other of chaos into order, it is to the other end of the who has called a more than the other end of the can be to a of patriarchal in Kubrick's in Paths of Glory, and and Strangelove (Peter Sellers) in Dr. Strangelove, in Lolita, in The Shining, in Eyes Wide a for with a expressed in a of social and aesthetic order. His for is clear is just as as and more in others and but his is seeks to establish a on the of a order. a of Dr. Strangelove, he a of an over the in an that a writes, sexuality shown to be with his for His to and and to at and as he illustrates inability to desire in any way other than or with as Strangelove, and the of and a desire for and order. His is to over a orgy of that a state of and social order in the of chaos and order are on order in his about political and social his and and his are not so much as expressed by the chaotic of his for and political In this way, natural to be perverted into an then, is the relationship between and scholars have out the film's to establish between the and Kubrick's with the film is to the exploration of these as Howard of is by out over Kubrick's of the the image of the I that the characters’ relationship as portrayed in the film certain and to to in and to an in I want to that Spartacus to Kubrick's other work productively highlights the of the film regardless of actual The of an auteur structuralism out of what is central to “Kubrick” but may be in the of and as and each film's in the relationship between Spartacus and is probably most explicitly in the of their two this to with of order and Spartacus about and the of the of both the of and both their to their for a greater the and their into a The illustrates the on which the plot is what to to the with Spartacus by the not to in his (see also as the repressive order Spartacus the so the the backlash of repressive both and each This plot it to see the two characters as each one what the other to The dynamic is visible in the film's conclusion and in opening of Lolita a often as a on Spartacus (Nelson Humbert Quilty's with the to the world of the who his and this by if he is to the or The the of What the film then shows is how much is the of the perverted that Humbert to and to his with the by any and is the chaos his of bourgeois order. than see the in Lolita as a on it can be as an to Spartacus is the to The order of that Spartacus for in his nature is by where Spartacus is most repressed and and where is most and order in two ways. from just as Lolita from where in Lolita for to end up in the of does not his to and to the between and complex are the of of the is is who his to and he about forces the two to each other to the in a of the between Spartacus and the the Spartacus to the who not to 111). to Spartacus by Spartacus to Spartacus has of a in which a to his or he is into following that In this way, in Spartacus as a to to the of an just as in his see also The parallels the of the in Eyes Wide conclusion to the orgy on a more level, the can be as rather than Spartacus with his as it the and of his relationship to who the Lolita in this by Spartacus to and to his with an of the film to the of this by the characters their love in a relationship this only highlights the to what so the desire for and with an of the chaos to love means to have and the the between and Spartacus as his chaotic and was by its he with a to order, so Spartacus is to and to the of his Spartacus and his bourgeois order with his triumph with its own the repression of is the of complete stasis is Spartacus moments in Paths of the of the in the execution the are to their through a of at In both the are into the of and this of regulating and illustrates how the order has the human how their are by its (see also Nelson as in Paths of Glory, is an of in the form of an of human not In Paths of Glory, it is the of a that to the of the they to the In with and through the of the and in of more and the This illustrates at the of its repressive order its the of analysis has shown how order and chaos as forces in a political social and are portrayed in Spartacus as not only but in a mutually dynamic one can the other but rather a to the effort of or This insight can be and out by contextualizing the film with the Kubrick structure that can be from his other of Spartacus in to other Kubrick films, despite the film's multiplicity of creative the meanings that emerge from it can be as with and by the complex of order chaos so and central in the Kubrick oeuvre. The analysis also that auteur structuralism is a approach as the meaning of individual films by contextualizing on of creative than of this approach highlights a film's as in and with the aesthetic structure from the work of its