Kubrick’s Worlds: Power, Paranoia, and the Politics of the Human Condition

Podcast: New Books Network – International Horizons
Host: Eli Karetney
Guest: Nathan Abrams, Professor of Film at Bangor University, Kubrick Scholar
Date: October 28, 2025

Overview

This richly layered episode explores the films of Stanley Kubrick and their enduring relevance to politics, technology, power, and the human condition. Host Eli Karetney, interim director at the Ralph Bunch Institute, delves into Kubrick’s legacy with Professor Nathan Abrams, a leading Kubrick scholar and author. Together, they unpack the political, psychological, cultural, and specifically Jewish currents running through Kubrick’s oeuvre—revealing new angles on iconic works from Dr. Strangelove to 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Relevance of Dr. Strangelove to Contemporary Society

• Iconic Imagery Persists: The episode begins by situating Dr. Strangelove as a touchstone for satire about state power, technological danger, and nuclear paranoia. Its imagery (e.g., Major Kong riding the bomb) continues to resonate as memes and cultural shorthand for political folly.
  • Nathan Abrams (03:56): “That idea of kind of systems failing and. And human. And humans going. Humans going wrong really, really speaks to people. And I’m always struck by how often themes from Kubrick’s films reoccur through the ages…”
• Allegorical Characters: Jack D. Ripper stands out as an archetype of conspiratorial thinking, connecting to current phenomena like QAnon, where sexuality, paranoia, and power intertwine (06:05).
• Sex, Power, and Technology: Abrams highlights how Kubrick consistently uses sexuality as a metaphor for the anxieties of power, whether military, political, or personal.

2. Kubrick’s Influence on Filmmakers and Popular Culture

• Enduring Influence: Kubrick’s visual and narrative techniques have shaped directors from P.T. Anderson to Christopher Nolan. Abrams notes explicit Kubrickian influence in films like Interstellar and Oppenheimer (11:22).
  • Nathan Abrams (11:22): “Pretty much most filmmaking in the...well, at least US filmmaking in his wake has been touched by him in some way.”
• Contemporary Parallels: Jordan Peele, despite coming from a different background, draws on Kubrick’s visual language to explore race and social control in modern America.

3. Who Is Dr. Strangelove?—Multiplicity and Allegory

• Composite Character: Dr. Strangelove is a “composite of about seven different characters…six of whom are Jewish, and the seventh is Werner von Braun.” Abrams puts forth his own reading: Strangelove as a vaudeville parody “not [to] be taken entirely seriously…a Jewish character who’s got this Nazi arm grafted on him” (13:34).
  • Nathan Abrams (13:34): “He’s got this Jewish body with this Nazi arm… Maybe when he’s trying to strangle himself, he’s trying to strangle that Jewishness out of him…”
• Personal Projection: Kubrick himself is part of Strangelove’s DNA—Peter Sellers mimics elements of Kubrick’s mannerism and dress.

4. War, Human Nature, and the Charge of Pessimism

• War as Backdrop: Nearly half of Kubrick’s films are about war, either overtly or thematically. He uses war to probe the paradoxes of human aggression and power, but also the possibility of redemption (22:24).
  • Nathan Abrams (22:24): “I argue, though, you can look at it alternatively, that…one can read a positive ending.”
• Not a Misanthrope: Kubrick, despite common press, led a sociable, collaborative life. The bleakness in his films can be double-read, often ending in rebirth, procreation, or subtle hope (24:07).

5. Power, Free Will, and the Limits of Social Engineering

• Clockwork Orange—Violence and Redemption:
  • Kubrick departs from Burgess’s novel, ending on a note emphasizing free will over engineered goodness: “He’s horrified at that prospect...something about human nature is...imperfectible...” (29:47).
  • The Ludovico technique in Clockwork Orange becomes a metaphor for state violence against the individual spirit, a danger Kubrick could not condone or romanticize (29:47; 32:10).
  • Nathan Abrams (29:47): “He can see that that’s a very dangerous tool in the hands of the state…”

6. Conspiracism and Layered Meaning

• Inviting Obsession: Kubrick’s films teem with riddles, references, and “codes,” inviting—and sometimes mocking—obsessive conspiracy theorizing. Room 237 is discussed as emblematic of this fandom frenzy (35:25).
  • Kubrick does not provide easy interpretive keys, preferring elliptical storytelling and open meanings (35:25).
  • Nathan Abrams (35:25): “Kubrick didn’t tell us what to think. It gave us the materials to think with.”
• Jewishness and Conspiracy: Abrams compares cultural mythologies around Kubrick to those about Leo Strauss—secret codes, hermeticism, beard, and Jewishness as fodder for conspiratorial thinking (38:18).

7. Fairy Tales, Realism, and Kafka’s Influence

• Fusion of the Fantastic and Mundane: Kubrick’s realism is often Just a frame for fantasy—echoing Kafka’s famous juxtaposition of the magical within the everyday (46:48).
  • The Overlook in The Shining is always brightly lit, countering haunted house cliches to root horror in the ordinary.
• Ambiguity and Allegory: Recurring motifs (labyrinths, wounds, doubles) are as much Greek myth (Odyssey) as Kabbalistic Judaism.

8. Myth, Archetype, and the Monolith

• Mythic Structure: Kubrick’s films, especially 2001, reflect mythic archetypes (Campbell, Jung) but with a Jewish mystical lens as well (50:10, 53:13).
  • Abrams argues the monolith’s blankness invites readings as a tombstone, law tablet, or gateway, with multiple Jewish, Christian, and Buddhist overlays (70:43).
• The Kabbalistic Structure: The film’s four-part structure echoes the Pardes levels of Jewish exegesis, with the final, most mystical segment (Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite) representing “sod”—the Kabbalistic secret (75:31).
• Jewish Symbolism: The breaking glass in the film’s mysterious final scenes can refer to Kabbalah's 'breaking of the vessels,' Kristallnacht, or the shattering of glass at a Jewish wedding (77:50).

9. Kubrick’s Jewish Intellectual Roots and Political Allegory

• New York Jewish Intellectuals: Kubrick’s formative years in the Bronx and then Greenwich Village immersed him in the New York intellectual tradition, surrounded by mid-century currents of psychoanalysis, existentialism, and post-Holocaust Jewish thought (57:07).
• Kabbalah and Kabbalah: The emergence of Jewish mystical traditions and their translation in the 1960s provides the intellectual context for Kubrick’s engagement with deeper layers of religious and esoteric meaning.
• Never Leaving New York: Even after emigrating to England, Kubrick remained intellectually rooted in the New York Jewish milieu—a tension mirrored in his films’ perpetual “return home” motif.

10. Paranoia, the Wound, and Struggle

• The Wounded Hero: Recurring limp or wound in key characters (Jack, Barry Lyndon, possibly Bowman) alludes both to Odysseus and the biblical Jacob/Israel, signifying struggle and transformation (83:47).
• Jewish Bodily Tropes: The Jewish limp, inherited from Jacob’s struggle in Genesis, is refigured as an emblem of resilience and difference (83:47; 85:34).

11. Kubrick, Spirituality, and the Divine

• Agnostic Prayer: 2001 is seen as Kubrick’s “agnostic prayer”—a cosmic meditation more mystical than didactic (86:21).
  • Nathan Abrams (86:27): “2001 is his most religious movie, almost akin to a sort of numinous experience of the divine… he probably says, look, I can do better than the creator. I’ve got Panavision. What has he got?”

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Conspiracy Thinking:
  • Nathan Abrams (35:25): “Kubrick did legendary pre-production research... These films are filled with ideas. The Shining isn’t just an ordinary horror film… There’s depth to these films, intellectual depth.”
• On Jewish Readings:
  • Nathan Abrams (77:50): “Arthur C. Clarke wrote in his diary that this was Kubrick showing his Jewish side. That clearly it was that reference to the smashing of the glass at Jewish weddings, which itself is a means to remember the temple.”
• On Submission and Power:
  • Nathan Abrams (54:27): “I definitely agree in terms of The Shining that Jack is submissive to a higher power... It's influenced by the work of Stan Milgram and Genesis 22, the idea of Abraham submitting to a higher power, which would have been a voice in his head, Right? Telling him to kill his son, his only son.”
• On Spirituality and Cinema:
  • Nathan Abrams (86:27): “2001 is his most religious movie, almost akin to a sort of numinous experience of the divine... he probably says, look, I can do better than the creator. I’ve got Panavision. What has he got?”

Important Timestamps

• [03:21] – Introduction of Dr. Strangelove and its relevance
• [06:05] – Sexuality, conspiracy, and commentary on Jack D. Ripper
• [11:22] – Kubrick’s influence on Christopher Nolan and others
• [13:34] – Multilayered nature of Dr. Strangelove’s character
• [22:24] – War as central theme, charge of pessimism, and counterevidence
• [29:47] – Violence, social engineering, and free will in ‘A Clockwork Orange’
• [35:25] – The allure of conspiracism in Kubrickian analysis
• [46:48] – Kubrick and Kafka: blending fairy tale with the mundane
• [53:13] – Myth, archetype, and multiple spiritual readings in 2001
• [75:31] – Kabbalistic readings of 2001’s structure
• [77:50] – The breaking glass: Jewish symbols in 2001
• [83:47] – The wound: Jewish, mythic, and psychoanalytic themes
• [86:21] – Kubrick’s agnostic spirituality

Conclusion

This probing conversation reveals Kubrick as a filmmaker whose work remains a palimpsest for generations—layered with myth, philosophy, political allegory, and mysticism. Nathan Abrams’ scholarship and lived familiarity with Kubrick’s world make clear that under the surface of each film lie vast, interconnected networks of meaning, endlessly inviting exploration.

For listeners and Kubrick fans, this is an episode to revisit, brimming with insights on cinema, culture, and the kaleidoscopic mind of one of film’s greatest auteurs.